Who Coined The Name ‘Bill Nye The Science Guy’?

Fact: The origins of Bill Nye’s moniker name, “The Science Guy” goes back to a sketch comedy program in Seattle called, “Almost Live!” Bill Nye Science Guy actually won a Steve Martin look alike contest.

Bill Nye actually graduated from Cornell in 1977 with a degree in mechanical engineering. One of his teachers there was the beloved Carl Sagan. In fact, it was Carl Sagan who told Bill Nye to teach about real hard science he believed it really emanated with kids. This occurred during the 10th anniversary from graduating Cornell University.

To not get off topic, Bill The Science Guy got into comedy by accident. In college, he won a look alike contest impersonating Steve Martin. In fact, for some time after college, he was paid to walk around as a Steve Martin look alike.  This led Bill to start up comedy. He said, “laughter was an addiction” to paraphrase. He started writing for a sketch comedy program in Seattle from 1984 to 1999 where he one day corrected the host, John Keister for the pronunciation gigawatt as jigowatt on live television. John’s reply was, “who are you, Bill Nye the science guy?”

At this point, Bill had already been thinking of coming out of the comedy closet and John Keister was the one to give him the idea to combine his comedy with science (between the television program, Bill Nye often volunteered at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle). From there Bill started doing small segments of his science/comedy routine on the sketch program. Moving back to what I was talking about with Carl Sagan, he would then create the 100 – 30 minute episodes of Bill Nye: The Science Guy from 1993-1998.

Bill Nye The Science Guy hunger and curiosity for science has always been there. From a very young age like stated in the film above, Bill had an obsession with bees and their irregular sized wings. It was expedition to figure out the answer that helped lead him into the field he is today. When people reference him, they say “Doesn’t he do the science show?”