Don Herbert, known to the world as “Mr. Wizard,” died of bone cancer on 12 June 2007. Born Donald Jeffry Herbert in Waconia, Minnesota, on 10 July 1917, he had no advanced science degree, but interested generations of children in science.
His show, Watch Mr. Wizard, was on NBC from 1951 to 1965. NBC brought it back for one year in 1971, and Nickelodeon aired Mr. Wizard’s World in 1983.
Watch Mr. Wizard was aimed at youngsters between 8 and 13, and won a Peabody Award for young people’s programming in 1953.
Herbert introduced children to science and fascinated them by using common objects to illustrate difficult scientific concepts and turn them into fun. He once told an interviewer, “everything on the show I learned by doing it.” He accumulated 18 file cabinets filled with notes.
In 2006, he told Voice of America’s “Our World” program: “If you used scientific equipment that’s strange to the child, it’s not going to help him or her understand. So we used everyday equipment.”
He had a dramatic impact. New York City’s Rockefeller University (which awards doctorates in science and medicine) notes that, during the 1960s and 1970s, nearly half of their applicants cited Mr. Wizard when asked how they first became interested in science.
Herbert graduated from La Crosse State Teachers College of Wisconsin in 1940 with a degree in English and general science. After graduation, he acted opposite Nancy Davis (the future Nancy Reagan) in summer stock. During World War II, he flew a B-24, completing 56 missions over Northern Italy, Germany, and Yugoslavia, and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.
After the war, Herbert worked as an actor, model, and radio-show writer in Chicago, and then developed Watch Mr. Wizard, which debuted in 1951 on Chicago’s NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV. The program later moved to New York, and was eventually carried by more than 100 stations.
He is survived by his wife, Norma Kasell, and six children.