Beakman, Mr. Wizard, and Bill Nye are all rad bros. But no one touches Carl Sagan. In my 9th grade Physics class, a substitute teacher day equated to a Cosmos day, and thus, equated to a pretty awesome day. I found the companion book at a garage sale not too long after my first introduction to the show, and it still holds a prominent, direct line-of-sight place on my bookshelf.

I was fascinated at the gingerly, father-like nature of Sagan – someone who explains mysteries in a logical, easy-to-follow manner, a very heady theoretical scientist who seemed approachable – friendly even – and spoke with a literary prose peppered with a few sardonic, excellent jokes. All the aforementioned aspects are rather unusual for brilliant scientist type, right?

The show’s imagery and music combined a rather trippy mix of 8mm film, computer graphics, and a Ghost Box-style soundtrack, all of which provided a rather forward thinking project for 1980. Certainly the Pixar guys have spent some time with the visual elements of Cosmos. Sagan was cool.

The whole series is available to watch here! Love you, Hulu! Miss you, Carl!

MP3 :::
Spacemen 3 – Lord, Can You Hear Me?