Science Show
Shows that attempt to teach valuable science lessons in the basic format of a Saturday Morning Kids Show or Sketch Comedy. Usually, each episode is focused on a specific field. The host of such a show is often an endearing Mad Scientist type in a lab coat.
Very common in The Eighties, when making educational programs had major benefits under Reagan administration policy. (See And Knowing Is Half the Battle.)
The Edutainment Show is its parent trope, the Experiment Show is a common form of it.
Examples:
- Bill Nye the Science Guy
- Beakman's World
- The Curiosity Show is an Aussie example.
- Doctor Who began as this combined with a history show. Considering that it now involves fighting alien cyborgs with 'scientific' terms like "instantaneous biological meta-crisis" you can see that its experienced something of a Genre Shift in the last 50 years.
- Mystery Hunters, which showed the science that can be used to explain paranormal activities.
- Newton's Apple
- Not Another Science Show
- Mr. Wizard
- Briefly parodied in an episode of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.
- Repeatedly parodied as a Show Within a Show in Dinosaurs.
- Science Court (later Squigglevision)
- Square One TV, but with mathematics instead of science. (Isn't math actually a science?[1])
- Mixed with Cooking Show to create Alton Brown's Good Eats.
- 3-2-1 Contact, a Retool of The Curiosity Show for American audiences.
- Owl/TV
- Some shows are aimed at young adults rather than children, e.g. Brainiac: Science Abuse, Myth Busters.
- Parodied by Bob and Ray in the "Mr. Science" skits.
- Mari and Gali is a rare Japanese example. Its view on Curie temperature is highly creative, to say the least.
- Definitely at the hard science end are Rough Science and Science Shack, by BBC's Open University.
- Wonder Why, appearing at the beginning of 1990s.
- Oddities
- ↑ No