Bill Nye for Grown-Ups

December 13, 2005 6:06 AM

The Eyes of Nyeis "Bill Nye the Science Guy" for adults, with topics like "Cloning," "Pseudoscience," and "The Evolution of Sex" with its montage of happily fornicating animals. The topics are more serious but the humor is still there. The show's web site has video clips and extra information related to each episode. [both links use Flash]
posted by pithy comment (19 comments total)

I remember hearing second hand that his episode on energy and fossil fuels was particularly inflammatory and spot-on (Locally it aired during a children's programming slot). I would like to see it some day.
posted by sourwookie at 6:13 AM on December 13, 2005

I am so telling the DVR to seek this out when I get home.

Bill Nye The Science Guy! (Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!) Science Rules ...
posted by grabbingsand at 6:28 AM on December 13, 2005

Recently, I went looking for the original Bill Nye series dvd (for an xmas present to a young wiz kid type ). They weren't at Nye Labs - where one is directed to a disney site. The price?

$50 per dvd ? ( or $3249.00 for the whole set )

Bill ? Bill ? Bill ?
posted by R. Mutt at 6:45 AM on December 13, 2005

OK, so the DVDs are "enhanced" :

Fully indexed "chapters" correlated to National Science Standards.
Interactive glossaries and quizzes.
Bonus footage of never-before-seen segments, interviews, and demos.
Spanish translation and closed-captioning.
On-disk implementation Guide.

But they are only 26 minutes long @ $50 = $2 a minute.
posted by R. Mutt at 6:59 AM on December 13, 2005

R. Mutt, if you're still looking, you can find videos for much less on eBay. Somebody's selling 10 VHS for $165.
posted by dsword at 7:24 AM on December 13, 2005

thanks dsword.
posted by R. Mutt at 7:30 AM on December 13, 2005

Recently our local PBS affiliate has started airing the original show again. On Saturday. At 3am. Now whyever would they do that for?
posted by thecaddy at 7:34 AM on December 13, 2005

Huh. I thought he had passed away a few years back.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:47 AM on December 13, 2005

One of the BitTorrent tracker sites I frequent had the entire series available, so I grabbed it. It's not really written for adults, but rather more for a high school audience. That said, it's still pretty good, if fairly thin. The exobiology episode, in particular, was very light on detail.

Altough it's great to see some of Nye's old running buddies doing skits -- Pat Cashman and Bill Nelson in particular. Almost Live was a great show.
posted by solid-one-love at 7:57 AM on December 13, 2005

[this is cool]
posted by edgeways at 9:38 AM on December 13, 2005

For a long time, I couldn't listen to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" without hearing the lyrics as "Air Pressure / All Around us ..." Say, whatever happened to Nyevana, anyway?
posted by lodurr at 9:47 AM on December 13, 2005

I saw this one Sunday morning in a city that carried the Chicago PBS station. Fortunately I was around this station a few weeks in a row on Sunday mornings. I came home to Indianapolis to findout that our PBS station doesn't carry it. He made a joke about eating shrooms in one episode.

I'm still sad that it doesn't show here.
posted by Phantomx at 9:52 AM on December 13, 2005

Gah, now I have that annoying song stuck in my head!

Science rules
posted by parallax7d at 10:13 AM on December 13, 2005

> R. Mutt.

Or, you can probably go to your local library and check out the original Bill Nye DVD's. Thats what I do for my kids.

But, they are also surprisingly easy to (something)...
posted by jkaczor at 11:49 AM on December 13, 2005

This is wonderfuk! Huzzah!

I wish my local PBS station was airing Mr. Nye. But, alas, not so much ...
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:49 PM on December 13, 2005

although it's great to see some of Nye's old running buddies doing skits -- Pat Cashman and Bill Nelson in particular. Almost Live was a great show.

I knew they wrote for it (as does John Keister), but didn't know they appeared in it as well. As someone who stays up until 1am on Saturday just to see the Almost Live rerun, I'll have to check this out. Pat Cashman, in particular, is severely underrated. He was sort of a local version of Phil Hartman, and it was sad seeing him stuck doing infomercials a couple years back.
posted by Gary at 3:02 PM on December 13, 2005

Cashman is hilarious. Back in the day when he worked at KING-TV he used to throw these killer thematic Halloween parties - with animatronic dummies and the works. I used to be roomies with a guy, Scott Schaefer, that worked for Almost Live. Damn they were fun. Seattle used to be fun.

I have to say I simply HATE this new Nye show. He needs to take his frigg'n ego out of it. The content has great potential. But goddamn talk about dated - the production design is god-awful. For Christ sake Bill can you take your face and the stupid comic gimmicks out for five seconds. And the "Eyes of Nye"? WTF?
posted by tkchrist at 3:56 PM on December 13, 2005

"Decaf? What are you, high?"

Yeah, definitely a humor element retained. Also, I like that he presents the flipside, even if as a token gesture.

Also, fellow Cornellian!
posted by Eideteker at 5:36 PM on December 13, 2005

But, they are also surprisingly easy to (something)...

Indeed they are. Particularly the Eyes of Nye (at least as far as I can tell). Does anyone else get Bill Nye and Matthew Lesko mixed up? I always forget which is which.
posted by panoptican at 12:13 AM on December 14, 2005