Mathnet

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Mathnet is a segment on the children's television show Square One in which five seasons were produced (1987-88, 1990-92). This parody of Dragnet featured detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department who solved mysteries using their mathematical skills. There were two main characters: detectives Kate Monday (Beverly Leech) and George Frankly (Joe Howard). Mary Watson also had a regular role as the duo's technical analyst, Debbie Williams. Later on in the series, Kate Monday was replaced by Pat Tuesday (Toni DiBuono) one season after the show's setting moved to New York City in the third season. James Earl Jones played a recurring role as the chief Thad Green. He also briefly appears in season 4 and indicates he knows Pat Tuesday. When the duo was transferred to New York, Captain Joe Greco (Emilio Del Pozo) became their leader and undercover NYPD officer Benny Pill (Bari K. Willerford) became their semi-regular backup support.

Each segment of the series aired on one episode of Square One, a production of the Children's Television Workshop aimed at teaching math skills to young viewers. Five segments made up an episode (one for each weekday), with suspense building at the end of each segment. A Mathnet comic briefly appeared in 3-2-1 Contact magazine, also a CTW production, but the magazine eventually stopped featuring Square One content.

Both Mathnet and Square One went off the air in 1994 (it ran as reruns until then after the final 1992 season was completed), reappearing from 1999–2003 on the cable television network Noggin, a joint venture of Nickelodeon and CTW.

Contents 1 Math and science 2 Trivia 3 Memorable quotes 4 Notable guest stars 4.1 Spanish voices 5 Credits 6 External links

Math and science

Real principles of math and science used by the detectives to solve crimes include:

• Kinematics ("The Problem of the Missing Baseball")
• Chromatic scale ("The Problem of the Passing Parade")
• Displacement of fluids ("The Problem of the Trojan Hamburger")
• Fibonacci sequence ("The Case of the Willing Parrot")
• Statistical sampling ("The Case of the Deceptive Data," "The Calpurnian Kugel Caper," "The Case: Off the Record")
• Triangulation ("The Case of the Map with a Gap", "The Case of the Bermuda Triangle", "Despair in Monterey Bay")
• Random number generation ("The Calpurnian Kugel Caper")
• Databases ("The Case of the Pocono's Paradise")
• Handwriting analysis ("The Case of the Purloined Policies")
• Hamiltonian path ("The Case of the Smart Dummy")
• Process of elimination ("The Case of the Great Car Robbery")
• Number Patterns ("The Case of the Missing Air")

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (May 2008)

George Ernest Frankly's oft-mentioned next-door neighbor, Mr. Beasley, was the neighbor in the other direction of another Square One Television regular: the animated Dirk Niblick of the Math Brigade. This fact comes up several times in both Mathnet episodes and Dirk Niblick cartoons, usually focusing on how George borrowed things from Mr. Beasley, and is always losing them. Because he was also animated, Mr. Beasley only appeared on Dirk Niblick.

The detectives wore shoulder holsters; however, they carried calculators instead of guns. At times, the two would draw out their calculators and point them like guns. Joe Greco and Benny Pill did however, use (but never fired) guns to apprehend suspects.

Instead of the Los Angeles coat of arms and LAPD motto, the Mathnet cruisers display a parody with the stars on the American shield replaced with equals signs, the Bear Flag replaced with a compass and geometric figures, the eagle replaced with a multiplication sign, and the rook and lion replaced with division and addition signs, with the motto "to cogitate and to solve".

Yeardley Smith, better known as the voice of Lisa Simpson, was featured in a story arc where she played the young friend of a gorilla. ("The Problem of the Missing Monkey")

Although the rest of Square One TV's sketches refer to the Michigan Wolverines, George Frankly is shown a diehard fan of all the major Los Angeles teams, especially the Dodgers and the Rams. When the detectives move to New York, George still has his Dodgers pennant in the office as a reminder of his LA roots.

At the end of each fifth and last continuation episode the detectives would let out a laugh and give a high five.

Despite the fact that the program aired on PBS, the detectives had near death experiences, particularly in Season 2, when George Frankly was almost crushed to death by a car crusher in "The Case of the Great Car Robbery" as a result of an entrapment scheme concocted by Kate Monday. Subsequently, Kate Monday was almost killed by a bomb in "The View from the Rear Terrace" so that she would not be able to testify against Raymond Sticker's criminal activities. (Both characters avoided death; George "rolled out of the car when I figured out what they were going to do", and George subsequently disarmed the bomb in Kate's apartment, albeit with 1 second remaining.)

There were two 5 part episodes about one of the detectives getting framed for doing something they didn't commit. In one episode called The Trial of George Frankly, George Frankly was accused for robbing the bank. In another episode Pat Tuesday was accused for stealing some type of expensive jewelry.

Originally the mug shots were photos while a man was talking about their arrests, but in a funny way. Later they stopped using mugshot photos and instead they would show a video clip of the criminal(s) holding a mugshot sign in their hand.

The female criminal, Maureen O'Reilly, in the Mystery of the Maltese Pigeon was the only woman that was in the original mugshots.

In the episode, The Problem of the Dirty Money, George Frankly talks about the show Dragnet.

Frankly's wife, Martha was never heard or seen. Only mentioned by Frankly.

Memorable quotes

• "The story you're about to see is a fib, but it's short. The names are made up but the problems are real."
• "My name is Monday. I'm a mathematician."
• "My name is Tuesday. I'm a mathematician."
• "Let's roll."
• "Speaking Frankly -- I mean, Frankly speaking."
• "Mathematicians! Freeze!!"
• "Plenty of time left." (George, said just after disarming a bomb and just before reading that there was only one second left on it.)
• "My name is Noel Sphinx Jr. My father was The First Noel."
• "Who? Scarlett? No, this isn't Kate. It's Frankly, Scarlett, and I don't give a--"
• "That's easier said than done. My house has been stolen."
• "Son of a gun!...Sorry, I didn't mean to curse." (George, upset.)
• "George couldn't have robbed the bank, your Honor. The pilot was lying."
• "That's what I mean. Capital of Illinois is Springfield, not Chicago. He's always giving kids wrong information."
• "Zero times seven is zero. Zero times any number is zero. He can't tell our kids lies!"
• "Entertaining?! You called Telling Lies, Giving Misinformation and being abusing Entertaining?!"
• "Listen, Kids! There are five Great Lakes. Springfield is the Capital of Illinois. And when you multiply any number by zero, the answer is always zero!"
• "I didn't know it was against the law to chop down a parking meter with a chainsaw and throw it in the back of a pickup truck"
• "...the brothers KARamozof, or KaraMOZof" (whenever mentioning the suspects, caps indicating pronunciation)
• "Ah George (Steinbrenner) is a <lots of car horns beeping>"
• "I am George Ernest Frankly and I just came out of the closet!"
• "I was almost certain I didn't rob that bank."
• "Could they have hypnotized me? Of course they couldn't! I'm unhypnotizable!"

Notable guest stars

Yeardley Smith Dick Wilson Lou Cutell William Windom Kevin McCarthy Kenneth Mars Geoffrey Lewis Ron O'Neal Jack Riley Dick Sargent McLean Stevenson Ronnie Schell F. William Parker Lara Jill Miller

Marcia Wallace Wayne Knight Peggy Rea Clyde Kusatsu Estelle Harris Louis Zorich Michael McGrath (who would later marry Toni di Buono [Pat Tuesday]) Victor Raider-Wexler Tammy Grimes Arnold Stang Al Lewis Jim Thurman Monty Landis

Paul Dooley (who was head writer for another CTW production, The Electric Company) John Sayles Jayne Meadows Keone Young John Michael Higgins John Moschitta, Jr. Betty Buckley Nicholas Wyman Todd Stockman Weird Al Yankovic Rodney Dangerfield Leonard Jackson

Spanish voices

Patricia Acevedo Rosy Aguirre Víctor Mares Alcalá Jorge Arvizu Jesús Barrero Salvador Delgado Carmen Donadio

Madga Giner Marina Huerta José Lavat Aracelli de Leon Roberto Mendiola José Luis Orozco

Germán Robles Guillermo Romano Esteban Siller Alexia Solis Ricardo Tejedo Humberto Vélez

Credits

Executive Producers: Ralph Rogers, Joan Ganz Cooney, Nina Elias-Bamberger Producers: Janette M. Webb, George E. Swink Co-Producer: Annina Lavee Directed by: Charles S. Dubin, William Screiner Writers: David D. Connell, Jim Thurman Directors of Photography: David Sperling, Ron Vargas Music Composed by: Gerald Fried Music Arranged & Conducted by: John Rodby Casting by: Mary West, C.S.A. & Brown/West Casting Extras Casting: Marcia Shulman & Urell Casting Associate Director & Associate Producer: Scott A. Satin Stage Manager: Bruce Alan Solow 1st Assistant Director: Bob Hurrie 2nd Assistant Director: Mary Weisgerber Meyer Production Designers: Bill Bohnert, Robert P. Kracick Production Sound: Walter Hoylman Make-Up Artists: Angela Johnson, Pamela S. Westwore Hair Stylists: Angela Johnson, Kay Cole Costume Designers: Tanna Moontaro, Donna Thorburn Costumer: Gala Autumn Post Production Supervisor: Jon Stern

Production Coordinator: Phillipa Davis Assistant Production Coordinator: Jacqueline Glover Raw Location Manager: Maggie McCabe McMonagle Set Decorator: Rowena Rowling Property Master: Mark Harrington Transportation Captain: Dan Goldberg Music Editor: Eugene Marks Auditor: Lynn Goldman Sound Effects: Echo Film Service Sound Mixers: Blaine Stewart, Paul Corte Sound Effects Editors: Tim McCarthy, Anthony Pipitone Unit Manager: Deborah Magocsi Re-Recording Mixer: Rex Recker/Photomag Sound Studios Production Secretary: Jacqueline Glover Raw 1st Assistant Cameras: Tracey Litwin, Bob Hall Gaffer: Paul R. Birk Key Grip: John Dianda Script Supervisors: Nancy Friedman-Gitlin, Rebecca Long Production Assistants: James Douglas Williams, Brian Logan, Rudy Sheriff, Chris Jarnick, Debbie Eaton, Tracey Thielen, Rhonda Baer, Michael W. Green Color and Video by: Du Art

A Turtleback Production in association with The Entertainment Group

External links

• SquareOneTV.org - Guide of episodes guest star appearances
• Mathnet - To Cogitate and to solve - Episode guide, photos, sound clips, and actor bios.
• GPN Educational Media - VHS recordings available for sale.

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