Watch Mr. Wizard

When I was roughly eight years old, in 1955, Don Herbert changed my life. I watched the show religiously at a neighbor's apartment as my father (quite rightly) was convinced that if we had a television, we'd all stop reading books. One day, the project was making an alcohol lamp using a milk bottle. One poured a little alcohol in the bottle, made a slit in the wax paper lid and pushed a string down through the hole to make a wick. We were supposed to allow the wick to become thoroughly saturated with alcohol, but my mother and I were a bit impatient (or we hadn't absorbed that particular step in the procedure) and we lit it prematurely. The bottle was in the kitchen sink at the near edge and, when it exploded, it blew out the kitchen window with such force that we found that bits of wood had traveled the breadth of the vast lawn of our garden apartment house and had smashed into the front of the home across the street, some 200 feet distant. The only reason we weren't killed was that the near vertical face of the deep sink reflected the blast away from us. One day, when I was a Freshman at Ithaca College in 1966, I told this story at dinner and my friend, Doug Lane, said quietly that he had been "Little Dougie" on the show!

As a young boy I was naturally curious about how things worked. Especially things related to electricity and science in general. We didn't even have a TV until the 1960s but I remember watching this and other kids programs (like Howdy Doody and Captain Kangaroo) at my aunt Cula's house.

Mr. Wizard was real, even though he was an actor primarily, Don Herbert took a keen interest in the science he was demonstrating to the kids. He really seemed like a scientist.

I eventually went to college and graduate school, my career was in the sciences, primarily Chemistry with heavy emphasis of mathematics and physics. Was my career motivated by this TV show, "Mr Wizard"? We'll never know of course but I always have fond memories of watching episodes.

WE KNOW THAT we are dating ourselves, but we well remember this pioneering science was in full swing and a must in viewing weekly for our fellow boomers. In our neighborhood, MR WIZARD was a name as familiar and as American as was Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and a certain make of automobile.

IN SPOTLIGHTING VARIOUS branches of Science by performing on air experiments, host Don Herbert (Mr. Wizard, himself) fueled our curiosities. Who knows just how many kids did get involved in research, technology, medicine and all other related fields, due to the viewing of this show.

AS ONE PERSONAL experience, we can testify to the veracity of this. We definitely wanted to be a "scientist" at age ten. Just because a career as a Chicago Cop came instead was certainly not MR WIZARD'S fault; but rather our lack of scholastic achievement on our part. Sorry. Mr. Wizard.

ORIGINATING RIGHT HERE in our fair city of Chicago, MR WIZARD was produced at the old studios of NBC's local station, the wholly owned subsidiary, WNBQ, Channel 5 (now WMAQ). It was responsible for shows of the 'Chicago School of Television' such as: GARROWAY AT LARGE, DING DONG SCHOOL, ZOO PARADE and KUKLA, FRAN & OLLIE.

This was great show for kids. Mr Wizard was always interesting showing kids things they had never seen before. And explaining how things worked. Mr. Wizard never seemed to lose interest in teaching kids, I've seen him a number of times since his series was taken off the air, and he still loves to teach science. You were an inspiration Mr Wizard, a lot of us really looked up to you.