The Science Guy Returns

hende_jman writes "When I was in high school, the dry science videos that I watched in my classes made me miss the silly and sometimes irreverent Bill Nye the Science Guy. So I was excited to read in the latest issue of Wired that everyone's favorite Science Guy is coming out with a new show, The Eyes of Nye where he tackles some more serious issues like addiction, sex, cloning, and climate change."

Comments

Bill Nye is great

[js7a]

I gave him a copy of my TIMIT CD-ROM from the Linguistic Data Consortium, and he accepted it! No other television personality would have been likely to do that, in my estimation.

Eh? Addiction, climate change?

[Telastyn]

It's TV. People don't want serious science, people want entertainment. There's a reason the Mythbusters blow something up each episode!

Speaking of which, I wonder how much that show's success had to do with exec's decision to bring Nye back.

Bill Nye was our graduation speaker....

[Anonymous Coward]

Seemed like a pretty cool guy. Even after his speech, he asked to be part of the line where graduates walked to get their diplomas and shake hands with everybody though he was under no obligation to do so. RPI class of '99.

I want my Almost Live!

[Daetrin]

What i want to know is when is Almost Live going to come out on DVD?! Maybe they think it won't sell well because it has a lot of topical material relevant to the time it was produced, but people still watch reruns of Saturday Night Live and i think Almost Live would fare just as well.

(And if you think this is off topic you need to check up on your Bill Nye history)

Looking forward to it!

[QuantumFTL]

Bill Nye has been quite active in the outreach efforts for the Mars Exploration Rovers mission. Back in the summer of 2003, at a launch party, I had the pleasure of sharing a few drinks with him on the beach one evening, and he was telling me about his ideas for this show. It sounded very cool - Mr. Nye is very insightful and is rightly concerned about a lot of these serious issues.

A side note - he really seems to hate people making a big fuss over him being "the science guy" (then again with that annoying theme song, who wouldn't?). He's just a very sharp guy who has a lot of interest in science and outreach. I think he'll be quite capable at holding the attention of adults.

Also, when he was telling me about the show, it was originally entitled "Through the Eyes of Nye," I wonder why they changed it...

Bill Nye is an oil company goon...

[theWrkncacnter]

I lost my respect for Bill Nye when went on a ride at Epcot called "Universe of Enegry". The ride was sponsored by Exxon, and narrated by Bill Nye and Ellen Degeneres (sp?). Anyway, it was very clear that someone at Exxon had written the script. It totally ruined Bill Nye for me.

Re:Bill Nye is an oil company goon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a link to the script of that EPCOT show, called "Ellen's Energy Adventure". I don't see anything particularly wrong with it.

Re:Not everyone's favorite!

[syukton]

I second this. The first time I found out about LOGO was sitting in front of the television watching Mr. Wizard.

Not to mention the time I learned how to make glue... man. Those were the days. I wonder if old eps of Mr. Wizard are available via bittorent. hmmm.

Mr. Wizard

[SoLO]

Bill Nye was a bit after my time, but does anyone remember Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon? Apparently he was around even when my parents were growing up, on NBC.

Check out this site: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/watchmrw iz/watchmrwiz.htm
for some good history on Don Herbert, the real name of Mr. Wizard.

Here is his official page, which says Don operates the site himself! Cool.

The Astronauts - Bill deserves this show.

[TrevorB]

After seeing Bill Nye do a PBS documentary on shuttle astronauts (very well done and not over the top like science guy) as well as seeing Bill testify before Congress, I knew then that Bill deserved his own science show someday.

Way to go Bill! You've come a long way from "Speed Walker", wiggling your ass in tight shorts superhero costume for laughs on "Almost Live"

bill nye @RPI and BillMaher

[Sebastopol]

Bill spoke at my Alma Mater (RPI) years ago.

He said to remember three things if anything:

1 Use the metric system

2 Never write a memo longer than 1 page

3 Make sure you enjoy what you plan on doing for the rest of your life

Months later I saw him on a panel hosted by Bill Maher with Craig Barret, Pen and Teller, and Peggy Noonan (i think). He was complaining about internet porn affecting people's lives. People laughed, but he was totally serious.

Fascinating man. Even in my late 20's I enjoyed his show on tape as a way to decompress after a long day workin on my PHD

Re:bill nye @RPI and BillMaher

[Napalm Boy]

Not only that, but he insisted on standing up and shaking every single graduate's hand as they received their diploma. The head of the board said it was the only time a guest speaker/honorary doctor had done this in his many years of presiding over commencements. I thought that said a lot about him. Also, he was really cool about signing autographs backstage. I got his on a copy of the graduation program.

I was there, too, but I didn't graduate that year (1999). Although it's arguable if he was the best speaker in the four years of commencement ceremonies I saw ('99-'02, Bill Cosby spoke in '01), he was by far the most down-to-earth and approachable. And he actually tried to reason through his advice, rather than just spouting about all the cool things he'd done or pretending to know better than anyone; he seriously complimented the graduates on what they'd accomplished and gave his advice based on the reasoning that if anybody could actually see these things through, it would be those of us about to go out into the world to design and build.

Re:Not everyone's favorite!

[BakaHoushi]

It's hard to rank famous Science Guys. Personally, I'll just stick with the fact that Bill Nye, Mr. Wizard, and Beakman's World were truly examples of great shows.

Science Guy DVDs

[superultra]

As an expecting father, this made me realize that I'd love to have the entire Bill Nye series for my kid. I loved the series while in college, and always imagined that with whatever band I'd eventually form up we'd know we'd made it when we had a song and music video on Bill Nye.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that there are no DVDs to buy of Bill Nye. For all the crap TV shows that are coming out on DVD this month, how is it possible that Bill Nye has not yet arrived on DVD?

If such a torrent link existed, now would be the time to share it, yes?

Re:Geeks versus nerds

[Monkelectric]

Man, I'm so old... I remember when power rangers came out, and I was like 15... I couldn't believe how much of a dodgey b-grade voltron knock-off it was.

A friend of mine in high schools (we look to be about the same age) cousin was offered the job of the "yellow" power ranger but turned it down thinking it couldn't pay enough. :)