Anybody from the NYC 5 boroughs who grew up sans the luxury of cable television knows all too well about the ill 10 channel mini-selection (12 if you count the spanish jumpoffs…..Telemundo I see you baby!!! Univision whattup). You remember having to actually get up when it was time to change the tube, manually push the channel up/down buttons (or turn the knob if you had the true black & white tell dem) as you readjusted those wire hanger rabbit ears on the top of the TV hearing the soft hhsssssshhhhsssshhhhssshhhh white fuzz ad libs in the background of your favorite television broadcast. If you was really gangsta you had to adjust the little TV on the top (because that was for picture) as you adjusted the big TV on the bottom (because that was for sound). So this made you really sit down and watch TV, because wasn’t nobody tryin’ to get up every three seconds and re-perform that adjustment routine. Needless to say, this forced a youg’n to develop a much longer attention span and increased his/her visual patience immensely. Duns & Dunnettes got real creative and diversified they bonds on some next sh!t by discovering the realm of Public Access channels like Channel 25 and Channel 31.

With shows like Video Music Box and Ghostwriter, these channels gave you cable-esque alternatives to your regularly scheduled network television diet of cheesey sitcoms, evening news, and primetime dramas. But the real rush-str8-home-from-school treat was a show called Square ONE. This was a sketch show based around the theme of mathematics. They had everything from cartoons to game show segments all based around the subject of Arithmetics. But the true gem of the show was the ill CSI themed “Mathnet” where they followed a case and split each 6min episode into 5 cliffhanging parts that concluded every Friday with the culprit being revealed, captured, and sent to math jail. This sh!t was like The Wire for 10yr olds. The show was great because it found a way to make math seem like a tell dem by integrating it into formats that you already liked (i.e. a rap video) but showing you the practical relevance of math in your daily life rather than spitting repetitive formulas at you and telling you to learn them sh!ts or fail at life.

This was one of the forgotten gems of my childhood son. So without freddy adieu, I present to you, a lil’ mathematical tell dem by my main mans & dem – The Fat Boys. Get Your Learn On.

[click to view clip of Square ONE]