Learning Can Be Fun(ny): ‘Look Around You’ – Season One

Back in the earliest days of television, the notion got around that, somehow, the boob tube could be used as a learning tool. Always ready to embrace what’s vaguely vogue, colleges and universities lined up to use their government approved UHF channels to explore languages and science, literature and music. Lessons were meticulously planned and classes were even taught over the airwaves, a way of providing correspondence coursework without having to get the postal service (or your personal dignity) involved. Eventually, the powers that be felt inclined to mandate an educational angle to all adolescent and under programming, a federal decision to wean the wee ones off the glass teat by trading product placement entertainment for π and E=MC2. The result was some of the worst TV ever: boring protracted epistles less concerned about engaging a viewer than they were explaining the molecular structure of cobalt.

For many, the daily doses of triganomic calculations and moles to grams Venn verbalizing left an indelible mark, series like 3-2-1 Contact and Big Blue Marble vying for (and undoing) the minor’s miniscule attention span. On the other end were corrupt curriculum experiences like French Today and The Universe and You, 30 to 60 minutes of mind-numbing dullness delivered with all the energy of a suicide note. One would imagine that such a soul sucking example of wasted opportunities and cloying pretension would be ripe for lampoon, but outside the occasional skit on SCTV, educational programming rarely got the razz – that is, until 2002. That’s when British comedians Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz took on the archetypal UK example of the at-home learning curve and came up with Look Around You. Last seen on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, the first season of this brilliant series is now out on DVD and well worth seeking out.

A masterpiece of form and function, this short exercise in excellence sees a faceless narrator (voiced by English thesp Nigel Lambert) walking us through nine examples of science gone scatterbrained. The pilot episode – “Calcium” – can be found as part of the package’s plentiful bonus features. The rest of the installments offer looks at “Maths”, “Water”, “Germs”, “Ghosts”, “Sulphur”, “Music”, “Iron”, and the “Brain”. Each ‘episode’ has the main thesis presented, followed by a set of facts (almost always made up), accented by two or three curriculum-based experiments.

Along the way there are constant reminders to mark your workbook and note the often ridiculous results. The attention to detail is so meticulous, so completely within the boundaries of what passed for learning possibilities four decades ago, that the authenticity throws you off at first. Indeed, it’s not until you actual dig in and pay attention that Look Around You gives itself away. After all, while it would be nice to think that all germs come from Germany, cooler heads know the truth…or do we?

That’s the beautiful thing about this series. It plays its hand so sincerely, acutely aware of the cynicism such backward nostalgia can spark. Instead, Popper and Serafinowicz are like archeologists, rummaging through the collective memory of the first full blown TV generation and retrofitting their mangled memories to fit their truly madcap motives. “Ghosts” may seem like nothing but a goof, but anyone whose sat through a season of In Search of… knows that nothing, not even the sonorous tone of Leonard Nimoy can countermand its camp value. Similarly, “Music” may offer a computer that writes songs (how very Omni of it), but the resulting ditty, Little Mouse, is so magical – and offered in such a perfect lip sync performance “video” – that the ends joyfully justify the jibes. From the repetitive opening instructions to the equally rote conclusion, Look Around You never deviates from its designs – and the results are spectacular.

As is the delightful DVD package produced by the BBC. The main selling point for many will be the audio commentary choices. Of course, Popper and Serafinowicz sit down to explain themselves, offering clues and conflicting versions of just what inspired the series. As witty as the show they created, each episode become a joy to revisit. Even odder, however, was the decision to have other comedy “teams” sit in and discuss their love of Look Around You. There is Tim and Eric of Awesome Show…Great Job fame, Trey Parker and Matt Stone of the seminal South Park, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (who both appeared in the show) and perhaps the most unusual of all, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera. While all are fans, some are more remote in their appreciation than others. Still, they all provide a kind of support proposition for why Look Around You is so special. Even with their divergent backgrounds and skill sets, they all have something within their frame of reference which the show touches on and tests.

From the burnt orange and avocado green stink of the ’70s coursing from every element to the gloriously canned early electronic Casio companion music (crafted by Popper and Serafinowicz under the pseudonym ‘Gelg’), Look Around You is a gem, a blindingly bright diamond in an otherwise silly sea of sameness. For some reason, the UK can manage this sort of thing and make it look almost effortless. Even the moments of ‘purposeful’ comedy – usually revolving around some cockeyed experiment being conducted by Serafinowicz or guest ‘scientist’ Edgar Wright – come across as expertly staged and fully realized. From fake names and fraudulent truths to the Boîte Diabolique, the so-called “forbidden keys” left off of every piano, each facet of this program is flawless. For some, Look Around You will seem like transmissions from the Planet Nutjob. For others, it will be all too familiar…and funny.