''The Curiosity Show'' is an Australian educational children's

television show A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...

produced from 1972 to 1990 and hosted by Rob Morrison and

Deane Hutton Deane Winston Hutton (born 30 April 1941) is an Australian television presenter and futurist. His work on television has included 18 years as a co-writer-presenter with Rob Morrison of the '' Curiosity Show'', and as science presenter on ''Hey ...

. The show was produced by Banksia Productions in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

for the

Nine Network Nine Network (stylised 9Network, and commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of the five main free-to-air television ...

. 500 episodes were produced across 19 seasons. Clips from episodes have been archived on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

for preservation.

History

Banksia Productions produced the popular children's series ''

Here's Humphrey ''Here's Humphrey'' was an Australian children's television series produced by Banksia Productions for the Nine Network, which first aired on 24 May 1965 and last went to air in 2008. It features an anthropomorphic brown bear character (a pe ...

'' from 1965. The company planned to add some science segments in 1971 and sought assistance from the

South Australian Institute of Technology The University of South Australia is a public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1991, it is the successor of the former South Australian Institute of Technology. Its main campuses along North Terrace are ...

. Rob Morrison and Deane Hutton were selected as presenters and the segments were introduced as ''Humphrey B Bear's Curiosity Show''. After positive reception from the audience, Banksia Productions and the Nine Network agreed to produce a spin-off series. Planning commenced with the working title ''The F Show''. Until the early 1970s, children's television was aimed at younger children. The broadcasting regulations were changed to require a proportion of programs to be aimed at school-age children, broadcast after school hours. This prompted the creation of the ''Curiosity Show'' as a separate show. ''The Curiosity Show'' was screened nationally in Australia as well as in Europe, Asia, and

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

in 14 countries, and it was dubbed in German for Europe.

Format

From 1972 to 1980 the format was a 60-minute show presented by Morrison, Hutton, Ian Fairweather,

Alister Smart Alister Smart (born 1935)GILES, NIGEL "Number 96: Australia's Most Notorious Address" also credited as Alastair Smart, is an Australian retired television presenter, actor, television director and screenwriter. A staple of the small screen, he a ...

, Belinda Davey, Gabrielle Kelly, Dr Mark Dwyer and Lynn Weston. The emphasis was on science but also included general craft and music. Producers were Neil Smith, Kate Kennedy White (1978–79), James Lingwood (1980) and Ian Smyth. From 1980 the show was reduced to 30 minutes, presented by Morrison and Hutton, with emphasis on science, nature and the environment. ''The Curiosity Show'' won many national and international awards, including the coveted

Prix Jeunesse Prix was an American power pop band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1975 by Tommy Hoehn and Jon Tiven. The group ended up primarily as a studio project. Its recordings were produced by Tiven along with former Big Star member Chris Bell, who a ...

in 1984, voted by peers from around the world as the best factual program for children. The program placed a strong emphasis on practical demonstrations of various science topics, and included activities such as floating a

ping-pong Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

ball on a stream of air, recreating historical devices, setting off a room full of

mouse trap A mousetrap is a specialized type of animal trap designed primarily to catch and, usually, kill mice. Mousetraps are usually set in an indoor location where there is a suspected infestation of rodents. Larger traps are designed to catch other s ...

s, the science of musical instruments and freezing objects with

liquid nitrogen Liquid nitrogen (LN2) is nitrogen in a liquid state at cryogenics, low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, mobile liquid whose vis ...

. Commonly, segments presented scientific concepts in the form of tricks and puzzles. Many segments described a sequence of steps to build something out of common household materials with longer builds invariably ending with the phrase "here's one I prepared earlier" so as to keep the segment moving. Hutton's catchphrase, after presenting a hypothesis he postulates the audience may be curious about, was to declare "well, I'm glad you asked," before responding to the

hypothesis A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess o ...

. The use of household materials was deliberate, in order to demystify science and ensure that children, wherever they lived, could make what they needed rather than rely on buying it, and this proved popular with the young audience who could easily replicate the demonstrations at home. Morrison suggested that they should always show what they had made working so that children would know that their own constructions would work if made properly and also to show the limitations of the constructions to dispel any overambitious expectations. Both Morrison and Hutton always told viewers to get their parents' permission before building things or conducting experiments, especially if it involved the use of sharp objects such as knives or scissors or the use of flames or hot or dangerous liquids.

Spin-offs

Four companion books were available in 1981 produced by Jacaranda Press containing scientific explanations and instructions for experiments for children to perform at home. Each of the books was themed upon one of the four Western

classical element The classical elements typically refer to Earth (classical element), earth, Water (classical element), water, Air (classical element), air, Fire (classical element), fire, and (later) Aether (classical element), aether which were proposed to ...

s of earth, air, fire and water. Together, Hutton and Morrison published 11 books, including ''Supermindstretchers'',''The Arrow Book of Things to Make and Do'', and ''String for Lunch'' (Ashton Scholastic). Morrison published more than 40 additional books, which included material from ''The Curiosity Show,'' including ''Nature in the Making'', ''A Field Guide to the Tracks and Traces of Australian Animals'' (the first such field guide in Australia and still the only one to deal with all taxa), ''Clever and Quirky Creatures'', ''It's Raining Frogs and Fishes'', and many more for the school reading programs of various publishers. Morrison's ''Field Guide to Tracks and Traces—''and a segment he had prepared for ''The Curiosity Show'' on

dingo The dingo (either included in the species ''Canis familiaris'', or considered one of the following independent taxa: ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage ...

s at

Uluru Uluru (; ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone monolith. It outcrop, crops out near the centre of Australia in the southern part of the Northern Territory, south-west of Alice Spri ...

—led to his involvement in the Morling Royal Commission inquiry into the Chamberlain convictions. He gave evidence on dingo and dog tracks and conducted various forensic investigations on dingo gapes and behaviour. His collection of specimens and artifacts from the trial have been acquired by the

National Museum of Australia The National Museum of Australia (NMA), in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''Nation ...

. The

Children's Television Workshop Sesame Workshop (SW), originally known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American nonprofit organization and television company that has been responsible for the production of several educational children's programs—includin ...

wanted to make a version of the ''Curiosity Show'' using American scientists as presenters. Rob Morrison and Deane Hutton were consultants in the early planning stages.

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

did not think that middle-aged scientists would engage a young audience (despite the popularity of the format in Australia) and insisted that any science show be hosted/presented by young people. CTW eventually reworked the concept into ''

3-2-1 Contact ''3-2-1 Contact'' is an American science educational television show produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW, now known as Sesame Workshop). It aired on PBS from 1980 to 1988 and later ran on Noggin (a joint venture between the C ...

''. In 2014, ''The Curiosity Show'' produced a brief online series which was available on

. It was co-hosted by Morrison and Hutton again.

YouTube channel

In 2013, the show's former hosts, Hutton and Morrison, announced they had purchased the remaining rights to the show for an undisclosed sum from Banksia Productions, which had gone into liquidation. On 12 July 2013, in conjunction with producer Enabled Solutions, they launched a

channel, CuriosityShow, to make the episodes and segments available for a new generation of viewers. There are some 1,000 segments, and some have attracted significant audiences, especially in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

; , one segment about self-starting

siphon A siphon (; also spelled syphon) is any of a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. In a narrower sense, the word refers particularly to a tube in an inverted "U" shape, which causes a liquid to flow upward, abo ...

s had been viewed more than 4 million times, while another video, entitled "The mysterious isochronous curve", has been viewed 11 million times; in addition, their channel has amassed 440,000 subscribers and 75million views from a current upload total of 1,539 videos. In May 2014, Hutton and Morrison released, on their YouTube channel, the ''"Curiosity Shows first new episode since 1990". The online production was funded with the assistance of

Kellogg's Kellanova, formerly known as the Kellogg Company and commonly known as Kellogg's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, US. Kellanova produces and markets con ...

Australia. The episode followed the original format of the program, supported by extra internet resources, with Hutton and Morrison performing experiments related to cereal, including making homemade cornflakes and cornflour-based non-

Newtonian fluid A Newtonian fluid is a fluid in which the viscous stresses arising from its flow are at every point linearly correlated to the local strain rate — the rate of change of its deformation over time. Stresses are proportional to the rate of cha ...

. The episode was praised by the channel's followers.

Awards

;International awards: * 1984 Winner of Prix Jeunesse Internationale, Munich. * 1985 Silver medal, International Film and Television Festival of New York. * 1985 Museum of Broadcasting, New York. * 1990 Television Award, Children's Film and Television, China. ;National awards: * 1975 Commendation, Television Society of Australia. * 1976 Commendation, Television Society of Australia. * 1977 Commendation, Television Society of Australia. * 1978 Commendation, Television Society of Australia. * 1979 Special Commendation, Television Society of Australia. * 1981 Commendation, Television Society of Australia. * 1982 Gold Penguin Award, Television Society of Australia.

References

External links

*
Curiosity Show's Facebook page

Curiosity Show's Twitter

Deane Hutton's website

Curiosity Show website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Curiosity Show, The Australian children's education television series Television shows set in Adelaide Nine Network original programming 1972 Australian television series debuts 1990 Australian television series endings 1980s Australian television series Science education television series YouTube channels launched in 2013 2014 web series debuts 2010s YouTube series 2020s YouTube series Education-related YouTube channels YouTube original programming