Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 25, 1993                   TAG: 9309250298
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: S-20   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SCOTT MOORE THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMEDY OF SCIENCE OR SCIENCE OF COMEDY?

Fact: The lively host of "Beakman's World" may be funnier and more informative than any of them.

And he isn't even a scientist.

"I'm not an actor (either); I'm a performance artist, comedian and political satirist," said Paul Zaloom, aka Beakman. "I'm learning quite a bit of science. One of the cool things about the show is that we make science accessible. For some obscure reason, science has been held inaccessible. It's been taught in a way and presented to us in a way that says, `You're not going to get it, but here it is anyway.'

"We want to say, `You're going to get it, because it's quite simple.' We try to find conceptual ways to make that come across."

Consider the experiment a success. In its first year, on The Learning Channel and on 225 channels in syndication, "Beakman's World" won lavish praise from parents, children and television critics - even science teachers.

And faster than the speed of light, CBS gobbled it up for its Saturday-morning children's schedule (at noon on WDBJ-Channel 7). The show will continue to run on TLC Sunday nights at 7.

The allure is easy to grasp. The show is well done, informative and fun. The National Foundation for the Improvement of Education called the show "a stimulating, scientifically sound, humorous and effective presentation of science."

The series is set in Beakman's lab, which contains an indoor rain forest, 43 globes, 14 lava lamps, 1,200 books, 14 fire extinguishers, 1 skeleton, l4 mannequins and 2 live assistants - level-headed teen-ager Josie (Alanna Ubach) and Lester (Harvard-educated actor-puppeteer Mark Ritts), a lab rat complete with fake fur and a 6-foot tail.

Each show begins and ends with funny comments from puppet penguins Don and Herb (named after Don Herbert of "Mr. Wizard" fame). Then Josie reads a few of the 1,000 science inquiries received each week. ("How does a roller coaster work?" "What is snot?" "Where does air come from?" "Is it true that toilets used to blow up?")

Beakman, wearing a neon-green lab coat and a tall fright wig, then provides the answers - "waxing scientific" - with the reluctant assistance of Lester, who also serves as the butt of good-natured barbs.

Zaloom said, "We can't teach children science alone. They've got to learn it from us, get it from school, books, their parents, from a lot of different sources. If they get it in nine different directions, they're going to get it nailed."