Whiz Kids

The theme music for the series was Gioachino Rossini's La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie)Overture.

I remember scenes of a floppy disc drive spinning up, the head loading and then doing a seek - all very tech and enjoyable.

I recall plot holes even though I was just post teenage at the time. Blowing up (zooming in) on a photograph to extract detail below pixel size gains was one.

It deserved repeating a few times but I felt that it was ignored as the powers that control TV programming seldom (at that time) understood that tech series had a following, as we have seen with the Star trek and Stargate spinoffs.

I was 13 when this show aired, and remember really liking it. It was well written (at least to a mature 13 year old), and I looked forward to it every week. The problem was, the programming geniuses at CBS blew it. It was on one week, preempted the next 2, moved to a different night, preempted again. It never stayed in a location long enough to gain any audience following. Here I was TRYING to watch the thing and they made it quite difficult. I remember being quite frustrated and ticked off when it was cancelled.

It would be interesting to see it again today, 20 years later, and see how it compared to other shows of its day.

The Whiz Kids TV Show was, primary the "kicker" of my computer interests. Just a few months before the first showing in October 1983, my dad and I went to Philippines, for my 1st visit. I met my cousin, Carl, whom built his first computer out of Zilog Z80 computer chips, and he gave me computer chips to bring back to USA, in August 1983, a week before the assassination of Benigno Aguino (August 21, 1983). The computer chips were from Zilog Corporation in Philippines. I place those chips onto a shelf because I was busy with the Commodore VIC-20 computer.

Shortly after the initial showing of Whiz Kids in October 1983, I began to interface my Zilog computer chips with the VIC-20. I wanted to be just like Richie; in fact, my room was almost set up the same way Richie had his in the TV show. I was only 13 years old at that time.

Though I watched Wargames in the Cinema, I could not miss an episode of Whiz Kids when it was on TV. My mother went to church on Wednesday night as I had to stay home to watch Whiz Kids.

Throughout my Junior High and High School time, I was best known as a "computer geek." In 1983, I was a power user of the TRS-80 Model III computer system. By 1985, I was a power user of the Apple Macintosh. In 1986, I was a power user of Commodore Amiga 500 and Commodore 64 computers. I didn't go to my High School Prom because of my Geek Hobby.

At my graduations, I remember having my friends over to watch my recorded shows of the Whiz Kids on Betamax. I remembered that I had every episode of Whiz Kids, recorded, but I don't know what happened to that tape, as of 1992.

I'm still waiting for CBS to release the Whiz Kids onto VHS or DVD... Now that I'm in the Philippines, I'm not sure if I can be able to receive any videos from CBS. I had been asking at the video stores, but there has been nothing on Whiz Kids even been shown in the Philippines.

The problem wasn't with O'Herlihy (it never is), it was his character. Prior to his coming on, the show was an entertaining adventure about a quartet of junior crimefighting computer experts that was every bit as much fun as Philip DeGuere's other then-current show "Simon & Simon" (Jeffrey and company even joined forces with A.J. Simon in one episode) - it was closer in tone to "WarGames" than "Scooby-Doo," which was fine with me even then; it also had some good writing to boot, such as one episode ending with their teacher informing the class that even though the FBI had commended them for their work that week, she was still going to punish the boys (the token female had done the homework) for not doing an assignment!

Unfortunately, when they were recruited to work for O'Herlihy's organisation (in secret of course), the thrill of their being freelancers was gone. It was the same mistake made when the Hardy Boys (Stevenson and Cassidy version) were taken on by the Justice Department - they went from playing outside the system to being part of it, and the show was never the same. But it was fun while it lasted...

I am really trying to remember 20 years ago to this show. It was very much a spin-off of the success of War Games. Richie had a computer that could do almost anything. It was built from a lot of spare parts that must have been around the studio. If it could flash, it went in the computer.

At the time I loved the show because I was young and though computers were neat. I would like to see the show again just to see what I think now.

The thing that I remember most about the show is that EVERYTHING seemed to be run by computers. In one episode they were locked in some room. In that room was some discarded terminal that they were able to connect to the building sprinkler system and set it off. Deus ex Machina situations like this happened way too often...and Richie was always like MacGuyver with a keyboard.

Still...I remember liking the show back then.