Bill Nye the Science Guy is an American half-hour live action science program that originally was syndicated by Walt Disney Television to local stations from September 10, 1993 to June 20, 1998 and also aired on PBS from 1994 to 1999. It was hosted by Bill Nye. The show aired for 100 half-hour episodes spanning five seasons. Known for its quirky humor and rapid-fire MTV-style pacing, the show won critical acclaim and was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, winning nineteen.^[1] Studies also found that people that viewed Bill Nye regularly were better able to generate explanations and extensions of scientific ideas than non-viewers.^[2]

While performing in a sketch comedy television show in Seattle called Almost Live! during the 1980s, Nye cultivated a science-explaining TV persona. One famous incident on the show led to his stage name. He corrected another host, John Keister, on his pronunciation of the word "gigawatt", and the nickname was born when Keister responded, "Who do you think you are—Bill Nye the Science Guy?"^[3] In 1993, he developed a Bill Nye the Science Guy pilot for PBS member station KCTS-TV in Seattle. Nye collaborated with James McKenna, Erren Gottlieb and Elizabeth Brock to plan and create the show for KCTS.^[4] The group pitched the show as Mr. Wizard meets Pee-wee's Playhouse.^[5] He successfully obtained underwriting from the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy. Nye's program became part of a package of syndicated series that local stations could schedule to fulfill Children's Television Act requirements.^[6] Because of this, Bill Nye the Science Guy became the first program to run concurrently on both public and commercial stations.^[6]

Nye plays a hyper-kinetic tall and slender scientist wearing a blue lab coat and a bow-tie.^[7] He combines the serious science of everyday things with fast-paced action and humor. Each half-hour show begins with a cold open, where Nye introduces the episode's topic, which leads into an opening credit sequence, and featuring Nye in a computer animated scientific world, along with his head spinning, radio frequencies, and plastic toy dinosaurs flying. In later seasons, the theme song was cut short by a static screen. After the opening credits, announcer Pat Cashman would say "Brought to you by...", in which a product name was related to the episode's topic, followed by Nye walking onto the set, called "Nye Laboratories", which is filled with scientific visuals including many "of science" contraptions announced dramatically, relevant to the topic of the episode. Parodies of movies and television shows configure the facts of the episode's topic. Guest appearances included Christopher Walken, Samuel L. Jackson, Harrison Schmitt, Jenna von Oÿ, Robin Leach, John Ratzenberger, Ross Shafer, Graham Kerr, Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, Bob Ross, Willard Scott, Richard Karn, Soundgarden, Kenny G, Pat Sajak, Vanna White, Cirque Du Soleil, Suzanne Somers, The Flying Karamazov Brothers, Pat Cashman, John Keister, Candace Cameron, Alfonso Ribeiro, Sinbad, Edgar Martínez, Nate McMillan, Mudhoney, Drew Barrymore, and Taran Noah Smith. Each episode also featured Nye in diverse places, where he interviews people to talk about their work and other contributions, that was focusing on the episode's topic. "Vivian Cupcake" was a recurring skit on Bill Nye the Science Guy. In these skits, Nye portrayed Vivian Cupcake, where she demonstrated scientific recipes, and "Richie, Eat Your Crust" was a recurring skit, featuring Nye and the Family Crust.

There are several individual segments that are featured in each episode, such as "Way Cool Scientist", which features an expert on the episode's topic, "Consider the Following", where Nye discusses a certain aspect of the episode's topic, "Nifty Home Experiment", where the audience is shown how to do a simple home experiment relating to the episode's topic, "Try This", where the audience is shown how to try a simple demonstration relating to the episode's topic, "Hey! Look at This", where the expert shows us how to give us a closer look by relating to the episode's topic, "Check it Out", where the audience is shown how to affect their environmental issues by relating to the episode's topic, "Clever Science Trick", where the audience is shown how to do a simple science trick relating to the episode's topic, and "Did you know that...", where an interesting factoid related to the episode's topic was presented. "Luna Van Dyke, Private Eye" was one of the recurring segments on the show. The segments featured private eye Luna Van Dyke focusing on a story, that was related to the episode's topic.

Most half-hour episodes contain a mock song parody and music video in the "Soundtrack of Science" by "Not That Bad Records". "Not that bad" is a catchphrase that Nye will often say in those episodes, substituting a scientific roundup of the episode for the lyrics to a popular song. This is usually the last segment of each episode. Each half-hour show ends with Nye saying, "Well, that's our show. Thanks for watching. If you'll excuse me, I've got some..." before explaining his departure in a clever description of an activity on topic, followed by him saying "See ya!" afterwards. After that, a female announcer says "Produced in association with the National Science Foundation" (or "Produced in association with the Walt Disney Television" in the PBS editions). The credits rolled over bloopers from the episode.

In a study that evaluated the pacing of 87 popular children's programs, Bill Nye the Science Guy was found to be the fastest-paced show on television, with a pacing score of 56.90.^[8]

The show was created in 1992 by Bill Nye, James McKenna and Erren Gottlieb, produced by McKenna/Gottlieb Producers, Inc, in partnership with KCTS in Seattle. The following year, the production companies entered a distribution agreement with Buena Vista Television, a subsidiary of Disney.^[9] As part of the agreement, the profits of the show were split between Disney and the production team, with Disney owning full distribution rights across broadcasting, home video, and digital streaming. McKenna and Gottlieb all met while McKenna was a producer on Almost Live!, a Seattle-based comedy show.^[10]

The announcer for the program was Pat Cashman, whom Nye knew from his time on Almost Live!.

Before his show launched, Nye had previously worked alongside Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future: The Animated Series, where he played Doc Brown's assistant and demonstrated several experiments.^[11]

The show has been likened to the next-generation version of Watch Mr. Wizard.^[12][13] The show ran about the same time as and covered similar topics to Beakman's World, in fact sharing one crew member, editor/writer/director Michael Gross.^[14]

The show was primarily funded by the National Science Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the annual financial support from the viewers/stations of the PBS network. Other funding sponsors included Ore Ida, The Boeing Company, and Intel.

Despite Disney's association and ownership with the show, it has never aired on ABC or any network owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group.

The Bill Nye the Science Guy theme song was written by former math teacher Mike Greene.^[15] "The thing that they told me was they did not want it to sound like a kid’s theme song," Greene explained. "They didn’t want it to be safe, basically. They didn’t want to make it sound like stuff that’s already been done. They wanted it to be something that was adventurous and a little bit more daring than what a theme song, at that time, would be. It was much more common to have a song that would be like, 'Bill Nye’s gonna teach you some science.' Something that’s a little bit cheesier. They wanted to go as far away from cheesy or safe as they could get."^[15]

Greene said that he was inspired by Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo when composing the theme and used his voice for singing the "Bill Nye the Science Guy" refrain.^[15] "I used my voice for the first demo to send to the producers, Jim and Erren," he said. "After they approved it, I hired singers because I wanted to make it better. I hired a guy to sing it who sounded pretty cool. He had like a rock‑and‑roll kind of voice, so it sounded pretty slick. Then as another option, I hired a girl to sing it to give it a bit more R&B kind of sound. Then I sent those versions to Jim and Erren, and they said, 'Why have you got them on it? We want your voice. It’s funnier.' I thought, 'My voice is funnier??? Good thing I’m not touchy about my singing!' So we kept my voice on there."^[15]

Set to a house beat, Greene enlisted rappers to repeat the word "Bill!" as a percussive shout. "I can’t name them, because it was against their contract to do outside things without permission from their record company," Greene noted. "It was kinda funny, because they were in my studio one day to record a song. I was working on the Nye theme as they walked in and I told them, 'Hey, do me a favor and go in the booth and chant ‘Bill, Bill, Bill’ over and over again.' They had no idea what it was for, but they’re cool, so they did. It sounded great, so that’s the version we kept. The show didn’t air until a year later, so it wasn’t until then that they understood what this was really for."^[15]

In conjunction with the production of Bill Nye the Science Guy, KCTS-TV conducted several research studies that evaluated how effective the program was as an educational tool. In one study, it was found that viewers of the program made more observations and sophisticated classifications than non-viewers.^[2] In surveys of elementary students who watched the program, most children concluded that Nye made “kids like science more.” When surveyed whether Nye was a scientist or actor and comedian, most students asserted he was a scientist, though many said both. Students also described Nye almost equally as both “funny” and “smart,” and believed he was a "source of good information."^[16]

100 half-hour episodes were produced.

During its run, Bill Nye the Science Guy was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, winning nineteen.^[1]

Daytime Emmy Awards

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the series in its entirety on DVD, as part of the series' 20th anniversary.^[17] In the United Kingdom, it was distributed on VHS by ViewTech, Bristol.

As of March 24, 2019, a 31 episode collection is available for streaming on various platforms through Netflix.^[18] As of May 2017, the 1996 episode "Probability" is edited from its original airing, with a segment removed featuring a cast member saying there are only two genders. Netflix denied allegations they edited it (their new series Bill Nye Saves the World features Nye stating gender is on a spectrum) saying "It was delivered to us that way by Buena Vista TV."^[19]

The same set of 31 episodes is also available for purchase on the iTunes Store, though they have been split into two separate volumes; one containing 14 episodes^[20] and the other containing 17 episodes.^[21]

A computer game based on the series, titled Bill Nye: The Science Guy - Stop the Rock!, was released in 1996 for Windows and Macintosh by Pacific Interactive.

Reruns of Bill Nye the Science Guy aired on Noggin (now Nick Jr.) from 2000 to 2002. Since 2016, reruns of the program have been aired on MeTV on Sunday mornings.^[22]