Mathnet
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This article needs additional citations for verification. (July 2012) |
| Mathnet | |
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Kate Monday (Leech) and George Frankly (Howard). |
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| Genre | Kids' Crime Drama |
| Developed by | Janette Webb George E. Swink |
| Written by | David D. Connell Jim Thurman |
| Directed by | Charles S. Dubin James F. Golway Karl Epstein Jesus Salvador Treviño Bill Schreiner |
| Starring | Beverly Leech (1987–1990; 19 episodes) Joe Howard (1987–1992; entire series) Toni DiBuono (1991–1992; 11 episodes) James Earl Jones (1987–1988, 1991; 5 episodes) Emilo Del Pozo (1990–1992; 16 episodes) Mary Watson (1987–1990; 13 episodes) Bari K. Willerford (1990–1992; 16 episodes) |
| Opening theme | "Danger Ahead" |
| Composer(s) | Gerald Fried John Rodby (Conducted and arranged by) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 30 |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | Los Angeles (1987–1990) New York City (1990–1992) |
| Camera setup | Film (Principal Photography) Videotape (Post-Production) Single-camera setup |
| Running time | Varies |
| Production company(s) | Children's Television Workshop |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | PBS |
| Picture format | 1.33 : 1 (Full screen) |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | January 26, 1987 – May 6, 1994 |
Mathnet is a segment on the children's television show Square One Television, of which five seasons were produced (1987–92). This parody of Dragnet featured detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department who solved mysteries using their mathematical skills. There were two main characters: detectives Kate Monday (Beverly Leech) and George Frankly (Joe Howard). Mary Watson also had a regular role as the duo's technical analyst, Debbie Williams. The third season had the show's setting moved to New York City. Beginning in the fourth season, Kate Monday was replaced by Pat Tuesday (Toni DiBuono). James Earl Jones played a recurring role as Chief Thad Green. He also briefly appears in season 4 and indicates he knows Pat Tuesday. When the duo was transferred to New York, Captain Joe Greco (Emilio Del Pozo) became their new boss and undercover NYPD officer Benny Pill (Bari K. Willerford) became their semi-regular backup support.
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Development and Production [edit]
| This section does not cite any references or sources. (July 2012) |
After a successful first season, production began on six new episodes for the second season. By the time production ended on the third season and its six episodes in 1989, Beverly Leech (Kate Monday) left, and was replaced by a new character named Pat Tuesday, played by Toni DiBuono. Production on the first six episodes with the new character commenced in 1990, and ended in 1991, in time for Square One TV's fourth season. Production on the final season and its five episodes began in 1991, and ended in 1992.
During production, the background music also changed. Originally, it had a synth score. But gradually, as the series progressed, it was replaced with an orchestral score.
Premise [edit]
Each segment of the series aired on one episode of Square One, a production of the Children's Television Workshop aimed at teaching math skills to young viewers. Five segments made up an episode (one for each weekday), with suspense building at the end of each segment. A Mathnet comic briefly appeared in 3-2-1 Contact.
Both Mathnet and Square One went off the air in 1994 (it was rerun until then after the final 1992 season was completed), reappearing from 1999–2003 on the cable television network Noggin, a joint venture of Nickelodeon and CTW. However, only 65 episodes were leased by the Noggin network. Mathnet segments also aired on The Phred on Your Head Show (one of Noggin's original programs).[1]
Mathnet was produced by Janette Webb, the widow of Dragnet producer Jack Webb.
Math and science [edit]
Real principles of math and science, and mathematical tools used by the detectives to solve crimes include:
- Alphanumerics ("The Case of the Unnatural")
- Kinematics ("The Problem of the Missing Baseball")
- Chromatic scale ("The Problem of the Passing Parade")
- Displacement of fluids ("The Problem of the Trojan Hamburger")
- Hamiltonian path ("The Case of the Smart Dummy")
- Process of elimination ("The Case of the Great Car Robbery", "The View from the Rear Terrace")
- Number patterns ("The Case of the Missing Air")
- Bar charts and line charts ("The Case of the Purloined Policies", "The Case of the Great Car Robbery")
Guest stars [edit]
| This section does not cite any references or sources. (July 2012) |
A number of well-known actors made guest appearances on this show. Among them were Edward Winter, Eve McVeagh, Yeardley Smith, Dick Wilson, William Windom, James Karen, Kenneth Mars, Henry Jones, Kevin McCarthy, Geoffrey Lewis, Russell Johnson, McLean Stevenson, Dick Sargent, Jack Riley, Marcia Wallace, Estelle Harris, Tammy Grimes, Arnold Stang, Paul Dooley, Maddie Corman, John Michael Higgins, Jayne Meadows, Bob Arbogast, Weird Al Yankovic, John Moschitta, Jr., Wayne Knight, and Betty Buckley. In addition, real life L.A.P.D. officers, Sam Salazar and Steve Fellman, have also appeared as themselves, and did head writers, David D. Connell and Jim Thurman, as various characters (sometimes together). Sometimes, only Thurman's voice would be heard.
Home video release and reruns [edit]
| This section does not cite any references or sources. (July 2012) |
In 1991, GPN released five episodes from the first two seasons on VHS ("The Problem of the Missing Baseball", "The Trial of George Frankly", "The Problem of the Dirty Money", "The Case of the Missing Air", and "The View from the Rear Terrace").
Around the same time, select PBS stations combined parts of an episode to air in primetime. This was done primarily for seasons 3-5 (New York City era). These versions were re-edited so that they would come in at just under an hour long, featured other segments from Square One TV as "commercials", and newly-created end credits, among other differences. Two of the primetime airings were also commercially-released as VHS tapes from Republic Pictures in 1992 ("Despair in Monterey Bay" and "The Case of the Unnatural").
Episode list [edit]
Season 1 (1987) [edit]
| Number in series |
Number in season |
Title | Directed by | Original air date | Production code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "The Problem of the Missing Monkey" | Charles S. Dubin | January 26–30, 1987 | 11031–11035 |
| A gorilla named Grunt escapes from the zoo, while a suspect dressed as a gorilla is being used to frame Grunt. | |||||
| 2 | 2 | "The Problem of the Missing Baseball" | Charles S. Dubin | February 2–6, 1987 | 10540–10760 |
| Pilot episode. A very important baseball had to be found at a house, but the house was stolen. | |||||
| 3 | 3 | "The Problem of the Passing Parade" | Charles S. Dubin | February 9–13, 1987 | 11011–11015 |
| A parade was to be featured until the main attraction, Steve Stringbean gets kidnapped. | |||||
| 4 | 4 | "The Trial of George Frankly" | Charles S. Dubin | February 16–20, 1987 | 11021–11025 |
| George is placed under arrest for a bank robbery he didn't commit, as he claims he was on vacation at that time and needs proof to back his claims. | |||||
| 5 | 5 | "The Problem of the Dirty Money" | Charles S. Dubin | February 23–27, 1987 | 11051–11055 |
| Kate & George try to solve a mystery why tonnes of dirt was being stolen. | |||||
| 6 | 6 | "The Mystery of the Maltese Pigeon" | Charles S. Dubin | March 2–6, 1987 | 14081–14085 |
| Maureen O'Riley puts a rare bird statue on display at a museum, until it later disappears without a trace. | |||||
| 7 | 7 | "The Problem of the Trojan Hamburger" | Charles S. Dubin | March 9–13, 1987 | 11041–11045 |
| A husband is claimed to be abducted, while a diamond was stolen by a thief who may have used a secret trick to get in and out. | |||||
Season 2 (1988) [edit]
| Number in series |
Number in season |
Title | Directed by | Original air date | Production code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 1 | "The Case of the Willing Parrot" | Charles S. Dubin | September 19–23, 1988 | 20030–20034 |
| A talking parrot named Little Louie uses a Fibonacci call for solving a mystery on finding the deceased owner's inheritance. | |||||
| 9 | 2 | "The Case of the Great Car Robbery" | James F. Golway | September 26–30, 1988 | 20010–20014 |
| Kate & George try to solve a mystery on why 20,000 cars have been stolen over a two-month period. | |||||
| 10 | 3 | "The Case of the Deceptive Data" | Charles S. Dubin | October 3–7, 1988 | 20340–20344 |
| Mike Pliers asks Kate & George for some help on why his high rated show got unexpectedly canceled. | |||||
| 11 | 4 | "The View from the Rear Terrace" | Charles S. Dubin | October 10–14, 1988 | 20320–20324 |
| George needs to solve a problem on his own that deals with Kate, where she's at home with an injury. | |||||
| 12 | 5 | "The Case of the Missing Air" | Karl Epstein | October 17–21, 1988 | 20020–20024 |
| Kate & George need to figure out the common factors to a chain of robberies, in which the suspect was talking like a duck. | |||||
| 13 | 6 | "The Case of the Map With a Gap" | James F. Golway | October 24–28, 1988 | 20000–20004 |
| Kate & George go out to the desert with a young cowboy, to find a buried treasure of gold, using the help of angles and mirrors. | |||||
Season 3 (1990) [edit]
| Number in series |
Number in season |
Title | Directed by | Original air date | Production code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | 1 | "The Case of the Ersatz Earthquake" | Jesus Salvador Treviño | January 15–19, 1990 | 30001–30005 |
| A psychic predicts on when, where and the exact time an earthquake will strike, only to find out there was a trick to making the ground shake. | |||||
| 15 | 2 | "The Case of the Swami Scam" | Charles S. Dubin | January 22–26, 1990 | 30011–30015 |
| Kate & George begin a new assignment in New York City, where retired lawyers are being scammed by a Swami who claims to have the right predictions of horse races and lotteries. | |||||
| 16 | 3 | "The Case of the Parking Meter Massacre" | Charles S. Dubin | January 29–February 2, 1990 | 30021–30025 |
| The city's parking meters are being abused and cut off, and why one suspect was looking through quarters. | |||||
| 17 | 4 | "The Case of the Unkidnapping" | Charles S. Dubin | February 5–9, 1990 | 30131–30135 |
| The main star of the broadway musical "Anything Went" gets kidnapped, but tries to frame her co-star, who happens to know Kate when they were in college. | |||||
| 18 | 5 | "The Case of the Strategic Weather Initiative" | Charles S. Dubin | February 12–16, 1990 | 30031–30035 |
| A weather plane gets stolen and Kate & George try to find answers to where the plane might have landed. | |||||
| 19 | 6 | "The Case of the Masked Avenger" | Charles S. Dubin | February 19–23, 1990 | 30081–30085 |
| The Masked Avenger is being used by the mob to make him throw his wrestling match. | |||||
Season 4 (1991) [edit]
| Number in series |
Number in season |
Title | Directed by | Original air date | Production code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 1 | "The Case of the Unnatural" | Jesus Salvador Treviño | September 30–October 4, 1991 | 40121–40125 |
| 21 | 2 | "Despair in Monterey Bay" | Jesus Salvador Treviño | October 7–11, 1991 | 40101–40105 |
| 22 | 3 | "The Case of the Calpurnian Kugel Caper" | Jesus Salvador Treviño | October 14–18, 1991 | 40071–40075 |
| 23 | 4 | "The Case of the Galling Stones" | Bill Schreiner | October 21–25, 1991 | 40111–40115 |
| 24 | 5 | "The Case of the Poconos Paradise" | Charles S. Dubin | October 28–November 1, 1991 | 40091–40095 |
| 25 | 6 | "The Case of the Purloined Policies" | Charles S. Dubin | November 4–8, 1991 | 40081–40085 |
Season 5 (1992) [edit]
| Number in series |
Number in season |
Title | Directed by | Original air date | Production code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | 1 | "The Case of the Mystery Weekend" | Bill Schreiner | September 21–25, 1992 | 50021–50025 |
| 27 | 2 | "The Case of the Smart Dummy" | Bill Schreiner | September 28–October 2, 1992 | 50231–50235 |
| 28 | 3 | "The Case: Offthe Record" | Bill Schreiner | October 5–9, 1992 | 50011–50015 |
| 29 | 4 | "The Case of the Bermuda Triangle" | Jesus Salvador Treviño | October 12–16, 1992 | 50251–50255 |
| 30 | 5 | "The Case of the Piggy Banker" | Bill Schreiner | October 19–23, 1992 | 50241–50245 |
References [edit]
- ^ "Square One TV Episode 211". TV.com. Retrieved 3 July 2012.
External links [edit]
- SquareOneTV.org Listing of guest star appearances
- Mathnet To Cogitate and to solve; episode guide, photos, sound clips, and actor bios
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- Square One Television
- Dragnet (series)
- Mathematics education television series
- Parodies
- Fictional portrayals of the Los Angeles Police Department
- Fictional portrayals of the New York City Police Department
- Television shows set in California
- Television shows set in New York City
- American children's television series
- 1987 American television series debuts
- Television series by Sesame Workshop
