By Kedem Har-Shalom

It was a popular show on PBS that had an innovative and entertaining way of teaching a subject that many students struggled with: mathematics. It became a huge part of my childhood and greatly influenced the way I thought about the world. In many ways, it was my childhood. That show was Square One TV.

Math is one of the most important subjects taught in school. Some would even argue that it is the most important, since mathematics can be found throughout science, technology, engineering, and many aspects of everyday life. However, math has also long been one of the subjects students are most likely to dislike or have difficulty understanding. PBS’s Children’s Television Workshop, which had already found success teaching preschoolers through Sesame Street and encouraging reading through The Electric Company, decided to take on that challenge.

This time, however, the target audience was older children. Square One TV was designed primarily for upper-elementary and middle-school students. Children’s Television Workshop already had a program aimed at a similar age group, 3-2-1 Contact, which taught science through an engaging documentary format. Math presented a different challenge. Since many children did not naturally consider mathematics an exciting subject, the producers needed to find an entertaining way to present it. Their solution was a combination of sketch comedy, music videos, parodies, games, and other creative segments.

The Beginning

Square One TV debuted on January 26, 1987. I was four and a half years old at the time, much younger than the show’s intended audience. Nevertheless, when my mother read about the program in a magazine, she knew it was something I would enjoy.

Unlike many children who struggled with mathematics, I loved it. I was fascinated by numbers and could understand mathematical concepts at a very young age. I even knew the square roots of fairly large numbers when I was little. What impressed me about Square One TV was that it did not simply talk down to children. The producers understood that kids were capable of learning complicated mathematical ideas as long as those ideas were presented in an entertaining and understandable way.

As an autistic person, I often saw the world through mathematical patterns and relationships. Square One TV reinforced that way of thinking. Throughout my day, I would think about mathematical sequences, numerical associations, patterns, and other concepts. The show encouraged that thinking.

One example that fascinated me was its use of songs and segments to explain mathematical patterns. One of the facts I remember learning was that when fractions involving seven are written as decimals, the same six digits repeat, but their order changes depending on the fraction. Instead of simply giving viewers a formula to memorize, the show demonstrated how interesting mathematics could be.

More Than Just Math

One thing I especially appreciated about Square One TV was that it taught viewers more than mathematics. The show introduced me to words, phrases, facts, and ideas that I might not otherwise have encountered at such a young age.

For example, I first learned words such as “editorial” and the expression caveat emptor, meaning “let the buyer beware.” I also learned that the capital of Illinois is Springfield rather than Chicago.

The program also introduced me to many different types of music. Its music videos covered a wide range of genres, including the pop and rock styles popular during the 1980s, country, Broadway-style musical numbers, and modern jazz. It was also where I first became familiar with rap music, thanks to appearances by the Fat Boys. The show also introduced me to “Weird Al” Yankovic, as well as entertainers such as fast-talker John Moschitta and magician Harry Blackstone.

The Spoofs

Perhaps what I enjoyed most were the show’s parodies. Square One TV regularly spoofed famous movies and television programs, including Casablanca, I Love Lucy, General Hospital, and Max Headroom.

For example, Cartablanca parodied Casablanca, while General Mathpital turned the medical drama General Hospital into a mathematical comedy. Facts Headful, meanwhile, was a parody of Max Headroom in which a robotic character discussed facts and statistics.

One I Love Lupy segment even parodied the famous chocolate factory sequence from the original I Love Lucy. Instead of chocolate, Lupy worked at a licorice factory and had to figure out how to divide two-foot-long pieces of licorice into five- and seven-inch pieces without creating any waste. It was a funny premise, but it also turned a mathematical problem into something memorable.

Mathnet

Perhaps the greatest parody on Square One TV was Mathnet, which occupied the second half of each half-hour episode. It was a spoof of the classic police drama Dragnet, except that the detectives solved crimes using mathematics.

The series followed detectives Kate Monday and George Frankly. Kate was later replaced by Pat Tuesday. The detectives investigated mysteries involving everything from missing objects to elaborate crimes, with mathematical reasoning playing a central role in solving each case.

Mathnet also parodied classic mysteries and films. One of my favorite episodes was a spoof of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians. The detectives arrived at a mansion where guests began disappearing one by one, just as they do in the original story, complete with the classic lines “And then there were three”, “And then there were none”, etc. And just like in the original story, the butler did it. In this version, the butler was an architect named I.M. Peeved, a parody of the famous architect I.M. Pei.

The show was filled with names like that. There was a gorilla trainer named Jane Rice Burroughs, referencing author Edgar Rice Burroughs and his character Jane. Another character was Norman Mailbag, a parody of author Norman Mailer. A baseball trainer who kidnapped his player and replaced him with a robot was named Frank N. Steenbrenner, combining Dr. Frankenstein with former New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. There were also lawyers named F. Lee Bully and Marvin Belly, parodying lawyers F. Lee Bailey and Melvin Belli.

I didn’t understand all of these references when I first watched the show. As I got older, however, I began recognizing the people and characters being parodied. That made the jokes even funnier. Some of those names even inspired nicknames I later gave people.

A Show Worth Reviving

Square One TV only lasted five seasons, but I would love to see the program revived. A new version could pay tribute to the original while introducing mathematics to a new generation.

The revival could even feature clips from the original series. One particularly interesting clip comes from around 1990, years before Google was founded, when people on the street were asked whether they knew what a “googol” was. One person thought it was a gaggle of geese. In reality, a googol is the number one followed by 100 zeros.

That clip could be used to teach children about the mathematical meaning of the word and explain the origin of the name of the technology company Google.

A revived Square One TV could also continue the tradition of parodying popular television shows. One possibility would be a parody of Quantum Leap. Instead of simply traveling through time, the show’s mathematical time traveler could travel into the past to correct mathematical mistakes before they cause problems.

For example, an episode could have the time traveler travel to 1999 and involve a space mission that is in danger because engineers failed to account for the difference between English and metric measurements. That idea could be inspired by the real-life Mars Climate Orbiter failure, which involved a mismatch between units used by different parts of the mission team.

Another episode could involve an engineer discovering a mathematical flaw in a bridge design before the problem eventually causes the bridge to collapse. As with the original Square One TV, the comedy could be entertaining while still teaching viewers something useful.

A Childhood Favorite

When I was a child, Square One TV was not a show I wanted to miss. My mother often tried to get me involved in extracurricular activities with other children to help me develop my social skills. However, if one of those activities happened during the time Square One TV was airing, I would refuse to go. If the episode was an old one I had already seen many times, she could sometimes convince me to give it up. But if it was a new episode, it was a much bigger problem. When the fifth season began airing, I even stopped attending my program for children with social-skill difficulties for more than two months so I could watch the new episodes.

Looking back, that shows just how important the program was to me. It wasn’t simply an educational television show. It was something that connected mathematics, music, comedy, television, and the way I understood the world.

Square One TV remains a classic in my eyes. It was a huge part of my childhood, and I hope that someday a revived version can become an equally important part of someone else’s childhood.

At least today, with streaming and on-demand television, children don’t necessarily have to choose between watching their favorite educational programs and participating in other activities. The original Square One TV may have ended decades ago, but its approach to making mathematics fun remains something worth bringing back.