When he’s not the “Science Guy,” Bill Nye is saving NASA.
He just spent a few days in Washington, D.C., meeting with members of Congress to fund the space administration amid calls to slash its budget.
“This would end a great many missions,” he says. “This is madness and not in the United States’ best interest. Yet, there are people in the administration working very hard to essentially close NASA. There are people in Congress who are pushing back, but they need a done deal.”
Nye hasn’t quite hung up his “Science Guy” bowtie (he’s wearing one with a white dress shirt as he speaks from D.C.) but his political advocacy takes up “more than half” his time. He works nearly full-time as the CEO of the Planetary Society, a non-profit co-founded by Carl Sagan, but he hasn’t lost his obsidian-sharp sense of humor or love for science education. As we speak, he waxes on about relativity and winning a Steve Martin-lookalike contest during his stand-up days. On Sept. 22, he will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
His early comedy career and endless supply of knowledge led him to hosting “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” a staple for elementary-school classes in the ’90s and 2000s. After filling in on Seattle sketch show “Almost Live,” Nye gave an entertaining talk on household uses of liquid nitrogen under the “Science Guy” moniker. From there, he quit his job at Sundstrand Data Control and hosted a nature show called “Fabulous Wetlands” for the state of Washington. That landed him a pilot order from Disney, and “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” with his wacky experiments and fast-paced gags, was born.
“There’s an old saying: ‘You can pretend to be serious, but you can’t pretend to be funny,’” he says. “I have a huge advantage: I’m funny looking, so that’s a huge first step. I am energetic and spent a lot of time working diligently on my hilarious jokes.”
After “Science Guy” ended, Nye returned in the streaming era with Netflix’s “Bill Nye Saves the World” and Peacock’s “The End Is Nye,” a six-episode series on world-ending disasters. In addition to his scientific advocacy, he’s working on a new show, but he reveals there was a politically charged episode of “The End Is Nye” that never aired.
“The seventh show we were not allowed to produce,” Nye explains. “We were discouraged from finishing the script, although we did, but the company refused or decided not to produce it. It was about authoritarianism. What we missed in our version is how fast it happens. Watching what’s happening in the United States now, the speed at which things are breaking and the government is being taken apart, was not anticipated.”
Like its bleak title suggests, “The End Is Nye” kills off its host halfway through each episode as he explains phenomena like volcanoes, solar flares and droughts.
“I drown, I get buried, I’m smashed by tektites, I get crushed by an asteroid, I get electrocuted. But the authoritarian show, I was going to be shot by firing squad,” he explains.
Despite the state of the country and lack of funding for science programs, Nye looks ahead on the bright side.
“You have to be optimistic,” he says. “You can’t go into the game thinking you’re going to lose. We’ve got to buckle down, stick together and produce a product that people want. My colleagues and I are working on that. We’ll be back, but it is a very difficult time.”