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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 |
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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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:
James Evans Tom Mechling, Daryl Long and Alan Leache.
Thanks
to the WETA web site:
http://www.weta.org/productions/campbell/time50s.html
Airtimes
from listings in the Evening Star and Wash. Post.
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