Mr. Wizard

Mr. Wizard was a popular television institution, perhaps enjoying his most memorable run on "Mr. Wizard's World" on Nickelodeon in the 1980s. Everybody watched it, unless you were po and had no cable. (Po meaning POOR, as opposed to PISSED OFF, but if you couldn't watch Mr. Wizard you should have been that too.)

What is a wizard? a mythological magician, a person with inherent supernatural powers that cannot be explained by logic or science. So you can see where Mr. Wizard got his name.

The concept of the show was simple. Neighborhood children would wander into the home of an elderly science enthusiast and catch him in the middle of conducting an experiment. Luckily they never happened to burst in on him doing other things. "Mr. Wizard why are you drinking whiskey, sitting in a chair staring at very old photographs, and crying?" "Gee Mr. Wizard, you're putting on ladies' toenail polish? What kind of experiment is this?"

The neat thing about Mr. Wizard was that it was probably the only show that encouraged children to "try this at home." Kids are always getting yelled at not to do the things they see on TV. Don't jump off your roof thinking you can fly like Superman, or joyride on a forklift or bicycle like Laverne and Shirley. But Mr. Wizard wasn't like that. "I just sucked a hard boiled egg into a milk bottle, now YOU try it!"

Mr. Wizard passed away a few years ago. He was once quoted as saying, "My time on this earth is getting shorter and shorter each day, but no matter how old I get, and even when I am dead, Mr. Wizard's World will never die." He then uploaded a bunch of old clips onto youtube to ensure it.

I like that quote much better than the recent words of Bill Nye the Science Guy, who stated in an interview "After I'm dead, I still WON'T be dead. You'll ALLLLLL see!"