Bill Nye the Science Guy

Hello and welcome to Nineties Institute examination. I will be proctoring this examination. You must use a standard, wooden, graphite-based No. 2 pencil for all portions of the test. Bubbles next to your answers should be filled in completely. All other bubbles should be empty. Be sure to make your marks heavy and dark.

Ready?

Begin!

Question 1: When you think science, what comes to mind?

A) Petri dishes
B) Graduated cynlinders
C) Mysteriously smoking noxious compounds
D) Rap music video parodies

Question 2: Who is to thank for bringing you endless hours of science-based entertainment?

A) Your parents
B) Your teachers
C) Your classmates
D) Viewers like you

Question 3: When something in science excites you, your immediate reaction is to:

A) Record it
B) Share it with the class
C) Continue careful observation
D) Chant wildly, "Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill!"

If you answered all or mostly "Ds," you must have been a fan of Bill Nye the Science Guy. Or at least you watched it in middle school science class.



For some reason, this tall, lanky self-proclaimed "science guy" had a sort of hypnotizing quality over us. Maybe it was the cheesy way in which he and his cast mates sought to relate to contemporary youth culture. Maybe it was his ultra-dramatic voice-overs indicating the scientific value of the subject at hand. Maybe it was his bowties.

In retrospect, probably the bowties.

Although Bill Nye the Science guy was decidedly directed at a preteen audience, it was chock-full of teenage pop culture references. Perhaps the show's writers formulated the ratio Teenage Culture: Preteens ≥ Coolness and thus inferred that Teenage Culture + Science = Cool. It's all very scientific, but I swear it adds up in a deductive reasoning type of way.


In short, the show capitalized on 90s youth culture standards to entice tweens to learn a thing or two about science. If there was ever a more absurd adult-use-of-teenage slang than the catchy Bill Nye slogan, "Science Rules!" I'd like you to show me. Sure, we all knew it was corny, but Bill and the gang presented it to us with such enthusiasm that we often couldn't help but get caught up in it. Often before presenting some seemingly commonplace object, a voice-over would boldly declare "This is the _______....OF SCIENCE!" The ______ of science, indeed.

It also sometimes took on an children-directed sketch-comedy type quality à la All That, such as in this charming cross-dressing segment featuring Bill Nye as the lovely Vivian Cupcake:




Cheesy, yes, but at least you learned something and experienced some mild form of educational entertainment. Bill Nye the Science guy was into well-worn comedic territory in a big way. For some reason as of yet to be explained by indoor kids and middle school science teachers (i.e. the show's main audience,) Bill Nye loved parodies. And not necessarily clever ones, either. We're talking more Weird Al than Christopher Guest. Many of these parody sketches went a little something like this:





Aside from the regular sketch-comedy-esque spoken bits, most episodes also featured a parody music video as well. If I hadn't already mentioned Weird Al, this would be a great time to reference him. Unfortunately, I've already used that one so I may just need to let the following video speak for itself.

I present to you, the grunge-tastic Nyevana as "Smells Like Air Pressure:"



You may be asking yourself, wait, did they really just parody Nirvana in full costume to illustrate a scientific phenomenon? The correct answer would be yes, yes, they did. Nothing is too far in the name of lightly comedic science educational television programming. At least they got the correct dirt-to-hair ratio on that one.

As Nyevana, Sure-Floats-a-Lot , or Carpoolio, the Science Guy and his pals certainly had their finger on the pulse of America's youth. At the very least, they could provide some pertinent information on its beats per minute or arterial pathways.

Check it out:

Funny Bill Nye Onion Parody
Even funnier follow-up inquiry

Choose Your Own Adventure

You find yourself in an underwater palace. You see the walls slowly moving inwards on you, and begin to panic. You have 12 minutes worth of oxygen remaining.

To continue exploring the underwater palace for treasure, turn to page 18.
To swim ashore to safety, turn to page 22.

What would you do? The options are endless! Well, actually, there are only two. But, hey, I get to choose! Let's swim to safety! The word "safety" is right there! A clue!

You are nearly to the shore. Dry land is a mere 100 yards away! You notice a shark encircling you, blocking your escape to safety.

The shark eats you and you proceed to die a tragic, gory, horrifyingly gruesome death.

Okay, so maybe Choose Your Own Adventure books weren't quite so graphic, but there was a lot of dying. The publishers easily could have released a subseries entitled "Choose Your Own Death" and no one would bat an eye.

The omnipresent themes of untimely death led to the inevitable appearance of spoof CYOA covers like this one

Fortunately for persistent and patient (read: cheating) readers, there was usually one measly way out. However, if you took a single misstep (or mispage-turn, as the case may have been) you would have to spend hours retracing your path and trying to save your doomed reader self from certain death in endless capacities. The more savvy and lazy of CYOA readers would flip ahead in search of the heroically safe solution, but the real devotees suffered endless deaths in their quest for ultimate salvation.

Choose Your Own Adventure books were not solely a 90s phenomenon, but certainly enjoyed a heyday during the decade. In step with parenting trends emphasizing the individuality and uniqueness of each child, parents sought out reading experiences that would draw out their child's exceptional qualities. Okay, so maybe that isn't exactly true, but I had you there for a second, didn't I?

Initially formulated in the 1970s as Adventures of You, CYOA pioneer Edward Packard quickly saw the error of his grammatical ways and changed the title to the now known-and-loved Choose Your Own Adventure. You would be hard-pressed to find a more straightforward and self-explanatory name for a book series, but their charm was implicit in their simplicity. Perhaps they weren't literary masterpieces, but their interactivity certainly got kids reading, if only to find out all of the spine-tinglingly grisly forms of death that awaited them at every wrong page turn.

A seriously clever (if somewhat blurry) map of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Book from www.seanmichaelragan.com

With hilariously tongue-in-cheek titles like You are Microscopic (1992) and Tattoo of Death (1995), it was clear the series' authors didn't take themselves too seriously. Certainly there was never another series whose titles so frequently made use of poorly-placed exclamation marks. In fact, it was as if all the authors had taken some sort of Into to Choose Your Own Adventure course with a heavy focus in exclamatory punctuation. Such ridiculous titles as Hijacked! (1990), Kidnapped! (1991), Earthquake! (1992), and Typhoon! (1995) made use of this absurd formatting. It seemed to become a successful CYOA author, you needed only to think of a single theme, italicize it, add an exclamation mark, and you would be immediately added to the publisher's catalog. Come book-order time, your long-awaited title Unneccessary! would shoot to the top of the RL-6 bestseller charts.


Also notable in CYOA stylings was its unique use of familiar pronouns to address the reader directly. Usually, we open a book expecting to be a third party to the story and would be a bit shaken if the author began making direct requests of us. However, Choose Your Own Adventure books were formatted to make the reader feel as if he or she was actually directing of the action, no matter to what extent the quality and grammar would suffer. It was all about you, and it was thus necessary to begin practically every sentence with that pronoun. It's as if the authors feared that if they briefly diverged from constantly referencing the second person singular, the reader would be completely lost. "Well, wait a minute," they'd say, scratching their heads. "I thought this was about me. Why, I'm not in here at all!"

The best part of these books was that plot was generally a secondary feature. The author had used most of his or her talent and energy to produce a fully-functional interactive book that brings a reader to an ending with each read. It was almost as if the plot was an afterthought. After all, who was the author to be writing anything of substance when it was you, the reader, who was to choose his or her own adventure? To illustrate this point, I give you the back-cover copy off classic CYOA #11, Mystery of the Maya. Granted, this particular book was published in 1981, but I assure you it only got worse rather than better:

Your best friend Tom has been in Mexico for a short trip, working on a TV report on the ancient Mayan civilization. Three days ago, he vanished without a trace. The only clues you have are terrible, haunting nightmares where Tom is killed in a Mayan sacrificial ceremony. You must find him before these nightmares become reality! Can you even trust your own dreams? Maybe someone is telepathically leading you off course so you'll never reach your friend in time! What should you do next?

Of course! A Mayan sacrificial ceremony! There is really no other remotely credible explanation for your friend's disappearance. Well, except for that someone may be using their powerful influential ESP to lead you astray. Back of the book, you ask such powerfully deep questions. What should I do next?

If you've yet to get your fix of these, fear not, they're still available at fine retailers everywhere. If you're not into the retro reading, in 1998 they began publishing new CYOA titles under the cleverly-named Chooseco label. Just think, if they can select a company name like that, imagine what sort of choices they have in store for you!

Check it out:
Official Chooseco CYOA site
Choose Your Own Adventure...DVDs?
Awesome CYOA T-Shirt

13 Dead End Drive

Do you enjoy the murder mystery of Clue but yearn for the impossible assembly of Mousetrap? Have you ever said to yourself, why, I really enjoy this board game but I find the simple construction a bit lacking? Perhaps you fancy yourself the type who enjoys poring over 248-step instruction manuals, wishing for more detailed descriptions?

For some people, the journey is more important than the destination. These are the people you see out there now as adults scouring Ikea for the most complicated Splorgerfläts and Hoüfengloubers they can find, if only for the extensive diagrammed wordless instruction packets. They are still out there, looking for their next cheap assembly-induced thrill.

Who says children's games need to be simple? I say sucks to your Hi-Ho Cherry-O and Candyland. I'm talking about something here for our die-hard fans of never-ending, plot-twisting, perpetual board games like Monopoly or Risk. Something that comes with an instructional manual so long that it will make your eyes cross and your brain go numb. Now, if only there was a board game somewhere out there that was equally complicated to the aforementioned interminable bemusement but could be completed in full in roughly a quarter of the time.

13 Dead End Drive was one of these games, and it was gloriously, inimitably complex. In fact, it often required a set-up time nearly as long as the average gameplay. For patient children, however, there was great payoff. For those of us persistent enough to make it through the instruction novella, there was a hefty reward of secret passageways, booby traps, and the aspiration of hanging your character's portrait over the coveted mansion mantelplace.




There's nothing like a children's game with honesty. Kids have all sorts of day-to-day educational exposure from which to garner important if somewhat inapplicable moral lessons. Sometimes, what kids really need is the brutal truth about the way our world works. 13 Dead End Drive was able to fill that void of cynical realism for the under-12 set. The premise of the game centered around a wealthy heirless woman named Agatha whose death had prompted all those who knew her to emerge from the woodwork in hopes of getting their money-grubbing paws on her fortune. Why sugarcoat it? Kids should know it's a cold, cruel world out there, and if they can just obtain the good favor of a wealthy recluse they can undeservedly inherit her hard-earned cash. Nothing wrong with that, right?


For those of you who do not remember the game in all its complexities, I seek to remind you of its intricacies with the following board set-up diagram:



Still not convinced? Here are a couple of close-ups:



If you can't deduce the major aims of the game from those diagrams alone, here's a brief rundown. I'll try to keep it short to keep your head from spinning. At the start of the game, each player picks several cards featuring their assumed character identities. In a large gilt frame above the mansion's fireplace hangs an ever-changing painting featuring the likeness of one of Aunt Agatha's favorites to inherit her millions. While escaping the mansion with one of your characters' portraits displayed in the frame was a way to win and end the game, during the regular course of play it generally meant that everyone else was trying to kill you. Each player could move the game piece of his or her choosing on a given turn, regardless of to whom that character actually belonged. While there are numerous ways in which to emerge victorious, in its most simplified version you were trying to get your character out of this deathtrap safely while displayed as the favorite, end as the sole living potential heir, or go the more honest route and let the detective sort it out while your picture was in the top spot.

Sound confusing? Certainly! Did your eyes glaze over as you found yourself skimming and scrolling down past even that most concise of explanations of the game's rules? Of course! Now, imagine instructions five times as long and twelve times as complex as the preceding paragraph. Also, it was directed at children 8-12. We can only assume that as children, we had far more perseverance and commitment to finish the job than as lazy, web-browsing adults.

It was certainly cool (if a tad cruel) to beam your opponent's game piece on the head with a falling chandelier or a faultily-assembled suit of armor, but these intricate apparatuses don't build themselves. I dare you to check out the assembly instructions and emerge from your reading confident that you when where to attach pieces A-V. The instruction booklet is slightly contradictory in describing its "easy assembly" just briefly before the phrase "Then snap-fit the trigger (J) onto the beam. also in­serting its V-shaped tab into the rod’s slot. See Figure 6B. Hook the small rubber band over the trigger and rod in the notches as shown in figure 6C." Simple, yes?

At least once it was put together, you got to lure your unsuspecting fellow players into well-set mansion traps and bludgeon them to death with all sorts of dangerous fare. There were also innumerable ways in which to be utterly and unapologetically deceitful. You could make use of the secret passageways to push other players into the line of fire. You could also mislead your playmates by strategically choosing to move your own characters into a dangerous area, only to divert their attention from the wicked trap you were springing on one of their guys. In short, the game was endless fun but taught a series of skills more at home in a seedy poker hall than a basement rec room.

Summarily, the game was undoubtedly entertaining but morally bankrupt. At least we could possibly learn a thing or two about construction from putting the thing together. Kids these days would never be that patient and painstaking in their quest for board gaming fun. Right?

Wrong. There was actually a follow-up game entitled "1313 Dead End Drive" released in 2002. I assume their creative department was on break when that name got passed. Instead of 12 potential heirs, the new version includes a frightening 16. In this version, you also get to straight up steal bags of money, cleverly referred to as "moneybags". Reviews of this new version on boardgamegeek.com have such colorful titles as "Light, Fun, Brutal Game" and "Kill, Kill, Kill!", if that gives settles any doubts you may have had about the new game's nature.



Milton Bradley had it wrong. The game was solid enough in its original form. As too often happens with sequels, flashy gimmicks replace the substance we once reveled in. Then again, who am I to rain on today's kids' bout of light, brutal fun? You can purchase the old or new version and decide for yourself.

And for those of you who have graduated to an Ikea-level of assembly expertise, feel free to use the Swedish version of the rules.