Whiz Kids

1983
Whiz Kids

Seasons & Episodes

  • 1

EP1 Programmed For Murder Oct 05, 1983

Richie and his friends discover a skeleton on property coveted by a development corporation.

EP2 Fatal Error Oct 19, 1983

Richie learns that the computer game he has been play testing has a very different application for the convict who invented it, and who has $12,000 hidden away on the outside.

EP3 Deadly Access Oct 26, 1983

Richie uncovers a secret water project while testing the security of a chemical company for its security chief, who disappears after getting Richie's report.

EP4 Candidate for Murder Nov 02, 1983

Lew can't understand why a Gazette photographer was assaulted after covering a gubernatorial candidate until Richie uses Ralf to enhance the pictures he took and finds a fugitive embezzler.

EP5 A Chip Off the Old Block Nov 09, 1983

A fellow student of Richie's is caught using the school computer to embezzle bank funds, but the fellow who catches him decides to use the kid's idea for himself.

EP6 Airwave Anarchy Nov 16, 1983

A criminal taps into the police computers and sabotages them so that they cannot properly respond when his accomplices commit a crime.

EP7 Return of the Big Rocker Nov 23, 1983

Farley learns that a rock star long presumed dead is really alive, but not responsible for the glut of ""unknown"" new songs his old record company is releasing.

EP8 The Wrong Mr. Wright Nov 30, 1983

Farley investigates a computer dating service unaware that Richie has secretly signed up his mother for the same service.

EP9 Red Star Rising Dec 21, 1983

Ralf mysteriously malfunctions and Richie becomes convinced that it is because of unusual electrical interference from a neighbor's satellite dish.

EP10 The Network Jan 07, 1984

The FBI arrests Richie after trying to solve a challenge from a renowned hacker.

EP11 Watch Out! Jan 14, 1984

Richie uses the TV-ratings meter at Ham's house to investigate how the system works and discovers proof that a consumer advocate's program has been sabotaged in the ratings.

EP12 Amen to Amen-Re Jan 28, 1984

Richie solves a hieroglyphic inscription on a tomb, but it seems to be causing uncharacteristic behavior in all those who read it aloud.

EP13 Maid in the USA Feb 04, 1984

Mrs. Adler's new maid leaves bugs around the house just before a visit from Mr. Adler, who is supposed to be in town on government business.

EP14 The Lollypop Gang Strikes Back Feb 25, 1984

Richie looks into why the Social Security system has declared Carson Marsh dead while Lew follows a gang of elderly heisters.

EP15 The Sufi Project Mar 17, 1984

Lew asks for Richie's help in investigating the disappearance of a marine biologist who was using computers to communicate with dolphins.

EP16 Father's Day Apr 21, 1984

A KGB agent is pursuing Alice's new boyfriend.

EP17 Altaira Apr 28, 1984

Richie and Farley quarrel when Farley suggests that Richie's new girl friend set him up when information about a prototype tank proves false.

EP18 May I Take Your Order Please? Jun 02, 1984

Alice overhears two men planning an order while working at a fast food place, but no one believes her, so she sets out to do something about it herself.
6.8| 0h30m| en| More Info
Released: 05 October 1983 Ended
Producted By: Universal Television
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

The premise follows four high school tenth-graders, who use their sophisticated knowledge of computers to become amateur detectives, solving crimes and bringing perpetrators to justice.

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Reviews

Yrmy There was a time when personal computers were something new and exciting, and films like Wargames would have us all believe that any kid with a computer and a modem was just a few keystrokes away from full access to your bank account or the US missile launch computer. Whiz Kids was another product of this age, and certainly caught the attention of many juveniles who were into video games and home computers (myself included) with its displays of blinking lights, voice synthesizers, easy hacking and seemingly computer-run corporate worlds where even doors could be opened and whole buildings reduced to chaos by just one nondescript nerd behind a keyboard. Those were potent fantasies and partially helped to camouflage the ordinariness of the actual series.Apart from the computers, it was a standard juvenile adventure series where a group of resourceful kids (demographically comprising a mastermind nerd, a semi-jock, a token female and a token African-American) solved crimes and outwitted overconfident criminals with the help of a sympathetic reporter (Gail's ever-grinning, elbow-patched Farley, a ponytailed throwback into those post-Watergate times when reporters still seemed like the champions of truth and watchdogs of the system) and a less sympathetic but ultimately understanding police detective (the future soap prince Martinez giving an admirably stone-faced performance). The stories ran the usual gamut from big business baddies and individual criminal masterminds to an obligatory supernatural romp ("Amen for Amon Ra", which reached a surprisingly memorable climax with its glowing statues and levitating mummies). Though the general level of action was kept suitably safe and harmless, there could still be a surprisingly grave bit of violence or subject (e.g. nerve gas) for such a juvenile show. But everything was tempered with a necessary educational angle and familial trimmings, as the computer whiz Richie Adler had an irredeemably irritating little sister and a single mother frowning over the escapades of her son and his friends. Extra sheen came from the playful, mainly synthetic score with some nice quasi-classicism and borrowings.Watched now, the overall shabbiness and graininess of early-1980s television production values aside, this still seems like fun and nostalgic series, though I obviously no longer belong to its target audience. Those who would belong there, would probably find it too simplistic and too hilarious to watch. For like any series relying so heavily on state-of-the-art computer technology to hook its audience, Whiz Kids has been rendered utterly antediluvian by two decades of febrile progress. Furthermore, now that computers are ubiquitous and mundane, and everyone knows that no kid or adult could ever use them for any criminal or disruptive activity that would anyway bother the carefree computer-assisted existence of institutions or private individuals, you really can't take a series like Whiz Kids seriously, can you? Can you?
tony-148 Search for "Whiz Kids" on YouTube.com and you'll find 8 full episodes (broken into 5 parts each). Don't know if they've entered the public domain or if the powers that be haven't found them yet.Seeing this show brought back some great memories. This show also cemented my computer interest and headed me towards to a Computer Science degree for me as well.Yeah it's cheesy but very little of what was being described in the show was possible in the early to mid 80's. Today it's pretty common place and the security is nearly as bad.I'd love to see this come out on DVD. I'd like to have a decent quality copy.
rgaine While looking back at the show over 20 years later, it seems really cheezy, but in 1983 it is what helped get me involved with computers. Funny though seeing Albert Ingalls from Little House on the Prarie working with computers. I still have the shows on video tape.... well, if the tapes haven't erased themselves by now. It has been a while since I looked at them.Many movies of the time caught my interest, but being close in age to Richie and his friends this show was most interesting to me. War Games was also fun to watch, but not as realistic as Whiz Kids. I never could figure out how they got a coupler mount modem to auto dial though. That one is still a mystery.I'd like to see a Whiz Kids reunion show. I don't think that will happen though. I don't think the show was popular enough. Would be nice to see what the writers would do with all the characters though.
FieCrier I probably haven't seen this show since 1983, but I still remember it. I don't recall when I started watching. I think possibly some summer friends whose father owned a small electronics equipment chain recommended it. I seem to recall also that Matthew Laborteaux was on the cover of an early children's computer magazine called K-Power I initially learned about, I think, from scholastic book fairs at my elementary school. I recall the magazine had a BASIC program you could type into your computer to have it simulate the exchange between Richie and his talking computer during the opening of the show. K-Power later got absorbed into Family Computer just as a small section, and then Family Computing changed its name to something else and dropped the K-Power section at which I stopped subscribing.Incredibly, I can still replay the instrumental theme song to this show in my head. But apart from these bits of trivia, I don't remember the show itself too well!