Shark Bytes

Since it doesn't look like we are ever going to get that SQ1TV DVD set, I guess I'll have to resort to Plan B: The New Square One TV. I thought about this a couple of days ago. There could be skits like "Mathrix Reloaded" and "23:56:4.09" (where the protagonist works at CTW, not CTU) as a take off of "24".
(My personal favorite is SINEfeld, but those upper echelons of math are over the kids' heads). I just need some new game shows (just off the top of my head right now, I'm working on some kind of "Math Survivor" where kids who get problems wrong are eliminated until one remains as a winner). I also need some (modern) music videos to parody, a wardrobe budget, and a video camera. Then I'll get to work. See you on YouTube!

Picture this: A few months after the television writers resume work, randomly flipping through channels, we are treated to a familiar sound- the Square One theme song! As we anxiously await the first skit, we wonder: What will it be? Dirk Niblick? Mathman?
As the theme song ends, our questions are answered. The cast members, 20 years older, are singing a song we know we've heard before; a sense of deja vu hits us. As we listen closer, the words get clearer and clearer.
-"On... and on... and on... and on"...
The cast, singing the "Infinity" song, like they never left the studio, two decades later. The perfect way to start the show. Oh, if only...

I hope someone's still looking at this. I was in kindergarten when Square One TV came on the air...I remember my teacher telling the class about it, and going home to check it out. LOVED THIS SHOW..almost as much as I loved old Sesame Street (which yay! are finally coming out on DVD).

Seems funny...of course, Mathman was so cool...but I think my favorite bit was the song about "Tessalations" done to the tune of Good Vibrations.

Why can't they put this on DVD? I have an almost three year old that I'm trying to expose to so little of what's out there today...but I don't want her sheltered...I'd like her to see what I got to see as a child.

I'm just as nuts about old Sesame AND about the Muppet Babies (the cartoon) which was my all time favorite.

Someone mail me if you have good news about DVD releases! spiralhead@hotmail.com

Still the greatest show ever. Loved in Season 7 where "Common Multiple Man" went up against his archenemy, "Least Common Denominator Man" in the great math face-off of 1993. What other possible series could teach you that 9 x 3,487 = 31,383? 20 years later, "Nine, Nine, Nine" still holds true. It always works!

Please bring this back, some way, in some form. Best show ever.

Passing thoughts: Okay, we haven't got our seasons yet. If CTW is being cautious about doing whole seasons of SQ1 because they are afraid of how well it will sell (and it will sell, baby! You can take that to the bank!), then how about testing the waters with the "CTW Presents: The 20th Anniversary/ Top 20 Moments of Square One TV DVD"? Price it at $9.99 ("Nine, Nine, Nine"... I swear that was unintentional) and get it to us by Feb. 2008. Make it happen. (Please). Also, being a lover of math, from a mathematical standpoint, an abbreviated title for this show could be "TV", as the square of one is one, and "one tv" is equal to "TV". I'm surprised no one brought this up. See you at the stores.

(Paraphrasing Fraction Rap) Oh boy boy boy boy boy boy boy boy boy boy boy boy boy boy boy. Sorry man, but this show's great, you see, but I can't figure out where the dvds are supposed to be.
One of my favorite shows of all time. It helped me with math, and I thought that George and Kate had such cool jobs. I wanted to be a mathematician up until 1995, when I took advanced algebra and knew that I had to go in a different direction. I know this show helped a lot of people, and I enjoy reading all the posts. This is the next best thing to watching the shows again. If this site is the only connection I will have with SQ1TV again in my lifetime, I will gladly take it. I look forward to reading your future posts.
-Thad Green

Kate Monday was replaced by Pat Tuesday. No offense to the actor, but it threw off the magic.

MATH MAN RULES!!! The last post was awesome. I just recalled Mr. Glitch right after Mathman got one of the problems right. "grrrrsnnrwhadahmmmerrr". And the closing flurry when Mathman freaks out followed by some dismissive murmur by Mr. Glitch. I too used to flip on Square 1 loving it all but only getting the complete fix if Mathman appeared. I'm pissing myself thinking about it. I was in High School. Dirk Niblick was also without peer.

This show never jumped! I was just scouring the site and the name rang a bell, and reading this brought many fond memories. I was in middle school when this came out. Since we're all talking about remembered songs, I can remember singing the Less Than Zero song out loud long after the show had ended, even in front of my brother. It was about negative numbers and went "less than zero, he's an ANTI-hero!" Will be checking out that link above later. I think I was prompted to watch it by a spread in a 321 Contact magazine. Mathnet was ok...I still remember Frankly referring to cash as "greenbacks" or "simoleons" thus adding 2 new words to my vocabulary that I use into adulthood. I also remember the bailiff saying "...nothing but the truth, so help you gosh?" But my cornerstone was Mathman. I would watch each show and hope that it would come on. I used to talk along with it the whole time, doing the sound effects and wishing Nintendo made a video game of it. Especially when Mr. Glitch would sit there and beep/grumble to himself while waiting for the answer, and sometimes he'd make a whiny, crying noise when the right answer was given. The best was the panicked chase when he inevitably gave the wrong answer, and the GAME OVER. I remember one time, Mathman actually finished the whole maze and survived, and I felt oddly unfulfilled. Math-man, math-man, math-man...! Turtle head in helmet with one sneakered leg, that's my kind of video game hero, Tommy Vercetti only wishes he was that cool.

I agree with many other people on this site... SQ1TV is simply the best educational program there ever was. It premiered when I was 8 years old, and I haven't seen it since its untimely demise, when I was 12 or 13. Yet occasionally something from the show pops into my head. I looked at TV Tome's episode guide for fun the other night, and I was amazed at how much I still remembered. The music videos: Probability, Palindrome, Less than Zero, 8% of My Love, that one where the Fat Boys added up burgers. I could still remember the melodies, some of the words, and some of the images. The Battle of the Bulge--I remember what the people looked like, how the sketches went, even the numbers on the bottom of the screen to illustrate the point. Mathamn and Mr. Glitch, the occasional "warnings" about solving problems, Mathnet... I remember them all. The point is that I saw these programs over 15 years ago and still remember the specifics. As good as Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers were, I remember more about Square One. Yet it was on a tenth as long and somehow The Powers that Be keep claiming that kids don't like it or it isn't successful... Quite simply put: this show was entertaining, educational, and brilliant. It should never have been canceled and it certainly should still be shown in reruns, or at least released on DVD.

Sure it had some less than desirable elements (A segment that takes up a THIRD of EVERY show (Mathnet), a similarity to Saturday Night Live (albeit when SNL was still good), inconsistant scheduling, and lack of promotion, this show was one the best, and NEVER jumped! I loved Mathnet, Mathman, the mock game shows, the skits, the songs. In fact, some of the skits and songs still stick to my mind this day. Oh, I miss the days of good PBS shows: Square One, (Sesame Street (back when it was good), Mr. Rogers, Electric Company, and now we get crap like Telletubbies and Dragontables (not to mention Sesame Street not being as good as it once was). But, I still loved Square One when it was on.

This is a brilliant little gem of a show that every early elementary and pre-schooler should watch as a compliment to Sesame Street (the Sesame Street of its era, not the one of today). I'm 17 now and about a year ago I found the reruns on Noggin at 4 AM or so and I was surprised at how they still entertained me-- heck, I even learned about combinatorics! This show is half responsible for the very earliest seeds of mathematics planted in my mind and I owe it a lot for my love of math today. Squaaaaare One

never never never, I still sing all the songs to my husband, who thing that I'm crazy for remembering such things,,, "the mathematics of Love" about Roman numerals, "angle Dance",, "teselation","archamedes"...and every time I see one of the actors playing a bit part on a drama or sit-com I think,, ahh, they should have stuck with square one. it was the best

I am a teacher of 8th and 9th grade math and my students love the tapes.