Bill Nye the Science Guy

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Bill Nye the Science Guy
A shot of the opening sequence.
Format	Children's television series/Education
Starring	Bill Nye, Suzanne Mikawa, Ivyann Schwan, Jafar Smith, Pat Cashman, et al.
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	100
Production
Executive producer(s)	Elizabeth Brock, Erren Gottlieb, James McKenna
Producer(s)	Bill Nye
Running time	26 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	PBS
Original run	September 10, 1993 – October 3, 1997
External links
IMDb profile

Bill Nye the Science Guy is an Emmy Award-winning educational television program, hosted by Bill Nye. It was originally broadcast on PBS from September 10, 1993 until October 3, 1997. Then after cancellation, aired reruns until February 19, 1999. Reruns later ran on Nickelodeon's Noggin channel and aired there until 2002 and Univision until 2008. The show also aired in syndication for a brief time. It still airs on some educational PBS stations as part of the itv schedule. Each of the 100 episodes aims to teach a specific topic in science to a preteen audience. The show is frequently used in schools. KCTS of Seattle and Buena Vista Television (now known as Disney-ABC Domestic Television) produced the show. The show ran about the same time as and covered similar topics to Beakman's World.

Bill Nye the Science Guy has been likened to a modern Mr. Wizard. Bill's TV person is a tall and slender scientist wearing a lab coat and a bow-tie. He mixes the serious science of everyday things with fast-paced action and humor. Each show begins with Bill walking onto the set, called "Nye Labs", which is filled with scientific visuals (including many "of science" contraptions announced dramatically, such as "The slingshots of Science!") relevant to the topic of the show. Each show has a mock music video in the "Soundtrack of Science" by "Not That Bad Records", substituting a scientific roundup of the episode for the lyrics to a popular song. Each show ends with Bill explaining his departure in a clever description of an activity on topic. The credits sometimes rolled next to a series of outtakes from the episode. Other times, outtakes are shown at the time they actually happened.

Another popular member of the cast is the announcer Pat Cashman. Some announcers who subbed in for Cashman include Ernie Anderson, Gary Owens, and Brian Cummings. In 1996, Bill made a guest appearance on Cartoon Network's talk-show Space Ghost Coast to Coast in its twenty-fourth episode,Boo! with Michael Norman. A year later, he made a guest appearance on the long-running PBS series, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

[edit] Soundtrack

Note: no soundtrack album was released for the show. Production music, and some classical compositions were employed into the episodes' soundtracks.

[edit] Production music

The show's episodes consisted of several compositions from Associated Production Music, some featured tracks include:

• "Act of Heroism (c)
• "Blood in the Gutter" by Laurie Johnson
• "Drama Impact #3"
• "The Gunfighter" by Ennio Morricone
• "Hit and Run" by Ralph Dollimore
• "Killer Birds" by Gregor Narholz
• "Saw Theme"

Many of these tracks were also featured in many Nickelodeon cartoons in the 90s.

[edit] Stock sounds

Many stock sounds were featured in this show.

[edit] Funding

• National Science Foundation (1993-1997)
• The Boeing Company (1995-1997)
• Ore-Ida (1996-1997)
• Intel (1995-1997)
• Corporation For Public Broadcasting (1993-1996)
• Chuck E. Cheese's (1993-1995)
• Kimberly Clark (1993-1995)
• Viewers Like You (1993-1997)

[edit] See Also

The Eyes of Nye

[edit] External links

• Bill Nye, the Science Guy at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill Nye the Science Guy at TV.com
• Bill Nye, The Science Lab Official Site (billnye.com points to the same site)