Friday, June 15, 2007

Don 'Mr. Wizard' Herbert (1918-2007)

If you are of a certain age (God I'm tired of writing those words) your introduction to science came either through your father or a relative or from Mr. Wizard.

Mr. Wizard aka Don Herbert, had a Saturday afternoon television show that would be anathema today.
He didn’t scream at viewers or belittle their intelligence. He slowly and patiently taught us all about the natural world and how to do cool scientific experiments with ordinary household stuff.
Says Jim Booth in a fitting tribute at Scholars & Rogues:
"[He] insisted that the only irreplaceable piece of scientific gear was a kid’s mind."
The show appeared in several incarnations from 1951, when it debuted on a local station in Chicago, until 2000 when Nickelodeon stopped airing reruns of its syndicated version. Pretty amazing, eh?

Mr. Wizard died earlier this week a few days short of his 90th birthday.

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