Thursday, January 22, 1998
From acetylene to zinc, Beakman explains it all
TELEVISION: Popular program proves to both children, adults that
science is meant to be fun
By Megan Dickerson
Daily Bruin Contributor
To parents, it’s mucus. To kids, it’s snot.
And on "Beakman’s World," Paul Zaloom explains it all.
No scientific subject is sacred in the fast-paced, cellar-like
science lab of Zaloom, known to Saturday morning TV watchers as
Beakman. Like a Grandpa Munster in Technicolor, Zaloom bounces
around bowling trophies and gurgling green test tubes, explaining
subjects from the conservation of energy to farting. But the most
phenomenal aspect of the unconventional show is that about 50
percent of its wide audience is adults.
This is something that Zaloom, who brings his one-man science
exhibition to the Veterans Wadsworth Theater on Saturday, finds
delightfully important.
"(Parents) will come up to me and say in this really
conspiratorial tone, ‘You know, we like the show even more than the
kids.’ And it’s just funny because it happens all the time, and
they think they’re the only ones saying that. But it’s something I
feel that families do together, that they watch together, and
that’s cool."
Zaloom’s innovative CBS science show, which is in its sixth
season, is a definite break in the Periodic table/frog dissection
learning traditionally found in the classrooms of yore. The
half-hour long show blends basic scientific concepts with
multi-level humor, a man-sized lab rat, and two sardonic penguins.
The cavernous set itself houses 34 globes of the world, 36 bicycle
tires, 9 toasters, 6 bowling trophies and 2 beauty salon dryers.
All this synthesizes into a phenomenon that has led Zaloom to the
forefront of children’s television.
Part of the wide appeal of "Beakman’s World" is that it does not
talk down to its young viewers. "You know, you can patronize
children, and they’re not going to learn as quickly," Zaloom says.
"And plus, parents will find it annoying, the show, and won’t watch
it. So it’s better from an educational standpoint if the parents
like the show and the kids like the show because then they’ll watch
it together and they’ll experience it together."
This interactive element is what appeals so much to parents,
educators and even young adults. The show, which is based on the
syndicated column "You Can With Beakman and Jax" by Jok Church, is
filled with mini-experiments that almost any child – or adult – can
do with household goods.
All this is a radical change from even the way the fabled Mr.
Wizard presented science to the masses, according to elementary
school teacher Linda Powell.
"It would be hard for a child to actually understand the
concepts that Mr. Wizard was presenting," says Powell, who teaches
the fourth grade at Longfellow Elementary in Whittier. "Mr. Wizard
used Bunsen burners, big vials and safety goggles – equipments that
couldn’t be easily duplicated in a home setting. Beakman’s really
down to earth, and the child is able to grasp the concept that he’s
trying to get across."
Powell, like many baby-boomers, remembers grade school science
as consisting of scanning paragraphs and answering questions. She
never remembers doing an experiment. Zaloom echoes these
sentiments.
"Science wasn’t applied enough for what was really going on. In
other words, it wasn’t applied to real things in real life," Zaloom
says emphatically. "It was too much rote memorization. Science was
never pitched to us as a creative endeavor."
The show definitely addresses scientific questions in a creative
manner. To explain the chemical make-up of what some might call
"snot," Zaloom took a trip up a giant pipe nostril and was
blanketed in 700 pounds of Hollywood mucus.
"The snot, like, leaked in and was squishing between my toes,"
Zaloom says. "It was kind of cool." Stunts like this have garnered
the show a loyal audience that even includes UCLA students in a
variety of fields.
"Beakman kicks Bill Nye’s ass up and down the science show
court," says second-year business economics student Nicholas
Willenbring, who has taken biology classes but has never found it
to be a focus. "The show appeals to my extremely short attention
span."
"A lot of people say, ‘Oh, you make science fun,’" Zaloom says.
"My thing is, we don’t make science fun – we just put the fun back
in science that was yanked out of it. It was always fun."
A veteran performer and political satirist, Zaloom began his
entertainment career with the Bread and Puppet Theater, an
influential troupe specializing in "self-invented, home-made
theater." In his solo work, he has utilized an unique repertoire of
skills, including found-object animation, in which he takes objects
as varied as coffee pots and humidifiers and turns them into
elements of political satire. While Zaloom has no background in
science, his insatiable curiosity and improvisational style more
than make up for it.
"If I don’t understand the concepts we’re expressing on the
show, then I figure the children probably won’t get it either,"
Zaloom says. "So (I say) ‘let’s see if we can work together to make
it a little clearer, more understandable.’"
And in doing so, Zaloom is bridging a generational gap. At his
show on Saturday, he expects at least half of the audience to be
adults. In this, he is perhaps filling a scientific niche left
vacant by years of routine classroom science.
"What we’re trying to do is just open the doors to science, that
have been kind of locked shut," Zaloom says. "We’re trying to say,
look, this isn’t so intimidating. And it’s actually kind of
fun."
EXHIBITION: Paul Zaloom appears at the Veterans Wadsworth
Theater Saturday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25, $22 (half price for
children 16 and under) and $9 with UCLA I.D. For more information,
call (310) 825-2101.
UCLA Center for the Performing Arts
Paul Zaloom makes science fun for children and adults alike.