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"Time For Science"
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Photo Courtesy: WETA
Aired
on
WTTG-TV 5
Mondays through
Fridays
Fall 1958 to
June 1961
(With Summertime
Hiatus)
Various Pre-Noon
Airtimes
During
the
last season, Friday's shows
were titled "Time
For The Arts".
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Host:
Shown as "Darrell
Drummond, Instructor" in Newspaper TV
Listings.
Daryl Long writes: "Mr. Drummond taught at
Thomas Jefferson
Elementary School (formerly
Oak Street School) in Falls Church,
Virginia. My older
sister was in his class (the seventh
grade,
I believe) in
1957. I recall his name
being 'T. Darrell Drummond'."
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On Mondays Through Thursdays:
Broadcast live (and perhaps
also taped for later re-airing)
from WTTG-TV
5 studios in the
Raleigh Hotel
at 12th St. & Pennsylvania
Avenue, N.W.
During the first season,
Friday's programs were produced/filmed
at
the color studio facilities
of Walter Reed Army Hospital.
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Jim Evans first pointed-out
this program to Kaptain Kidshow:
"I
attended St Mary's Elementary School in
the city of Alexandria
from 1958 to 1961.
During school hours there was a TV
program
called 'Time for Science' that
was aimed at elementary school age
kids and we were allowed to
watch during our science class. ...
I was on an
episode in 1959 demonstrating a
science project. It was in the
morning and I got to be out of school
for the day. I seem to remember
watching myself on a monitor after the
show so it must have been taped, but
my class also saw me 'live' on the
show the day I was at the studio."
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Alan Leache recalls: "The theme
song for the 'Time For Science'
was Jeremiah Clarke's 'The Prince
of Denmark's March'."
Hear
a mp3 sample... performed by The Chris
Sarlas Orchestra
http://www.sarlasmusic.com/ceremony_listen.html
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Tom Mechling tells us: "I was a student at R.E.
Lee Elementary School
in Alexandria, and we were
allowed to watch the show on a special
TV. The theme for the show was either
'Pomp and Circumstance' or 'Clarke's
Trumpet Voluntary', (whichever one they
play at graduation ceremonies.) ...
Prof. Darrel Drummond was a nerdy
science sort with horn rimmed
glasses and a high pitched
voice; nothing like Mr. Wizard.
I loved the show. Part of it
was the novelty of watching TV in
school,
but Prof Drummond knew his
stuff... It was mostly physical
science.
I remember to this day why
you can drive a nail with a hammer but
not
your fist, and that a whole
stalk of celery contains very little
bulk,
once the water is removed.
Darrel showed this by actually chewing
up
a bunch of celery and
spitting out the remains into a spoon.
That's the kind of lesson
you remember.
I also learned about
mnemonics and how 'Roy G. Biv'
lets you remember the
colors in the visible spectrum. ..."
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Daryl Long adds: "I left the DC area and
returned in 1960, when 'Time for
Science' was on the air. As the budding
geek of my seventh grade class, I was
given the enormous responsibility of
setting up the TV set in the auditorium
for each broadcast. ... I remember that
it was produced by GWETA (Greater
Washington Educational Television
Assoc.).
Mr. Drummond became an instant celebrity
in my class - partially because of the
content of the show; and partially
because the show permitted us to watch
TV in the middle of the school
day. He was held in such high
esteem that nobody would believe that a
mere mortal, such as me, could have met
him.
My sister would have tales
of his sense of humor, and I recall
one TV
episode that reflected this.
The experiment involved food of some
sort, and he had brought
some along in a paper lunch bag.
As he was
using great care to remove
the food from the bag, the announcer
mimicked the beginning of
the show and announced this portion
of the program as 'Time for
Lunch' (along with the appropriate
text titles and the
familiar theme music)."
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Robin
Drummond reports: "My dad was T. Darrell
Drummond, and I can't tell you how
fabulous it was to see your item on Time
for
Science.
Dad
took me to work at the studio a
lot and it was my great good fortune
to substitute for absent children on
all the kid shows that were produced
at the same time TFS was being
aired. In addition, some of
the TFS shows featured a little girl
whose job was to hand things to Mr.
Drummond. That was me.
Dad went on to earn
his doctorate in education at
the University of
Maryland. He spent a year
at the American School in London
gathering primary source
data for his thesis.
He continued to
teach after Time For Science
left the airwaves.
In Montgomery County,
MD he opened Lake Normandy
Elementary School
(as its principal); it
was the first "open
classroom" school in
Montgomery County. He
eventually retired from
Montgomery County Public
Schools as Administrator of
Area Five.
He
became an adjunct
professor at Montgomery
College,
teaching both
English and American
history.
He died in
August, 2001 while
on vacation,
riding an
Italian
racing motorcycle
in Norway.
I have
the original
recording of the
Time For Science
theme music
and a
number of black
and white
photos.
My
youngest son
found your
webpage.
He was
trying to
explain Granddad
to his new
bride."
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If you have any
additional information,
please write to:
kaptainkidshow@yahoo.com
Please
state
in your message that you give
permission for
Kaptain
Kidshow
to reproduce your message on his web
site
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Sources: Robin Drummond, James
Evans Tom Mechling, Daryl Long and Alan Leache.
Thanks to the WETA web site.
Airtimes from listings
in the Evening Star and Wash. Post.
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Do you remember?
Exact Dates Show First Aired
& Ended
Any Other On-air
Participants
Any Other
Details/Corrections
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Email
Us
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All Shows Originated From
Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Studios
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Kaptain
Kidshow
Saluting Vintage TV Kid Shows
Produced In Washington, DC
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