Square One (TV series)

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For other uses, see Square One (disambiguation).

Square One
The Square One Logo
Genre	Educational
Running time	30 minutes
Starring	Reg E. Cathey Beverly Mickins Arthur Howard Larry Cedar Luisa Leschin Cynthia Darlow Cristobal Franco Beverly Leech Toni DiBuono Joe Howard see also crew)
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	PBS
Original run	January 26, 1987–November 6, 1992
No. of episodes	230
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Square One Television, sometimes referred to by the shorter title Square One, was a children's television show produced by the Children's Television Workshop to teach mathematics and abstract mathematical concepts to young viewers. Originated and broadcast by PBS in the United States from 1987 to 1992, the show was intended to counter the so-called "math crisis" among American schoolchildren. It has since been rated TV-Y7. The show was revived for the 1995-1996 PBS season as Square One TV Math Talk. Square One was also shown on the U.S. cable television channel Noggin in syndication beginning in 1999, but was removed from its lineup along with other Children's Television Workshop shows on May 26, 2003.

Contents 1 Sketches 2 Trivia 2.1 University of Michigan athletics 2.2 Trivia 3 Sources of Funding 4 External links

[edit] Sketches

Square One comprised short sketches that introduced and applied concepts in mathematics such as counting, combinatorics, vulgar fractions, estimation, probability, and geometry. The sketches featured regular characters and were mainly parodies of pop culture icons or popular television shows:

• Music videos, similar to ones seen on MTV, used a particular subject in mathematics and taught the subject through song.
• Mathman, a parody of Pac-Man, helped viewers learn to recognize common mistakes while solving math problems, such as forgetting to carry a digit, or making errors with negative numbers.
• Pauline's Perilous Pyramid taught addition and subtraction with negative and positive numbers. It is reminiscent of Q*bert, except the pyramid is numbered with positive and negative numbers. Each time she jumped on a square, that number was added to her score. Her goal was to reach the top of the pyramid and keep her score between +25 and -25.
• Mathnet, a parody of Dragnet, was distinguished by its quirky scripts and guest stars. Each episode of Square One ended with a Mathnet segment, and each Mathnet story spanned five episodes. On a few occasions, all five segments of a story were aired back-to-back in prime-time specials on PBS.
• Late Afternoon with David Numberman, a parody of Late Night with David Letterman.
• Mathcourt, a parody of The People's Court, applied Mathematics to solve cases.
• General Mathpital, a parody of General Hospital.
• Dirk Niblick of the Math Brigade, an original idea, was distinguished from most of the other sketches in that it was animated.
• Zook & Alison, an animated segment featured in later seasons. In each episode, Uncle Wilt took some sort of trip to Earth without securing permission from his wife (whereupon she always cried, "FIND UNCLE WILT!") and Zook and Alison had to use mathematics to locate him and bring him home. In one episode they triangulate his location on a map using the clue that Wilt is "equidistant from Venice, Milan, and Florence." The segment was unique in that the characters and scenery were not colored in, but were multi-colored outlines against a solid black background.
• FAX HEADFUL, a computer animated addition to the final season, and a sendup of Max Headroom. FAX's monologues typically involved statistics and estimation, such as his musing on population density, or average yearly donut consumption.
• Nobody's Inn, a parody of Fawlty Towers.
• A segment called Oops!, in which someone would make an erroneous calculation or computation, after which would be shown a clip of a disaster from an old movie. The person would say "Oops" and correct the error. Then the announcer would say "Oops! has been brought to you by erasers. Don't make a mistake without one."
• Math-related magic tricks and performances by Harry Blackstone, Jr.
• Several parodies of game shows:
  • But Who's Counting? an original bearing some resemblance to Wheel of Fortune;
  • Let's Do a Deal, a parody of Let's Make a Deal.
• Several mini-game shows using actual child contestants and awarding small prizes:
  • Piece of the Pie, a survey-based game show similar to Family Feud, using pie charts and teaching percentages;
  • Close Call, a game show about estimation, using "how many beans are in this big jar" type of questions, and bearing a similarity to The Price is Right.
  • Triple Play, a show teaching addition and multiplication;
  • But Who's Adding (Multiplying)?;
  • Square One Squares, a tic-tac-toe game similar to Tic-Tac-Dough; this later evolved into Square One Challenge, bearing a similarity to To Tell the Truth.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] University of Michigan athletics

The number of references to the Michigan Wolverines that appeared in the show leaves little doubt that the people behind the show counted fans of the school among their ranks. In fact, executive producer David Connell and head writer Jim Thurman were both Michigan graduates.

• The show would occasionally feature a segment about estimation in which a Michigan cheerleader would place a small object (e.g., a hamburger, a playing card, or a ping pong ball) in the corner of the playing field of Michigan Stadium. The viewer was then asked to estimate how many of the same object it would take to fill (or cover the field of play of) the stadium.
• Mathman was a walking green head in a Wolverines football helmet.
• In one Dirk Niblick segment, his mother posed a riddle about probability which mentioned a drawer full of maize and blue socks (Michigan's team colors are maize and blue).
• Another Dirk Niblick episode called "Do Not Fold, Spindle or Tape" had Dirk's old college friend Wrongway wearing a GO BLUE! shirt backwards. "GO BLUE!" is a Wolverines battle cry.
• In a number of Dirk Niblick mini-segments where he conversed with his mother on the phone, her "speech" was the University of Michigan's fight song.
• Among other sightings of U of M logos, a member of a ship's crew during an episode of Mathnet staged in Monterey, California wore a cap commemorating Michigan's 1989 Final Four (NCAA men's basketball) appearance.
• There were also a number of joking references to U of M's longstanding cross-state rivalry with Michigan State University. Two examples, both from Mathnet, included a villain saying that he had flunked out of U of M and "had to finish at Michigan State," and another villain having attended "Michigan Agricultural College" (MSU's original name) in "West Lansing."
• Another episode of Mathnet involved the kidnapping of a rockstar for a ransom to rent the University of Michigan Marching Band to play a march written by the kidnappers.
• In another episode of Mathnet, a reference was made reflecting the rivalry between U of M and The Ohio State University. While examining a list of bank accounts that had been robbed, the Ohio State Alumni fund was noted as having lost $136. When Kate Monday states, "At least they didn't get much," George Frankly replies, "What do you mean? They cleaned the whole thing out!"

[edit] Trivia

• Cartoonist Jim Jinkins, popular for his show Doug, worked on the show doing animated shorts for the show.

[edit] Sources of Funding

Among the funders of Square One were

• The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (1987–1988)
• The Carnegie Corporation of New York (1987–1991)
• The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• IBM (1987)
• The National Science Foundation
• The United States Department of Education (1987–1988)

The National Science Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were the only permanent funders for Square One. IBM funded the show for season 1 only, and the Department of Education and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded the show for seasons 1 and 2 only. The Carnegie Corporation funded the show for all but the last season.

[edit] External links

• SquareOneTV.org - Fan page with show history and context
• TV Tome: Square One - Show trivia and cast information
• Square One & Mathnet video clips
• Square One TV at the Internet Movie Database