See, in the 80s, it was still legal to kidnap children. That all changed when Americas Most Wanted was invented by FOX, but before that all happened, one particularly intelligent man with a propensity for video cameras and science and an affinity for little kids brought magic to our worlds each morning.

Mr. Wizard

Now, Mr. Wizard was a dick. I won’t embellish that aspect of his personality, since it makes me sick because we all know someone like that (Tony Schiavone, Barack Obama, Chris). Those people who hate being wrong and have to know everything. But that’s for another day. Today, were reviewing his fucking TV show.

Episode 4 begins Mr. Wizard conversing with his latest kidnapping victim, who he has decided to teach sound and light concepts to (before killing later off camera). Mr. Wizard asks the youngster something about sound he knows the answer to, which pisses off Wiz, so he pulls a gun on him.

Now, I know he’s explaining science to the kid, but this nutty old man actually aims the loaded weapon at the face of the kid while waving his arms like a fool while explaining. Several times.

For some reason, we witness every long second of Mr. Wizard getting into his ancient car and driving away.

Next, I don’t know if this is a boy or a girl.

Mr. Wizard teaches the future lesbian a trick to fool her friends (my iPhone changed “trick” to “truck” twice. What a piece of shit.) He uses a plastic, clear cylinder (she will keep this, and the haircut, for years) and some writing on paper. He writes all of the letters that appear the same inverted in red and the rest in black. This makes it seem like the color red isn’t affected by the cylinder. Magic.

Wizard gives us a brief explanation of how many stars there are in the universe. He mispronounces a word (unless you use a cal-cuh-later). Next, a new kid.

At first, it looks like he’s getting her boozed up on vodka (and I still suspect he was). But we soon see this as a musical experiment. Wiz knocks something over!! But we don’t know what. “Well keep going” he tells her rudely, when she stops. The girl incorrectly guesses that the water vibrating is causing the sound. Wiz corrects her, “The GLASS! If water was vibrating, it wouldn’t make a sound.” Cool, thanks for making me look stupid old man. “It needs have more mass in it” she clumsily exclaims. So Wizard tells her to say when and begins pouring water into the glass. She says “when” but Mr. Wizard then has to start Chris’in and says “Doesn’t sound right.” He pours about two teaspoons of water in, tests it, then takes two teaspoons of water out – and of course THEN it sounds perfect. After HE did something to it. People – recognize this mental sickness in your brains and neutralize it. The only people who tolerate it are trash, so you may suddenly know why you’re only around that kind of person. Mr. Wizard actually suggests this as something fun for kids to do on a rainy day. Or you know what else they could do? Burn things. Back when this show was made, there wasn’t much on TV (and even less for little kids. During the day, you had Nick Jr and nothing else.)

Time to explore New Frontiers – a SPELLING CHECKER. Mr. Wizard types a sentence with lots of wrong words and runs the checker.

I can’t finish a sentence in 2013 without spell check working (on Apple devices, “working” is not the correct word). Then, we hear some awful humming noises and see this:

Yes, it used to take minutes to spell check a sentence. But when it finishes a few days later (really, it took several minutes), it doesn’t even change the word! Just tells you that it’s wrong. Sucky spell checker. Wiz types with one finger at a time. Each key sounds like a lever.

More stuff. Shit about forest fires. Then, we see Mr. Wizard getting some through the window.

The girl is wearing uncomfortably short shorts. And the show abruptly ends.