Bill Nye the Science Guy

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Bill Nye the Science Guy
A shot of the opening sequence.
Format	Children's television series/Education
Starring	Bill Nye, Suzanne Mikawa, Ivyann Schwan, Jaffar Smith, Pat Cashman, et al.
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	100
Production
Executive producer(s)	Elizabeth Brock, Erren Gottlieb, James McKenna
Producer(s)	Bill Nye
Running time	26 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	PBS
Original run	September 10, 1993 – October 3, 1997

Bill Nye the Science Guy was an educational television program, hosted by Bill Nye and produced by Disney. The show aired on PBS and was also syndicated to local stations. It still airs on some PBS stations as an educational program for in-school use. Each of the 100 episodes aims to teach a specific topic in science to a preteen audience. The show is frequently used in schools.

Created by comedian Ross Shafer and based on sketches on KING-TV's sketch program Almost Live!, Bill Nye the Science Guy is produced by KCTS-TV of Seattle and Buena Vista Television (now known as Disney-ABC Domestic Television).

[edit] Contents

The show ran about the same time as and covered similar topics to Beakman's World, in fact sharing one crew member, editor/writer/director Michael Gross^[1]. He made an appearance on the Disney Channel's New Mickey Mouse Club in its forty-eighth episode Anything Can Happen Day. Before this show, Bill Nye had previously worked alongside Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future: The Animated Series, where Nye played Doc Brown's assistant and demonstrated several experiments.

Bill Nye the Science Guy has been likened to a modern Mr. Wizard. Bill's TV person is a tall and slender scientist wearing a lab coat and a bow-tie. He mixes the serious science of everyday things with fast-paced action and humor. Each show begins with Bill walking onto the set, called "Nye Labs", which is filled with scientific visuals (including many "of science" contraptions announced dramatically, such as "The slingshots of Science!") relevant to the topic of the show. Most episodes contain a mock music video in the "Soundtrack of Science" by "Not That Bad Records", substituting a scientific roundup of the episode for the lyrics to a popular song. Each show ends with Bill explaining his departure in a clever description of an activity on topic. The credits sometimes rolled next to a series of outtakes from the episode. Other times, outtakes are shown at the time they actually happened.

Another popular member of the cast is the announcer Pat Cashman, whom Nye knew from his time on Almost Live!. Some announcers who subbed in for Cashman include Ernie Anderson, Gary Owens, and Brian Cummings. In 1996, Bill made a guest appearance on Cartoon Network's talk-show Space Ghost Coast to Coast in its twenty-fourth episode, Boo! with Michael Norman. A year later, he made a guest appearance on the long-running PBS series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

[edit] List of episodes

[edit] Theme song

Aside from Bill himself, one of the most memorable things about Bill Nye the Science Guy is its theme song. The bass-heavy theme is set to a Hip hop beat with Bill's name shouted throughout the duration of the song. The sound and speed fluctuations of the voice were accomplished through a vocoder and electronic pitch fluctuator. The theme song is credited to Mike Greene and can be heard here:

http://www.4shared.com/file/66815324/25b5fde5/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guy

[edit] Production music

The show's episodes consisted of several compositions from Associated Production Music, some featured tracks include:

• "Act of Heroism (c)
• "Blood in the Gutter" by Laurie Johnson
• "Drama Impact #3"
• "The Gunfighter" by Ennio Morricone
• "Hit and Run" by Ralph Dollimore
• "Killer Birds" by Gregor Narholz
• "Saw Theme"

Many of these tracks were also featured in many Nickelodeon cartoons in the 1990s. Another common track used was the theme from the English show Dave Allen At Large, here used as the theme from "The Jackie Smazz Show."

[edit] Funding

• National Science Foundation (1993-1997)
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (1993-1997)
• The Boeing Company (1993-1997)
• Ore-Ida (1996-1997)
• Intel (1995-1997)
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting (1993-1997)
• Viewers Like You (1993-1997)

[edit] Video Game

A computer game for the series, titled Bill Nye the Science Guy: Stop the Rock!, was released in 1996 for PC and Macintosh by Pacific Interactive. In the game, a large meteoroid called "Impending Dumé" threatens to make a catastrophic collision with the Earth. A team of scientists develop a laser satellite-controlling computer system called MAXX to destroy the meteoroid; however, MAXX develops a personality of its own (in an obvious parody of the sentient computer HAL from the film and novel 2001: A Space Odyssey) and refuses to save the planet unless Earth's scientists can solve seven science riddles. Nye Labs decides to take on MAXX's challenge, and the player, depicted as the newest member of the Nye Labs team, is asked to solve these riddles before Impending Dumé hits (represented through an in-game timer). The game featured a fully explorable Nye Labs, as well as video cut scenes featuring Bill Nye and other Nye Labs scientists. However, the characters and cast members from the TV series, sans Bill Nye and a few others, do not appear in this game, instead being replaced by game-exclusive Nye Labs team members and new actors.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Bill Nye
• The Eyes of Nye
• Almost Live!
• Universe of Energy - an attraction at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center starring Bill Nye.
• Stuff Happens (TV show)

[edit] External links

• Bill Nye, the Science Guy at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill Nye the Science Guy at TV.com
• Bill Nye, The Science Lab Official Site (billnye.com points to the same site)