Created and broadcast by PBS in the United States from January 26, 1987 to November 6, 1992, the show was intended to address the math crisis among American schoolchildren.

The show was revived for the 1995–96 PBS season as a teacher instruction program, Square One TV Math Talk.

Square One comprised short sketches that introduced and applied concepts in mathematics such as counting, combinatorics, simple fractions, estimation, probability, and geometry.

Mathcourt was a regular segment that parodied television shows of the day set in courtrooms, presided by Judge Sandra Day O'Crater (played by Cynthia Darlow), who showed zero tolerance for unacceptable behavior from the audiences (and the announcer, with the judge sometimes not knowing who it was), frequently telling the gallery she'd have them do time or punish them in another extreme way if they didn't shut up and stop the interruptions (she even threatened to have them all hanged on one occasion).

The skit helped viewers learn to recognize common mistakes while solving math problems, such as forgetting to carry a digit, or making errors with negative numbers.

A blue tornado character named "Mr. Glitch", a parody of the Ghosts, was Mathman's enemy and would eat him if he got the wrong answers.

Other animated segments included The Further Adventures of Zook & Alison; and Fax Headful, a parody of Max Headroom.

"Mathman"'s objective was to run around a Pac-Man-like maze board (the traditional dots were replaced with + and - signs) and eventually encounter a number or polygon.

However, Mathman accomplished this feat only a handful of times (i.e., "Multiples of 3," "Factors of 24," "Symmetrical Polygons," "Rectangles" and "Fractions Greater than 1").

Mathman was a green, Pac-Man-like character with a big mouth, a winged football helmet (patterned after that of the University of Michigan Wolverines, as a significant number of the show's staff were U-M alumni), and a single foot on which he walked around the game maze.

The title character, Lt. Dirk Niblick, is tasked in each segment with helping friends through practical dilemmas through the use of mathematics.

Episodes frequently center on outsmarting scam artists who use deceptive language to attempt to trick the protagonists out of money or property.

The Dirk Niblick segments are similar in appearance to the 1965 cartoon Roger Ramjet; Fred Crippen animated for both, and Gary Owens voiced both title characters.

[6] Each episode featured a closing segment titled Mathnet, starring Joe Howard as George Frankly and Beverly Leech as Kate Monday.