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Beakman vs. Nye (not gaming news)
   ^{[ posted by: R.I.P ]}

I was over at Jump the Shark today, checking up on current opinion on Enterprise (theme music sucks!), and happened to read the entry for Beakman's World... For those of you who never watched this show, it was one of two "kids science" shows that were very popular during the mid-nineties (the other being Bill Nye: Science Guy).

Anyways, so here I am reading all of these fan-boys spaz at which show was better Beakman or Nye, and it really made me laugh. A couple of years ago me and my wife had a discussion comparing the merits of each show in regards to our children. We determined that both shows were actually pretty good, but totally incomparable, and targeted at different audiences.

Beakman consisted of lot's of subjects on a loose theme, with alot of humor aimed more at an older child audience. Very fast paced, rapid-fire, facts... facts... humor... facts. Nothing analyzed in heavy detail though, just a bombardment of facts related to a theme. This is very appropriate for a pre-teen/teenager crowd that's good to watch for general information/knowledge, and really aimed at informing a quickly bored audience.

On the other hand Nye's show takes a single subject an drills down to the hairy details of only that specific subject for the entire length of the show. For instance a show on liquids will cover everything from molecular cohesion and fluid dynamics, to how much water you need to drink everyday. Very subject specific shows, very detailed on the single subject, and lots of simple physics. The show really spends it's time hammering home a single thought or idea, instead of jumping all over the place. This show is also aimed at a pre-teen crowed, but due to the detailed focus it works well for elementary aged kids as well. ...oh, and let's not forget all the great parody music videos (my favorites being the episodes with one of the kids from Kris Kross).

Anyways, this has nothing to do with gaming, but both shows were really good if you look at them for what they were... Personally I felt they were a nice complement to each other because they both reached out and helped educate alot of kids on a wide array of science knowledge.

...Oh yeah, and check back around January 1st. We're planning another update.

Cheers!

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