Watch Mr. Wizard

Watch Mr. Wizard
Opening titles
Genre	Educational
Starring	Don Herbert
No. of episodes	547
Production
Location(s)	Chicago, Illinois, USA
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	1951 – 1972
External links
Official website

Watch Mr. Wizard was a United States television program for children in the 1950s, a general science experiments show, that explained the science behind ordinary things. It was briefly revived in 1971, and then later in the 1980s as a program on the Nickelodeon children's television network as Mr. Wizard's World.

1951-1965: Original series

Watch Mr. Wizard first aired on NBC on March 3, 1951 with Don Herbert as Mister Wizard^[1]. In the weekly 30 minute show Don Herbert played a science hobbyist, and every Saturday morning a neighbor boy (Jimmy) or girl would come to visit. Mister Wizard always had some kind of laboratory experiment going that taught something about science. The experiments, many of which seemed impossible at first glance, were usually simple enough to be re-created by viewers.

One example was Mr. Wizard's use of a small axle and two wheels from a toy car or truck to illustrate the refraction of light when crossing the boundary between two transparent media having different refractive indices. He placed the axle, oriented horizontally, at the top of a sloping board having surfaces with two different coefficients of friction, meeting at an angled straight line. As the axle rolled down the incline, one wheel encountered the surface with the different coefficient of friction first. That wheel then started rolling at a different speed, which caused the axle to rotate away from vertical. It was a wonderful mechanical analogy that made understanding the effect of convex and concave lenses intuitive.

The show was very successful; by 1954 it was broadcast by 91 stations. Mr. Wizard Science Clubs were started throughout North America, numbering 50,000 by 1965. The show moved from Chicago to New York on September 5, 1955, and had produced 547 live broadcasts by the time the show was canceled in 1965. The show was cited by the National Science Foundation and American Chemical Society for increasing interest in science, and Herbert won a Peabody Award.

1971: Canadian-produced revival

The show was briefly revived by NBC from September 11, 1971 through September 2, 1972 as Mr. Wizard, based on 26 shows produced in color in Ottawa, Canada at the CJOH-TV studios. The series was legally considered Canadian content despite the American origins of the series and its host. CBC Television carried these episodes within Canada.

1983-1990: Mr. Wizard's World

Mr. Wizard's World
Opening credits
Genre	Educational
Starring	Don Herbert
Composer(s)	Paul Zaza
Country of origin	Canada, U.S.A
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	78
Production
Producer(s)	Fern Field
Location(s)	Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Nickelodeon
Original run	1983 – 1990
Chronology
Preceded by	Watch Mr. Wizard
External links
Official website

Mr. Wizard's World, a faster-paced version of the show developed by the legendary Don Herbert, was shown three times a week on the then rising kids cable channel Nickelodeon. Once again, the revival was produced in Canada (this time in Calgary). The show produced 78 episodes from 1983 onwards, and continued to run thereafter as reruns. During its airing on Nickelodeon, Mr. Wizard's World was the channel's #3 rated show in 1983 (behind Livewire, and You Can't Do That on Television). The show was also famous for its Ask Mr. Wizard segment where Mr. Wizard answered questions sent in by Nickelodeon viewers of all ages. Episodes of Mr. Wizard's World were re-aired in 2005-2006 on the digital cable channel The Science Channel. Mr. Wizard's World still frequently airs on The Science Channel, and is considered a candidate for Nickelodeon's "Nick Rewind" DVD/VHS release. Don Herbert once said: "My time on this Earth is getting shorter and shorter each day, but no matter how old I get, and even when I am dead, Mr. Wizard's World will never die". This series was canceled in 1990. In 1994, Herbert developed another new series of 15-minute spots called Teacher to Teacher with Mr. Wizard. The spots highlighted individual elementary science teachers and their projects. The series was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and was shown on Nickelodeon.

See also

• Beakman's World
• Bill Nye the Science Guy

References

• Watch Mr. Wizard: Still Crazy (for Science) After All These Years. Interview With Don Herbert. Education Digest. Ann Arbor: October 1994. Vol 60. Iss. 2: pp.68-71.

1. ^ Watch Mr. Wizard Retrieved on December 2, 2007

External links

• Mr. Wizard Studios - Official Mr. Wizard web page.
• Watch Mr. Wizard (1951) at the Internet Movie Database
• Watch Mr. Wizard (1951) at TV.com
• Watch Mr. Wizard (1983) at the Internet Movie Database
• "When Science Was Simple: Watching Mr. Wizard" New York Times 27 June 2004 television section;
• Watch Mr. Wizard at the Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC)