BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert

Subject: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: Wesley S
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 08:57 AM

Don Herbert, 89; TV's 'Mr. Wizard' taught science to young baby boomers
By Dennis McLellan, Times Staff Writer
June 13, 2007


Don Herbert 1917 | 2007

Don Herbert, who explained the wonderful world of science to millions of young baby boomers on television in the 1950s and '60s as "Mr. Wizard" and did the same for another generation of youngsters on the Nickelodeon cable TV channel in the 1980s, died Tuesday. He was 89.

Herbert died at his home in Bell Canyon after a long battle with multiple myeloma, said Tom Nikosey, Herbert's son-in-law.

A low-key, avuncular presence who wore a tie and white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Herbert launched his weekly half-hour science show for children on NBC in 1951.

Broadcast live from Chicago on Saturdays the first few years and then from New York City, "Watch Mr. Wizard" ran for 14 years.

Herbert used basic experiments to teach scientific principles to his TV audience via an in-studio guest boy or girl who assisted in the experiments.

"I was a grade school kid in the '50s and watched 'Mr. Wizard' Saturday mornings and was just glued to the television," said Nikosey, president of Mr. Wizard Studios, which sells Herbert's science books and TV shows on DVD.

"The show just heightened my curiosity about science and the way things worked," Nikosey said. "I learned an awful lot from him, as did millions of other kids."

By 1955, there were about 5,000 Mr. Wizard Science Clubs nationwide, with more than 100,000 members.

And as Mr. Wizard, Herbert was a true TV star, featured in an array of magazines, including TV Guide, Life, Time, Newsweek, Science Digest, Boy's Life and even Glamour.

Herbert was taken aback by the show's success.

"What really did it for us was the inclusion of a child," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2004. "When we started out, it was just me up there alone. That was too much like having a professor give a lecture. We cast a boy and girl to come in and talk with me about science. That's when it took off.

"The children watching could identify with someone like them."

In explaining how he brought a sense of wonder to elementary scientific experiments, Herbert told the New York Times in 2004 that he "would perform the trick, as it were, to hook the kids, and then explain the science later.

"We thought we needed it to seem like magic to hook the audience, but then we realized that viewers would be engaged with just a simple scientific question, like, why do birds fly and not humans? A lot of scientists criticized us for using the words 'magic' and 'mystery' in the show's subtitle, but they came around eventually."

"Watch Mr. Wizard" garnered numerous honors, including a Peabody Award, four Ohio State awards and the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation Award for "Best Science TV Program for Youth."

And Herbert had a lasting effect.

"Over the years, Don has been personally responsible for more people going into the sciences than any other single person in this country," George Tressel, a National Science Foundation official, said in 1989.

"I fully realize the number is virtually endless when I talk to scientists," he said. "They all say that Mr. Wizard taught them to think."

Herbert's experiments on the show typically used household items.

As a 1951 Time magazine story noted: "Herbert's object is to show his audience what goes on in the world — why the wind blows, what makes a cake rise, how water comes out of a kitchen tap.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 09:09 AM

Yes, I saw this last night. He ground no ax but just brought science to a lot of kids, including myself and my sibs. A shame; there doesn't seem to be anyone to replace him.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: jeffp
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 09:23 AM

I enjoyed his shows when I was young. I even had one of his books. A lot of fun. Rest well, Mr. Wizard.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 10:36 AM

I loved his program. It was one of the few my parents encouraged us to watch. And when Beakman's World came on the air in the early 1990s I remarked to the kids that it was like Mr. Wizard meets PeeWee's Playhouse. It turned out that I wasn't wrong on that guess. The Beakman's crew hired the PeeWee's crew after PeeWee went off the air. From the Wikipedia site: "The penguins were named after Don Herbert, who starred as Mr. Wizard in Watch Mr. Wizard."

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: Linda Goodman Zebooker
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 12:44 PM

A wonderful idea and a wonderful program. My memories of it are rather dim, but I was always greatful to be shown how the world worked.
Linda

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 03:07 PM

we didn't get it, or at least I had not heard of it. We only had one tv channel and didn't have a tv until I was eight, so missed it.

It seems there are a lot of his shows available on DVD from his website.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 03:22 PM

But not the one Tooter Turtle knew. I get those guys mixed up all the time! But I remember the non-cartoon one better. I had a science teacher a lot like him, one year-- cool guy.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 03:33 PM

I'm pretty sure this is where I learned to use lemon juice as invisible ink. Let it dry, and then hold it over a flame and the places where you wrote with the lemon juice turns brown--leaving most of the paper sort of white.

That said, a friend of mine was doing this in his room and set the paper on fire. His mother smelled it and came running in to see what was burning. She then proceeded to accuse him of trying to burn his stash of lascivious literature and magazines. We, as guys will, never let him live it down.
Later on he died a sad and very young death. The family had him cremated and his ashes were kept on the mantle piece in their living-room.

Whenever we were over at the house visiting his brother, the lid of the box of ashes would get lifted and some wags would flick their cigarette ashes in there----and then loudly proclaim that: "Jeez, Bill seems to be gaining weight!"

A fine time was had by all.

And maybe we should thank Mr. Wizard!?

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 04:26 PM

I'm old enough to remember the Mr. Wizard TV show very clearly. One of television's proudest accomplishments.

The show was so good that it should have been imitated, sooner and more effectively than it eventually was (by the above-menitoned Beakman and also Bill Nye the Science Guy). But Mr W seems to have been too hard an act to follow, and there nothing remotely similar to his show appeared for many years.

I suppose Don Herbert really and truly was "one of a kind." Quite apart for the scientific insight and the low-key showmanship, he also conveyed a very warm and personable presence and probably made science seem a lot less forbidding to many kids.

My kids also know and fondly remember Mr. Wizard ~ probably more from the reborn, later-in-life series on Nickelodeon than from reruns of the original series that I had watched a generation earlier. (Incidentally, my 27-year-old comedian son sarcastically refers to one of his obnoxious and ignorant know-it-all contemporaries as "Mr. Wizard" ~ cracks me up!)

In the obit, Don Herbert is quoted thus:

A lot of scientists criticized us for using the words 'magic' and 'mystery' in the show's subtitle, but they came around eventually."

What subtitle? I couldn't find it in the article. Anyone remember?

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 07:57 PM

In the early 50s, Mr. Wizard was explaining microwaves and their possible usage to a generation who would later find them indispensible. I remember him. And I remember sitting fascinated in front of the TV while my mother cringed in the kitchen knowing that I would be "experimenting" again.
RIP

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 09:01 AM

Bill Nye tried to become the flashy mr wizard of today but lacked the authenticity and sincerity of Don.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: Mr Wizard - Don Herbert
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 04:04 PM

You're wrong on that one Donuel.

I loved Mr. Wizard and tried never to miss a show. Like Sins, I too used to experiment afterwards with assorted floods and fires often resulting although none were ever dangerous. Ol' Don DID push the safety thing, thank goodness. In the past years when he has popped up here and there I have often thought how much I owed him, more in areas of critical thinking than science perhaps...........

But Donuel, don't knock Bill Nye who was excellent for this generation. WE aren't his target audience. WHen I was teaching the best advice I ever got and later gave out to others was that if you're not as entertaining as MTV, go get a job at Sears selling Lady Kenmores.

Spaw