In 1973 and 1975, two one-hour television documentaries aired in the US:
In Search of Ancient Astronauts (Parts:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6) and
In Search of Ancient Mysteries (Parts:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6). The same producers also put out
The Outer Space Connection (Parts
1 and
2) in 1975. All were narrated by Twilight Zone's
Rod Serling. In 1976 a series was developed. Since Serling had passed away in 1975, popular actor Leonard Nimoy was chosen as host.
In Search of... ran for six seasons, from 1976 - 1982, and was devoted to discussing unusual mysteries and phenomena. All 144 episodes can be seen on YouTube. Playlists:
Seasons 1 and 2.
Seasons 3 and 4.
Seasons 5 and 6.
posted by zarq
on Apr 23, 2012 -
51 comments
In 1984,
The Voyage of the Mimi set sail on PBS, exploring the ocean off the coast of Massachusetts to study humpback whales. The educational series was made up of thirteen episodes intended to teach middle schoolers about science and math. The first fifteen minutes of each episode were a fictional adventure starring a young Ben Affleck. The second 15 minutes were an "expedition documentary" that would explore the scientific concepts behind the show's plot points. A sequel with the same format,
The Second Voyage of the Mimi aired in 1988, and featured the crew of the Mimi exploring Mayan ruins in Mexico.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 9, 2012 -
36 comments
Day at Night was an interview series on the public television station of the City University of New York that aired from 1973-4. CUNY TV is in the process of digitizing and uploading the 130 episodes that were produced, with 46 done so far. The episodes are just under half an hour in length. Among the people interviewed by host James Day are author
Ray Bradbury, actress
Myrna Loy, medical researcher
Jonas Salk, singer
Cab Calloway, writer
Christopher Isherwood, nuclear scientist
Edward Teller, comedian
Victor Borge, tennis player
Billie Jean King, linguist and activist
Noam Chomsky, composer
Aaron Copland, actor
Vincent Price and boxer
Muhammad Ali.
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 16, 2012 -
6 comments
TV Fact Checkers "Behind every smart TV show, there is a tireless script coordinator, technical adviser, researcher or producer who makes sure the jargon is right, the science is accurate and the pop culture references are on-point." This week, Wired "is speaking with fact-checkers behind the fall TV season’s geekiest shows."
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 22, 2011 -
72 comments
Bill Nye, the-Sci-ence Guy
Biill Nyye, the Science Guuy
Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!
Bill Nye, the-Sci-ence Guy
(Science rules)
Bill Nye, the-Sci-ence Guy
(Inertia is a property of matter)
Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill-Bill-Bill-
Biill Nyye, the Science Guuy
Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!
(T-minus seven seconds)
Bill Nye, the-Sci-ence Guy [more inside]
posted by troll
on Aug 4, 2011 -
101 comments
"Five orphans with a spacecraft battle a lipsticked maniac from the Crab Nebula and his unlikely big flying robots. No one gets hurt."
In 1972, the anime action-adventure show
Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman (
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman,) premiered on Japanese television. Featuring graphic violence, extensive profanity and a transgendered
villain, it was one of the most popular animated series of its time. Envisioning similar success in the US,
Sandy Frank Entertainment acquired the series in 1978 but deemed it too graphic and shocking for domestic audiences. So they hired two Hanna-Barbera vets to "
re-version" totally
bowdlerize the episodes with new scripts, voiceovers music and effects, animation, etc., at a cost of $5 million and turn it into a brand new show:
Battle of the Planets. Here are the
original 1978 Battle of the Planets feature film (in 7 parts,) and the
first 19 episodes of the show, all available on Youtube.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jan 28, 2011 -
61 comments
The Personal Photographs of Dr. Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, Television Pioneer. The screen images are time exposure photographs of the picture on the kinescope in the monitoring rack in the main control room. Some were taken with stationary frames of moving picture film projected upon the iconoscope by a standard moving picture machine. Others are actually the pictures transmitted with the iconoscope camera in the studio and outdoors.
posted by tellurian
on May 3, 2010 -
9 comments
The Eyes of Nye is "
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
on Dec 13, 2005 -
19 comments
The Sky At Night Every episode of the BBC science series made since the end of 2001 viewable online. Anything I know about the universe I learnt from Patrick Moore.
posted by feelinglistless
on Jul 30, 2005 -
17 comments
And they're off! Apparently BBC3 plans to broadcast what it says is the first televised sperm race on April 15—on the educational show
Lab Rats, naturally. The race will be filmed from inside two tiny glass tubes and relayed to a crowd watching at a pub. I wonder what the bookmakers have to say about the event?
posted by terrapin
on Apr 9, 2004 -
2 comments
As a follow-up to his original story, discussed
here, Paul Sheehan has written an
article
detailing recent developments, including
reaction from an ABC science show.
If this is true, it has enormous implications for our health care.
posted by emf
on Sep 1, 2002 -
11 comments
