Megamaths (1996)

Genre

family

Country

United Kingdom

Length

4 seasons, 18 episodes

Rating

10.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This BBC series teaches primary school math concepts. In the first three series, children visit a castle where card suit characters and a helpful joker present mathematical challenges with songs. The later series move to a space station where a superhero in training learns math with the help of a tutor.

educationallightheartedplayfulwhimsicallivelyupbeatchild-friendlycheerful

What happens

Megamaths is a BBC educational television series for primary schools that was originally aired on BBC Two from 16 September 1996 to 4 February 2002. For its first three series, it was set in a castle on top of Table Mountain, populated by the four card suits (Kings, Queens and Jacks/Jackies, and a Joker who looked after children that visited the castle and took part in mathematical challenges). There were two gargoyles at the portcullis of the castle named Gar and Goyle who spoke mostly in rhyme, and an animated dragon called Brimstone who lived in the castle cellar (with his pet kitten, Digit). Each episode featured a song explaining the episode's mathematical content. The three remaining series, however, were set in a "Superhero School" space station, featuring a trainee superhero named Maths Man who was initially guided by a female tutor, Her Wholeness, in the fifth series, and later by a male tutor, His Wholeness, in the fifth and sixth series. In the fourth series, there were also recurring sketches of a quiz show named Find that Fraction hosted by Colin Cool (played by Simon Davies who co-wrote the second to fourth series with director Neil Ben and had played the King of Diamonds in all four Table Mountain series), and a sports show named Sports Stand hosted by Sue Harker (a spoof of Sue Barker, who was played by Liz Anson) and Harry Fraction (a spoof of Harry Gration, who was also played by Simon Davies), along with a supervillain named The Diddler who Maths Man had to solve mathematical problems caused by when he ventured down to Earth (in the final episode, she was revealed to actually be Her Wholeness in disguise). In the sixth series, the Superhero School gained an on-board computer named VERA (whose initials stood for "Voice-Enhanced Resource Activator", and was voiced by Su Douglas who also played the Queen of Spades in the fourth series) and a character named 2D3D who appeared in his virtual reality glasses (Maths Man now also spoke directly to the audience when he ventured down to Earth calling them his "Maths Team", and His Wholeness set a puzzle for them at the end of each episode). In the seventh and final series, the episodes were shortened from twenty minutes to fifteen, and again featured Maths Man getting sent down to Earth to solve mathematical problems in everyday life. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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