Updated 6/15/2007
“For informal resources that helped shape many of today’s science leaders, pay a visit to Mr. Wizard’s Studios at www.mrwizardstudios.com. An NSTA president recently recalled how she used to rush home from school to watch Mr. Wizard on television and how Don Herbert became her inspiration to pursue a career in science education. It’s hard to imagine a more compelling case for informal science education.”—from NSTA’s portal for informal science education
NSTA member Donald Jeffrey Herbert—better known as Mr. Wizard—started it all back in 1950 when he developed an idea for a children’s science television series based on science demonstrations. Though potential advertisers initially showed no interest in Herbert’s creation, on March 3, 1951, Watch Mr. Wizard debuted nationally on NBC, with Herbert starring as Mr. Wizard. Little did he know that his series would ultimately spawn a “family tree” of scientists and science educators who would teach the subject on television.
Who is Don Herbert/Mr. Wizard? Born on July 10, 1917, in Waconia, Minnesota, Herbert showed interest in both science and acting. In 1940, he graduated from Wisconsin’s La Crosse State Teacher’s College with a double major in science and English. He also was active in college dramatics.
World War II interrupted Herbert’s radio acting and writing career, but his stint in the army as a B-24 bomber pilot earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the rank of captain. After the war, he acted in children’s radio programs such as It’s Your Life, a documentary health series. It was this work that inspired him to create Watch Mr. Wizard, a weekly half-hour program, broadcast on the new medium of television, that explained the science behind ordinary things. The show’s format was basic: Every Saturday morning, a neighbor boy or girl would come to visit Mr. Wizard and perform simple experiments that used household items. The series explored about 400 science topics from archaeology to zoology.
Watch Mr. Wizard was a hit: By 1954, it aired on 91 stations. In 1952, Mr. Wizard’s Science Secrets was published by Popular Mechanics; Mr. Wizard Science Clubs were established throughout North America, numbering 50,000 by 1965; and a Billboard survey of television stations hailed Watch Mr. Wizard as “the leader in popularity of educational films.” Herbert received a Peabody Award for his work in 1953, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Chemical Society praised the show for increasing interest in science.
A second book, Mr. Wizard’s Experiments for Young Scientists, was published by Doubleday in 1959 and eventually was translated to Spanish, French, and Japanese. The following year, Herbert developed Mr. Wizard Science Kits involving chemistry, ecology, crystals, and hydroponics.
Watch Mr. Wizard went off the air in 1965, but its cancellation did not deter Herbert from his work in science education. That year, along with the late 1967–68 NSTA President Morris Shamos, Herbert co-wrote and illustrated 10 articles in Instructor magazine’s series Science for the Classroom From Mr. Wizard. The following year, Herbert produced the Science 20 film series in which students record data while watching films. He also served as a consultant and on-camera presenter on the CBS National Science Test.
A third book, Mr. Wizard’s 400 Experiments in Science, was published by Book-Lab, Inc., in 1967. Herbert formed Mr. Wizard Enterprises, Inc., to raise funds for the production and distribution of Mr. Wizard classroom films. In 1968, he produced 10 20-minute classroom films in the Science 20 series and nine classroom films of various lengths. He exhibited these films at an NSTA conference. In 1969, the Mr. Wizard Science Center opened in a Boston suburb.
Herbert continued his science education and acting careers throughout the 1970s. Watch Mr. Wizard was briefly revived by NBC from 1971 to 1972 as Mr. Wizard Close Ups, 30-second spots produced by Herbert that aired on Saturday mornings. These broadcasts were nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children’s Programming by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1977. Herbert also wrote and acted in four 90-second commercials explaining electricity on The GE Theater, and NSF awarded him a grant to produce 26 reports as samples in the How About … series.
In 1979, Herbert signed a contract with Educational Consultants of America to begin presenting live performances by Mr. Wizard’s assistants to elementary schools. The same year, a fourth book, Mr. Wizard’s Supermarket Science, was published by Random House. (NSTA and the Children’s Book Council included the book in their 1980 roundup of Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children.)
Starting in 1983, Mr. Wizard’s World, a faster-paced version of Watch Mr. Wizard, aired three times a week on the cable channel Nickelodeon. The show produced 78 episodes until 1990, when it continued to be broadcast as reruns. This new incarnation also had an Ask Mr. Wizard segment in which Mr. Wizard answered questions sent in by viewers. (Episodes of Watch Mr. Wizard were re-broadcast in 2005 on the digital cable channel The Science Channel.)
In 1994, Herbert developed another new series of 15-minute spots called Teacher to Teacher With Mr. Wizard. This NSF-sponsored series, which highlighted individual elementary science teachers and their projects, aired on Nickelodeon.
When he wasn’t appearing on his own programs, Herbert was a frequent and popular guest on such shows as The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, Late Night With David Letterman, and The Hollywood Squares.
During his career, Herbert earned many awards in addition to the Peabody Award for his work on Watch Mr. Wizard. He was honored with three Thomas Alva Edison National Mass Media Awards; a Golden Anniversary Award from Ohio State University as an “outstanding individual who has made a significant contribution to broadcasting and whose activity represents the highest order of work which has allowed broadcasting to educate, inform, and culturally enrich audiences" (1985); and an American Association for the Advancement of Science/Westinghouse Science Journalism Award for Distinguished Television Science Reporting (1986). In 1991, the American Association of Physics Teachers presented Herbert with its Robert A. Millikan Award for his “notable and creative contributions to the teaching of physics.”
Don Herbert’s television series paved the way for other scientists/science educators to bring the subject to the airwaves. One such person is NSTA Life Member Steven “Jake” Jacobs, educator, scientist, author, and host of Jake’s Attic, a science series that aired on Fox television. Jacobs was Mr. Wizard’s apprentice for 20 years and served as science consultant for Mr. Wizard’s World. He also has performed his famous “electric pickle” demonstration on The Tonight Show with host Jay Leno. Jacobs currently works on NSTA’s Development Advisory Board and is chief scientist for the Discovery Channel/Faraday Studios.
NSTA member Steve Spangler’s September 7, 2005, post on his blog is titled “My Hero … Don Herbert, the Original Mr. Wizard.” Spangler writes, “I remember watching him as a kid and being impressed by the fact that while he was amazing, he didn’t have a laboratory or wear a lab coat. He just looked like a friendly guy who did amazingly cool science experiments in his garage…what a great neighbor! In contrast to television today, I was struck by the fact that he would allow an experiment to fail. Why didn’t they edit it out? Because he believed that failure was so important for children to see.”
Spangler has made more than 240 network television appearances as an authority on hands-on science. His science demonstrations and kid-focused activities earned him an Emmy as the science host of NBC’s News for Kids in 1997. He continues to use the airwaves as his classroom to reach more than one million viewers each week on 9NEWS on KUSA-TV in Denver.
Paul Zaloom, host of the Emmy award-winning science educational television series Beakman's World, shared his thoughts about Herbert. "Mr. Wizard was the daddy of all of us TV scientists and a big inspiration for Beakman's World; the other big influence was [comedian] Soupy Sales. I watched Mr. Wizard as a kid back in the 50s, along with Soupy, and the idea of combining these two kinds of on-camera hosts influenced me a lot when we were creating the show. Don Herbert blazed the trail for all of us who followed, showing us how science can be explored and exposed in an entertaining, compelling way that kids can connect to their own lives." Zaloom added that his series paid tribute to Herbert by featuring two penguins named Don and Herb.
Besides serving as a role model for science broadcasters, Herbert has inspired countless students to pursue science careers. A blogger observes, “Ahh, I always said, if I ever win an award for my work (I’m a research geneticist), I would thank Mr. Wizard’s World for igniting my interest in science.”
Update: 6/15/2007
Don Herbert passed away on June 12, 2007. See the Resolution sponsored by Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers in the US House of Representatives and the letter he sent to colleagues inviting them to cosponsor (it includes a Mr. Wizard-like experiment).