Halloween on Cyberchase

It’s fortunate that Halloween falls on a Friday this year. Among other things, it means that television programmers are able to create an entire week of Halloween-related material, combining new episodes, interstitials, and old favorites together in a coherent package, all leading up to the day itself. This strategy seems to be taking place across the board—Playhouse Disney, Noggin, Nick Jr., etc.—and a great deal of it looks really good, like a new episode of Ni Hao, Kai-lan, for instance. To exemplify the trend I’d like to focus on what’s happening on PBS, a broadcasting service that often doesn’t receive its due of critical attention compared to its cable competitors.

Specifically, one show, Cyberchase, seems to be outdoing all the others, with not one Halloween episode but a full five running throughout the week, quite an impressive feat compared to other shows that can only afford one or two Halloween episodes at most. For those not familiar with Cyberchase, it’s a 2D animated program (I believe it was originally done on cels but has since been transferred over onto Flash, a vector-based computer animation program) produced by Channel Thirteen/WNET here in New York City. It used to be a co-production with Nelvana up in Toronto, but that function has now transferred to Title Entertainment, which I believe is in Ottowa. It’s been on the air since early 2000, an incredibly impressive run and arguably one of the best-kept secrets of children’s television. I for one admit ignorance; although I have enjoyed watching it and knew it had been on the air quite a while, I had no idea it was into six seasons, as long as Dora the Explorer and longer than most shows currently on the air; Little Bill and plenty of others from that time have long since ended production. That speaks to Cyberchase’s popularity and robust curriculum.

The show follows the adventures of three children and Digit, a bird cyborg, as they journey around Cyberspace (literally and physically, not just sitting in front of computer monitors) battling the evil Hacker, who is, as best I can tell, an irredeemable meany bent, as all meanies are, on conquering Cyberspace with the help of two inept henchmen. This is a tried formula, of course (writing it up in this way makes me think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), but it works well, not least because Hacker is voiced by Christopher Lloyd, one of America’s great comic actors of the past thirty years--his breakthrough performance in Taxi proved that--and a great villain, as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? aptly demonstrated. The show’s curriculum is math, and this and its (nonviolent) conflict-related plotlines mean that it’s geared toward elementary schoolers, age five to eight, though I find it has something to offer viewers from preschool through to middle school. (Here’s an interesting 2003 document I found, a good illustration of the research that goes into educational children’s television—it is an intensive process! And here’s Carey Bryson’s summary of the show’s curriculum, written earlier this year.)


Back to Halloween, today’s episode, pictured here, is a premiere entitled “Spheres of Fears.” Here’s a description of the plot from Thirteen’s website:

“In his latest and possibly maddest scheme ever, Hacker traps Digit and the kids in one of the dreaded Spheres of Fears, a mini-galaxy of orbs populated by eerie creatures called Creepers. He wants them out of the way so that Delete, in a diva star turn, can impersonate Motherboard and convince everyone in Cyberspace to cause chaos everywhere. No one can stop him now! To unlock the door and escape their Sphere, the kids must find the codebook – which Digit remembers is at the opposite end of the Sphere’sdiameter. And there is no way any of them will make that creepy journey alone! As chaos builds in cyberspace, the team uses the relationship between circumference and diameter to overcome obstacles, and their fears, in the search for the codebook. But can they find it in time? If they fail, chaos will reign supreme, and Hacker will take over the virtual universe forever!”

This episode will repeat on Friday, Halloween. In between those two broadcasts are three encore episodes from previous seasons: on Tuesday there’s “Castleblanca,” a Frankenstein-esque tale in which the CyberSquad must save Dr. Marbles from Hacker before his brain power is transferred to a nefarious new robot; it features more spooky castles than perhaps any other single television program ever. On Wednesday there’s “Trick or Treat,” in which Hacker professes repentance only to slip an alien frog into Motherboard’s mainframe. And on Thursday there’s “The Halloween Howl,” wherein Hacker brings a group of stone gargoyles to life to imprison the Mayor in his own dungeon, thus threatening the annual Halloween bash.

I recommend Cyberchase anytime, but tuning in this week could add a bit of mathematical rigor to what is generally otherwise a fun but not-too-educational holiday. The show, which has obviously always had a good web presence, has a special website up this week to highlight its Halloween run. This site features a plethora of downloadable material, including invitations, face masks (perfect for the season), and coloring pages, besides E-cards, tips for parents, and other materials. Let the haunting begin!