RIP Mr. Wizard
Jun 12th, 2007 by Alex
Don Herbert — known to the world as “Mr. Wizard” — died today. Poor guy had bone cancer. He was 89.
I remember watching the show on Nickelodeon in awe, long before Bill Nye’s funky routine hit the screen. Hell, Bill Nye probably grew up watching Mr. Wizard too. I didn’t know this, but “when Late Night with David Letterman debuted in 1982, Herbert was among the first-night guests.” I think that a little bit of every television-watching kid will die today when they hear the news.
This just plain sucks.
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I don’t mean to be insenstive, but why does this suck? If he’d have lived he’d have produced no more Mr. Wizardry than he has in the last couple decades. He lived a good long life, and he’s been off the radar for many years. Just knowing he was still alive did nothing for me from the time he stopped being Mr. Wizard on my TV until the time he died.
So I’m sorry for his family’s loss, but it’s not like he was cut down in his prime and it’s not like there’s so much more from him we as the public are missing out on with his death.
SC: When someone whose work I appreciate dies, I say that it sucks. It doesn’t matter so much matter to me whether they were productive up to their dying day, especially when my memories of the person and their work were formed at a young age.