I loved Watch Mr. Wizard when I was growing up.
Why are you saying it like that?
I’ll add my vote to Schoolhouse Rock for its memorability.
IAN the OP and cannot speak for yadda yadda yadda, but I’m not sure Schoolhouse Rock was ever what the OP would have called “cool/hip”. Catchy, yes, and pleasant in that laid-back but earnest Sesame Streetish way. Nerdyfun, like Tom Lehrer’s Periodic Table song or the songs about “Silent E” and “-LY” on the Electric Company. But not cool.
The prequel to Hemo was “Our Mr. Sun,” co-starring >trumpets< Eddie Albert (and his red hair).
Cheech and Chong got me interested in chemistry.
I watched Mr. Wizard.
My daughters and I watched Mythbusters. Some of the episodes do a nice job showing problem solving and the scientific method. For example, they took samples throughout the building and grew cultures to find the dirtiest places.
What was ever cool or hip about that song?
“You’re eating hair!”
I remember those when I was a wee one, and getting bummed out after reading that section about the woman with severe depression in…it was either the “Health and Disease” or “Drugs” volume. Devoured those things.
Wonder Showzen could be educational, with a little bit of swagger.
Or…something.
Similar to Schoolhouse Rock and Horrible Histories, there was a show in my native New Zealand in the 90s called The Trivia Company, comedy sketches involving interesting historical facts.
We also had Tiki Tiki Forest Gang, which I puppeteered for briefly. It was a natural history puppet show, covering topics about animal conservation.
*made by some people I knew (I submitted some scripts too, but they didn’t get picked)
Érase… una vez… un planeta triste y oscuro. Y la luz… al nacer… descubrió ¡un bonito mundo de color!
It wasn’t sold as “cool” or “hip”, just as “educational”, but Once Upon A Time had a lot of people of all ages stuck in front of the TV. Of course any series involving history will have details which are told differently on different sides of a border, but even in those cases many people considered it interesting to see how the French looked at events for which we’d been “the other guys”.
- There was at least another series, Once Upon A Time - The Human Body. It wasn’t as successful but let’s face it, the enormous soap opera we call “history” is a lot more interesting than capillaries and proteins. And I say that as someone whose dream job would have involved biochemistry.
La bola de cristal, featuring Alaska as la Bruja Avería (“Breakdown, the Witch”), is considered to have been groundbreaking in many ways (for starters, picking a punk diva as the star, instead of someone cheerily bland). It was on screen when I was in college so I haven’t really watched much of it but I know it had high audiences and dared to speak about things other children’s programs did not.
It’s definitely NSFW and adult oriented but I love Thug Notes… like this gem:
I loved the show Connections. I know it was cool and hip by the lapel size of James Burke.
Hamilton
Drunk History?
It really is.
Oh wow, you guys had that too? The show had a huge following here in Israel (although our opening titles were a bit more terrifying). Great - if somewhat dated - program, with a surprising amount of violence and nudity for a children’s show.