I'm pretty sure we can all agree that children's television nowadays pretty much sucks across the board, doubly so for anything that even tries to enter the realm of things educational. Why is it that if you're going to try to teach a kid something it has to be packaged in a brightly colored, make-the-kids-talk-to-the-TV-like-they're-actually-doing-something-and-then-proceed-to-talk-down-to-them package (Say MAP! What? I can't hear you? You gotta speak SPANISH, dipshit!). Well, I tell you what. Back in my day, we had AWESOME educational TV! Allow me a meander down memory lane...

Square One

A children's variety show about math. Yes, MATH! This is a show that got Weird Al to sing about geometrical patterns, had a segment using Qbert to teach positive/negative numbers and closed every episode with a parody of Dragnet called Mathnet. These guys were geniuses!

Where in the World is Carmen San Diego

I'm not entirely sure of the exact origins of this. All I know is that my bros and I would religiously watch this geography-based game show every afternoon when I returned from school. I didn't know crap about geography (still don't), but that didn't stop me from thinking that I could place this markers better than whatever scrawny kid was doing it that day. Oh, it also had one of the most kick-ass themes of any show ever.

Beakman's World

I suppose you could call this the 90s homage to another entry on this list, but Beakman's World was my introduction to the world of science TV. Now, I'll admit that this show to a degree suffers from the dumbing down for children I was talking about above (the guy in the rat suit, the silliness factor overall and all the toilet humor), but in the end science was explained. Here's a clip that seems rather timely.

Mr. Rogers

Now, I suppose this could be one of the weaker entries on this list, but Mr. Rogers did make frequent excursions to various places such as factories or research centers or whatever. These were the parts of the show I was most fascinated with (that and the trolley). Also, Mr. Rogers was a freakin' saint on Earth, a man who truly practiced what he preached. His '97 Emmy award acceptance speech damn near gets me choked up. Oh, and as a final note, he single handedly saved public television.

Mr. Wizard's World

Finally, the coup de grace. Mr. Wizard had to be the best science show on television ever of all time. He covered everything from air pressure to atomic power to the internals of an Atari 2600. Sure, some stuff is dated by today's standards (word processors, anyone), but even now I am still fascinated by this show. I believe what really makes this work is his laid back attitude and explaining things in a manner that was understandable, but never using diminishing language. Hell, this guy was so awesome even Beakman's World, something one could consider a knock-off, named the two penguin puppets after Mr. Wizard: Don and Herbert. Rest in peace, Mr. Wizard!

I'll toss in a quick honorable mention to Bill Nye (the last of the big science guys), but I didn't watch his show quite as much and iirc, he delved more in science theory rather than the live demonstration of Mr. Wizard and Beakman.

I've been lamenting the fact that there are no good (or maybe any) science shows for kids for quite some time, but even the rest of the landscape seems to be crumbling away as seen by these gems of my childhood. All I know is that I will do my very best to subject my spawn to these great shows and hopefully they will pull away some of the inspiration and wonder that I did.