Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Thank you, Mr. Wizard

This will be my saddest "Sean's Space" post yet:

Don Herbert, known to millions of kids across the U.S. and Canada as "Mr. Wizard," passed away from bone cancer Tuesday afternoon. He was 89.

I can still remember as a kid, waiting for the school bus to come, I'd watch "Mr. Wizard's World" on Nickelodeon each morning. Click on the video below to see the opening sequence from the show.

Thanks to "Mr. Wizard's World," I learned about how you can't fold a piece of paper in half more than 7 times; how these new things called lasers worked (hey, they were new back then!); and how if you get too much static electricity on you when you walk across a carpeted floor, you'd get a shock when you touch the doorknob to leave the room.



My fav part of the show was that they taped it in Canada, and all the little nerdy kids with whom he conducted experiments would say "aboot" when they said "about," and other Canadian things like "eh" when they'd talk!

With all that learning compliments of Mr. Wizard, you'd think I'd have been a whiz in Science class, right? Nope! I was so bad that my final year in high school, I squeaked by with a 65.3 average in physics ... and that's only 'cause I cheated off Christy Marshall all year!

Still, Mr. Wizard was one of my favorites when I was a kid, and he'll surely be missed!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I loved Mr. Wizard! Do you remember the Canadian show, "You Can't Do That on Television!"? They said "aboot" alllllllll the time!