Media: A Blizzard Of Wizards

Likewise, the producers of CBS's Beakman's World, another science show for the MTV generation, pay homage to Mr. Wizard with two wisecracking penguin puppets named Don and Herb. Don Herbert first appeared on NBC's Watch Mr. Wizard in the early 1950s, and the latest incarnation of his show, Mr. Wizard's World, still appears on the Nickelodeon cable channel.

But new science shows such as Science Guy and Beakman look very different from Mr. Wizard, which for years has featured Herbert in the role of a gentle teacher showing children how to do simple home experiments. The new shows combine humor, slick graphics, fast editing, and other whiz-bang gimmicks to appeal to the shorter attention spans of today's youths. "Everyone has a remote control now,'' Nye says, "and children are used to the pace of MTV and Nickelodeon. If you don't like this bit, just wait 40 seconds, and it will be something new.''

Science Guy is distributed to local television stations by the syndication arm of the Walt Disney Co. On each half-hour show, Nye examines various angles of a single science topic, such as the moon, dinosaurs, or skin. Beakman's World, which began running on CBS last fall after one year in syndication, features performance artist Paul Zaloom as a zany scientist who answers such questions from viewers...