"Look Around You" comes to US cable this week

Did you know germs come from Germany? Or that mathematicians have yet to come up with a number larger than 45 million?

If not, tune into Adult Swim's Look Around You starting Sunday at 1 a.m. and get smart.

A nostalgic goof on interactive educational modules from the '70s and '80s, Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz's spoof is a nonsensical blast from the past.


If you like British humor and get a kick out of old educational movies, then Adult Swim's new addition to its programming lineup is just for you. Starting this Sunday at 1 a.m., it will be airing 14 episodes of Look Around You, a hilarious BBC spoof on classroom science videos.

Each nine-minute episode of the show attempts to teach you about such things as water, math (or "maths," in British lingo), and sports, but it's almost guaranteed you'll learn nothing useful - or accurate - by watching. You might, say, find out that all music is produced by a special music-making machine, or that the largest possible number in the world is "approximately 45 billion." It's dry, straightforward, and completely hilarious; it always makes me think of awkward science teachers in my past who wore a lot of tweed.

A few full episodes are on YouTube, but all you really need to watch to get a feel for the series are the opening credits, which just smack of the late '70s. You can check them out in the "Water" episode if you read more.