80s Science TV

The Good Old Days

My older brother hated me when we were kids. Or at least it seemed that way. The only way I could spend time with him was by sneaking into our family room and staring over his shoulder at the TV. Usually we watched PBS - only a handful of channels made it as far as our home in rural northern California. If my brother caught me creeping in, I’d get a pillow thwacked in the face or a “get lost, kid.” I valiantly snuck downstairs on weekday afternoons, though, hoping desperately to hear “…It’s the moment, it’s the reason, why everything happens…3-2-1 Contact!” That theme song meant that after a trio of diverse teenage hosts introduced the episode’s subject matter, after the opening shots of a slow motion water droplet, an apple being sliced in half, and a space shuttle lifting off, my favorite kid detective segment would eventually come on. This was before the Challenger exploded, before AIDS, and only slightly after disco died. I’m talking the early 80s here. I’m talking about ‘The Bloodhound Gang.’

Children’s science TV began long before my beloved Bloodhounds hit the air, of course. The genre started with Watch Mr. Wizard in the 1950s, which inspired a nation of youth to join ‘The Mr. Wizard Science Club.’ Just three years after the show launched, the club had 100,000 memebers. Amazingly, he stayed on the air through the 1990s. I even remember an 80s incarnation of his show on Nickelodeon called Mr. Wizard’s World, in which the soft-spoken Minnesotan performed magic-like experiments before a troupe of inquisitive youngsters. I watched this show only when I visited my grandparents. They had cable. For all his historical importance though, I have to admit, Wizard was a little dull. 

Perhaps my own viewing attitudes foreshadowed the even shorter attention spans to come. Perish the thought of what today’s kids might think of my beloved 3-2-1 Contact. No doubt they prefer current shows such as CYBERCHASE and Fetch!, which employ interactive Web content that is teeming, quite literally, with bells and whistles; shows that are fast-paced, as much for necessity as entertainment. New technology and information is available by the nanosecond. Kids are increasingly Internet and computer savvy. If educational TV doesn’t keep up - and perhaps even if it does - it could be destined for oblivion. So sure, these new-fangled programs might help kids cope with our increasingly information driven world. But what I want to know is will they still remember the lesson, heck the theme song, 20 years from now?

Sing Along Science of Yore

“Whenever there’s trouble, we’re there on the double. We’re the Bloodhound gang.” Sing it with me. Come on, I know you want to. “If you’ve got a crime, we’ve got the time. We’re the Bloodhound gang.”

Produced by Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) for PBS, 3-2-1 Contact ran from 1980 until 1992. ‘The Bloodhound Gang’ segment, about a group of young detectives who used science to solve crimes, often ended with a cliffhanger, so you’d have to wait until the next episode to see how the group got out of a pinch and solved the crime.

The series starred Nan Lynn Nelson (who’s since popped up on shows such as Law & Order) as Vikki Allen, the gang’s lanky, pigtailed leader. Her attire incorporated boyish preppy button-up shirts and plaid wool skirts, and she almost always donned a red athletic jacket to finish off the look. Second in command was afro-sporting Ricardo, played by Marcelino Sánchez. He always seemed to have a camera around his neck so he could snap photos at crime scenes. The duo were usually joined by a juvenile helper, either Zach or Cuff or Skip, who said things like “golly.”

In one episode, ‘The Case of the Thing in the Trunk,’ the gang witnesses the theft of a mummy from a museum. Their crime-sighting, however, lands them in the back of the getaway van. They’re sure to meet an untimely demise until Ricardo comes to the rescue by rigging a pinhole camera and tracking the van’s route. The team cleverly sets mousetraps on the perps and uses a citizens’ band (CB) radio to give the police their exact location. When the fuzz shows up to arrest the bad guys, the music plays ‘Waaa, Waaa’ to signify the thieves’ bum luck. 

The Bloodhound Gang weren’t the only scientific detectives on the block, however. CTW’s math-based Square One TV also featured a weekly crime series called ‘Mathnet.’ A Dragnet take-off down to the melodramatic narration and crime fighting score, detectives Sgt. Kate Monday and Officer George Frankly (played by Beverly Leech and Joe Howard, respectively) were straight-talking mathematicians who solved crimes with numbers, as in the case of ‘The Maltese Pigeon.’

‘Mathnet’ scored some impressive star power for its day. Guests included Broadway diva Betty Buckley (although, let’s face it, if you’re my age she’s Abbey from Eight is Enough), and James Earl Jones, Mr. Darth Vader himself. Weird Al Yankovic played Murray the Mouth in an early 1990s episode called ‘Off the Record.’

80s science TV also showcased some of today’s stars long before the actors ever made it big. Nary a Bennifer in sight, a young Ben Affleck played C.T. Granville on The Voyage of the Mimi (1984), an educational show made for classroom use in which the crew of a ship explored the world’s oceans. Keen observers of 3-2-1 Contact might also remember a young Sarah Jessica Parker popping up on a few episodes.

A New Breed of Viewers

Many of the producers of today’s educational youth TV also found their legs in the 80s. But these days, they’re contending with a whole new breed of kids, stricter science standards, and ever-updating information. “Children are biologically the same as they were in the 1980s, but not culturally,” says Frances Nankin, one of the producers of CYBERCHASE, a show aimed at improving problem solving and math skills, in which animated kids must use brains instead of brawn to outwit a villain.

Each episode of CYBERCHASE is centered on a core math standard developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, says Nankin, who began her career as a producer on the 70s educational show Magic School Bus. While 3-2-1 Contact, Mr. Wizard, and the more recent but similar Bill Nye the Science Guy were outstanding shows for their time, Nankin says, today’s programs have to be more user-driven to stay current.

Part of the need to up the interactive quotient comes from the sheer glut of scientific knowledge that flows to the public, says Kate Taylor, director of children’s programming at WGBH Boston, “There’s much too much information in the world for [kids] to become proficient in every subject,” she says. “It’s more important for kids to have a tool belt of science skills that they can employ. With the Internet, even shows geared toward preschoolers can direct viewers toward activities that they can go off and do on their own.”

Taylor has seen the evolution of science TV in action. She started out in WGBH’s mailroom and went on to produce segments of ZOOM in the 1970s as well as its more recent resurrection. She’s now in charge of the toddler-oriented Peep and the Big Wide World, narrated by none other than 80s star Joan Cusack. She also produces the Reality TV-inspired FETCH! With Ruff Ruffman, in which an animated dog hosts a game show where scientific thinking is needed to win.

The End of TV?

While the Internet is indeed a useful tool for teaching science to kids, it may very well spell the end of TV altogether. Rob Semper, Director of The Center for Media and Communications at San Francisco’s highly interactive science museum, the Exploratorium, was an advisor to 3-2-1 Contact. He has seen the massive influence of the Internet on science TV in the past decade. “For one thing, the shows are less didactic or teachery,” he says. “Mr. Wizard was pretty slow. Now, the camera work is faster and all the shows are affected by Internet links and graphics.” With the Internet, kids can easily connect with real world examples. They can talk to scientists, or talk to each other with the tap of a fingertip. As broadband becomes faster, Semper thinks TV itself could become obsolete.

For now, though, TV is still kicking. Once the only place to see kids’ science TV was on PBS and maybe a cable channel or two, but today it’s ubiquitous. Compelling shows like Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel are tapping into the youth market. And it’s not just for kids. Adults can’t seem to get enough science either. Just look at the wild success of the CSI franchise. Yet as TV programs ever-more link with online content and move further away from a narrative structure, I can’t help but wonder what their viewers will recall down the road. It’s the stories that make us remember the science. So will the children watching CYBERCHASE recall its scientific lessons the way I remember 3-2-1 Contact’s?

In revisiting my TV-watching youth, I called up my brother (we’re friends now, and he only throws pillows at me once in a while) and asked him which 1980s science shows were his favorites. “3-2-1 Contact!” He whipped back.

“Favorite part?” I asked, not surprised by his answer.

“The Bloodhound Gang...they were rad.”

I realized that my brother probably knew all along that I was there in the room, and that we’d shared something with me cowering there behind the couch trying to catch a glimpse of the screen. “Totally,” I agreed.