I’m bummed to report that Don Herbert, better known as Mr. Wizard, has died. His TV show, "Watch Mr. Wizard", popularized science to a huge audience in the 1950s and 1960s. I never saw his show except in excerpts, but it helped introduce an entire generation to science. All of us who popularize science owe our jobs to him.
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June 12th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
I used to watch him on Nickelodeon when I was younger (Mister Wizard’s World). I highly suspect he’s the reason I’m a geek, and have an interest in science, even though I work in computers.
I know I was hoping he’d go into the chute one last time to bring science to the young masses.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Major bummer. “Mr. Wizard” was my Saturday staple for years. I distinctly remember several of the shows including one on how suspension bridges work, one comparing sound to light (they’re both the same because they’re waves, but different because one’s physical and the other’s electromagnetic). The one I remember best, though, is where he showed his junior scientist pal how to cook a hot dog in five seconds by electrocuting it! Can you imagine any show doing that today?
- Jack
June 12th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I won second place in my elementary school’s science fair by making a barometer that he demonstrated on his show.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
i was a huge fan of mister wizards world as a kid! i liked when he cooked stuff with solar energy the best! it was cool that he invited kids on his show to perform the experiments.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I have a hazy recollection of watching Mr. Wizard on TV, probably on his last or next-to-last season. While none of the details are clear I do recall watching Mr. Wizard with great fondness, enough so that I was delighted to see Don Herbert on David Letterman’s programs. I still get a kick watching an occasional rerun of his original TV program.
Mr. Wizard had a program on Nickelodeon? Rats! I missed them since I came to cable TV late.
When it gets sufficiently dark so I can see the stars tonight, I’ll go outside and drink a toast to Mr. Wizard.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
And another bit of childhood vanishes forever.
Sigh.
We should all mark his departure by destroying our kitchens with the biggest baking-soda and vinegar volcanoes ever built.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I must admit that I’m old enough to have seen his original shows back in the 50’s. He was one of the many people who piqued my interest in science. I believe his shows were on Saturday mornings and I eagerly awaited each and every one of them!!
I shall miss him.
June 12th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
This is very sad news. I have fond memories of Saturday mornings spent with Mr Wizard (between the cartoons, anyway.
I think he was the first person to excite my interest in science.
June 12th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Farewell, Mr. Wizard…
Don Herbert, better known to my generation as Mr. Wizard, has died. He was 89.
Everyone needs to go, now, and build a baking-soda-and-vinegar volcano in his honor. With enough of them, we can move the world.
……
June 12th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I grew up with Mr. Wizard; and I too lament his passing. I think the show had an important effect in getting me started on an educational path that was very heavy on science. I believe that his show was much, much better for introducing science to youngsters than anything out there today. The show Beakman’s World (old now) is typical of what I don’t like today in that there seems to be an assumption that none of the viewers have much of an attention span: Present a little fact snippet and move quickly on to the next thing. Mr. Wizard, OTOH, would get a child involved directly in some process and would get the child to THINK about what was going on and REASON about it. The kids did not always get it right the first time, but they persisted. This is far more consistent with what science is all about. Pretending that is “easy” is more likely to lead to discouragement when kids run into more subtle science. Better that they be prepared with a patient and persistent attitude – a willingness to spend the time to figure it out. Another interesting thing about Herbert’s show is that it took a position of “Do try this at home!”, even when there might have been some aspects of the experiment that required some safety precautions. I was never prohibited from trying things that involved fire, explosions, or potentially dangerous voltage. Children today are often so coddled that they never even learn the respect that should be given to activities with which is associated some manageable danger.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Too bad he wasn’t enough of a wizard to achieve immortality.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
This is such a bummer. I hadn’t thought about Mr Wizard for a long time but the second I read that he died a flood of memories came to me. I forgot how much science I originally learned from him before I got it in school. Science can seem so intimidating at a young age, he excelled at breaking things down so they were both fun and understandable without being patronizing. I think I tried every one of his experiments I could manage. Though I have to admit I could never get the tablecloth pull to work out. The place setting always ended up on the floor.
FYI his production company sells DVDs of both Watch Mr Wizard and Mr Wizard’s World @ mrwizardstudios.com. (I hope that’s OK. I’m not trying to shill for him, just thought it was relevant.)
June 12th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Help me Mr. Wizard!
I grew up watching Mr. Wizard, which is the reason I became fascinated, and hence loved science in school. It was always confusing to me that so many of my peers hated science. Maybe they were only watching cartoons.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
i really want to watch some old clips from mr wizard’s world, but i cant find any online. anyone know where i could look (without buying the whole DVD series)?
June 13th, 2007 at 2:17 am
I’m truly sad at his passing. His Saturday morning programs were filled with cool science experiments. The young guests on his programs were as likely girls as boys.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:22 am
To Mr. Wizard. May the joy and wonder of science never end.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:48 am
I highly recommend his book “Mr. Wizard’s Supermarket science.” Lots of cool and iteresting experiments you can do at home, beyond the baking soda volcano.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the baking soda volcano. In fact, we must respect the baking soda volcano. But learning how to put a straw through a potato, or make something roll “uphill,” that’s pretty darn cool.
I’ll definitely be lifting a beaker in his honor tonight.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:49 am
astropixie, try YouTube.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:54 am
euterpe, Thanks I was trying to remember the name of that book. It’s lost somewhere in my basement.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Good Bye Mr. Wizard, thanks for your passion. Bill Nye has been a close approximation, but Beakman’s World is just too, umm, “boinky”: goofy sound effects, silly overacted characters, not enough science.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:26 am
I remember watching “Mr. Wizard’s World” on Nickelodeon with my nephew when he was little. It was a great show.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:30 am
I will forever remember that shopping cart with the enormous test tube in it (”Supermarket Science”). I was also one of the 80’s Nickelodeon kids and until today I never realized how much influence that man had on my life.
Someone had asked for videos, so I put up my own post over at Cause for Concern with embedded YouTube videos of the intro, the promo for his DVD, and a 1988 PSA, along with a link to his official site http://www.mrwizardstudios.com.
He will be sorely missed.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Another “I used to watch Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon” here.
When my Dad saw what I was watching, he was excited because he had watched Mr. Wizard in the 1950’s.
Sad loss.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:44 am
I, too, recall watching Mr. Wizard’s World on Nickelodeon as a youngster. I didn’t realize he was that old- seems to me that he was maybe in his 40s at the time (I guess I just couldn’t judge ages at that point
). I only remember a few snippets from the show- like how to make a hole big enough to walk through in a piece of paper, how a heating element uses much more power than a light bulb, him explaining the mechanical advantage of a pulley system, and what happens when you cut the string holding something you’re spinning over your head.
I may just have to get those DVDs for my kids- they’re at about the right ages for a lot of those experiments I remember.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:54 am
“I may just have to get those DVDs for my kids- they’re at about the right ages for a lot of those experiments I remember.”
I may have to get the DVDs for myself.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Wow, that brought back a few memories. I used to watch Mr. Wizard’s World quite a bit.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:09 am
I do not believe he made it across the pond to here in the UK
It is a sad loss for the field of science and education. Our nearest equivelant must be Johnny Ball
June 13th, 2007 at 6:05 am
[...] me be the ~20,000th blog (here, here, here, here) to moan the death of the great Don Herbert (NY Times obituary) just shy of his 90th birthday. [...]
June 13th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Sad bad news indeed. July 10th he would have been 90 – we celebrated his 89th on our blog.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:31 am
I wrote a commerative post to Mr. Herbert on my blog. He worked with a low budget, and it even seemed that the show was taped in his or someone elses home. I think this made the lessons stick with me more than the theatrics of other science shows.
I remember her from “Mr. Wizard’s World”. Until the comments about electrocuting a hot dog, using solar energy to cook it, etc. I couldn’t remember those episodes. I could still tell you how to do it, but only if I needed to or someone mentioned it.
I wonder if he didn’t want the theatrics and diversion that a higher budget would bring? This way, the majority of our memory of it was the experiments themselves.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:33 am
Oops.. “I remember him…” Damn sentimentality is throwing my spelling off.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:40 am
HAve you ever noticed how science types tend to live to ripe old ages? In the 1950s, perhaps after watching Mr. Wizard, I started adding up all the ages I could find for famous scientists throughout history and calculating their lifespans. They seemed to consistently outlive their contemporaries by about 10 years or so. The disparity was even greater in the 1700s.
It wasn’t Mister Wizard who turned me on to science, though he did reinforce my interest. The first exposure I can recall was Space Patrol, aired in Los Angeles about 1954 or thereabouts. It piqued my interest in all things space oriented. My Bro(later the rocket scientist) required me to learn the proper relationships of all the known planets in our solar system and critiqued my rocket ship designs. I was about 11 then. That was also the first year I read science fiction, a book about a post world war III society in Labrador, with mutants and telepaths.
By the time I was 13, I had read every science oriented book in the Hawthorne public library.
Thus may a scientist be born,,,
Thanks Mr Herbert. I’ll miss your intelligence and passion,
Gary 7
June 13th, 2007 at 8:54 am
I too remeber watching Mr. Wizard on Saturdays. While it was my Dad that gave me my interest in Science, it was shows like Mr. Wizard and publications like Science Digest and Popular Science that helped it grow and develop. In those days it was all about the science (not politics), and scientists (professional and amateur) could disagree without being demonized.
June 13th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Mr Wizard was just flat cool. Science for the young masses…not a more noble cause there ever was.
One of my favorite memories is of him on David Letterman a number of years back, when he set fire to a bowl of cereal.
True story. Full details on the board.
In the meantime…
Fare thee well, Mr Herbert. You done real good by us…
June 13th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I somehow remember that Bill Nye died a few years back also, though, I might have read that in The Onion. Presuming that both Mr. Wizard and The Science Guy are gone, who’s left to provide quality public broadcast science programming for kids?
Telletubies aren’t going to cut it and there are only so many back episodes of 321 contact and Square One TV.
June 13th, 2007 at 10:59 am
It probably was The Onion, seeing as Bill Nye is alive and kicking, and is the Vice President of The Planetary Society.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I, too, am old enough to remember Mr. Wizard from its original airings “way back when.” The 50’s and early 60’s were characterized by a faith in science and engineering, perhaps one that was too innocent, but still one that drove our citizens and our government in some very positive directions. I believe David Vanderschel’s comments above (6/12, 9:04 pm) are right on the money: TV shows of all kinds today speed through the “boring” parts – i.e. work – and focus on theatrics.
Thank you, Mr. Wizard, for the impact you had on all of us. Thank you for teaching patience and persistence, as well as science.
Philbert
ps to Thomas – I double-checked and indeed, Bill Nye is still with us.
June 13th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
It’s good to know that Bill Nye is still around. Like I said, I’m pretty sure I read the article in the Onion. It might have have been this one.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28326
No less, there’s still a distressing lack of quality sci-ed programming on children’s television.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
I remember Mr. Wizard very well from his first Sat. Morning shows. He will be greatly missed and I thought he was very cool. However, I was already a space nut by then. What really tied the knot in my geek string was watching Neil Armstrong take one small step for a man…
And I watched it broadcast live…from the MOON. period.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
I was always shocked he had a show, he seemed so grumpy and with very little chemistry with children (and no long white beard!). I liked him for that reason though!
June 13th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I also grew up watching “Mr. Wizard’s World” on Nickelodeon in the ’80s, and now do outreach for a science center, performing experiments and demonstrations (including many from Mr. Wizard’s own repertoire) for crowds of kids in schools and libraries. I think I can safely agree with Phil that my job would likely not exist with Don Herbert.
I performed our chemistry show today, and privately dedicated it to him.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Oh my god! Square One! I absolutely loved that show. It’s been years since I’d thought of it.
Memories…
June 14th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Thomas said:” No less, there’s still a distressing lack of quality sci-ed programming on children’s television.”
I would further that by saying there is a distressing lack of quality science on regular tv.
Don Herbert was one of the most important adults of my life. He taught critical thinking on a medium that does its best to sweep it away.
Anyone who has known me at all knows the great respect I hold for this man.
Lets honor his memory by turning a kid on to science. Better yet, at least one a week.
Goodnight Don.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:53 am
My parents used to have to put on Mr. Wizard’s World to get me out of bed in the morning when I was a kid. I think I owe a lot of who I am now to him. The man electrocuted a hot dog. It doesn’t get much cooler than that. You’ll be missed Don.