The Bell System Science Series

The Bell System Science Series consists of nine television specials made for the AT&T Corporation that were originally broadcast in color between 1956 and 1964.

Marcel LaFollette has described them as "specials that combined clever story lines, sophisticated animation, veteran character actors, films of natural phenomena, interviews with scientists, and precise explanation of scientific and technical concepts—all in the pursuit of better public understanding of science.

AT&T's advertising agency, N. W. Ayer & Son, suggested that they also sponsor "television specials aimed at family audiences", adding, "Science was a natural topic choice, given the accomplishments and reputation of the company's research arm, Bell Telephone Laboratories.

"[1] They ultimately approached the famed filmmaker Frank Capra, who had numerous nominations and wins for the Academy Award for Best Director in the 1930s and 1940s for films such as It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

The host for the first eight films was Frank C. Baxter, a USC professor of English and television personality who played the role of "Dr. Research" (or "Dr. Linguistics" in The Alphabet Conspiracy).

These early efforts were also influenced by television's love of the dramatic, refined during its first decade and continuing to shape news and public affairs programming, as well as fiction and fantasy, today.

As described by biographer Joseph McBride, Capra had retired from feature filmmaking by 1952, due in part to the turmoil of the Hollywood Blacklist era.

McBride writes that Capra "undoubtedly realized that the AT&T job was a way of going back to work quietly and rehabilitating his image".

Matthew Gunter adds that the Fiction Writer "possesses many of the characteristics of the heroes in earlier Capra films" and "also acts like the audience's surrogate, often expressing a healthy skepticism or disbelief about the facts Dr. Research presents, asking questions to the scientist, and translating his technical verbiage into the language of the common people".

[8] The religious elements in the screenplays occasioned much discussion and some acrimony with the scientific advisory board and consultants such as Donald Menzel, but many were finally incorporated.

James Gilbert has written, "When finally produced, Our Mr. Sun included a mixture of science, documentary footage, low-key advertising, and animation contained within a religious-magical framework. ...

"[9] Matthew Gunter writes, "in these films, Capra tries to create a common ground between science and religion—both are ways for the optimistic and the curious to think about the world and our place in it.

Baxter was a professor of English at the University of Southern California who enjoyed great success as the host of Shakespeare on TV at about the same time as the Bell series was being made, and who won a Peabody Award in 1956.

As Gilbert describes it, the third and fourth films "repeated the formulas of his earlier work while ever searching for new contrivances for popularization as well as the best language to express his soft religious message" and that the script was essentially a reworking of ideas Capra had developed for a possible documentary about Robert A.

[18] The film's screenplay works from the premise that the nature of cosmic rays is a mystery comparable to the great detective stories.

A committee of marionettes representing Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allan Poe is called upon to decide the question.

[21] Recent commentators have noted that this film exhibits an early concern with climate change caused by human activities.

[22][23] The television ratings for these specials and the critical response to them were important to AT&T and to N. W. Ayer, which was apparently dissatisfied with The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays and Unchained Goddess.

Geoff Alexander and Rick Prelinger have written, "From the perspective of overall cohesion, writing, and set design, Crump's Bell series films are superior to those of Capra.

In addition to Dr. Baxter, it starred Wilder Penfield and Hadley Cantrell, with actor Karl Swenson playing the role of a cameraman (the program was set on a soundstage in a mock "behind-the-scenes" format).

In 1966, Jones won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for directing The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (1965).

The cast included Cheryl Callaway as Judy, Stanley Adams as the theatrical agent, and Hans Conried as the Mad Hatter.

AT&T and N. W. Ayer were apparently somewhat dissatisfied with the first two Warner films, and unsuccessfully approached Capra about bidding on production of Thread of Life and About Time.

The director was Les Clark; the film starred Sterling Holloway voicing an animated water droplet, who replaced Baxter.

Photograph of two men standing. The man on the left is wearing a suit and tie; he is middle-aged, wears eyeglasses, and is bald. The man on the right is wearing a loose tie and is much younger. Behind the two men is a wood-paneled wall with photographs, one of which is the planet Saturn. There is also a large model of a molecule behind them, possibly illustrating DNA.
Dr. Research (left) and Mr. Fiction Writer (right) from the Bell series film Our Mr. Sun (1956). The roles were played by Dr. Frank Baxter and Eddie Albert, respectively.
The quotation "The Heavens Declare the Glory of God" and credit "Psalms" are overlaid against a photograph of an orange sky and clouds; there is a dark hillside sloping across the bottom right of the photograph. The impression is of a photograph taken at sunrise. The typeface used for the quotation has a Gothic style.
Screenshot from the beginning of Our Mr. Sun showing a quotation from the Bible.
Cartoon showing a boat with about nine people in it floating on water. Submerged beneath the boat are a house, a palm tree, and power lines. There is also a school of swimming fish in the water beneath the boat.
An animation in The Unchained Goddess shows tourists in a glass-bottomed boat viewing the flooded remains of Miami after melting of the polar icecaps. The animation illustrates a possible consequence of global warming .
Photograph showing a rectangular plaster sculpture standing on a floor. The sculpture shows a portion of a person's face with the eye, eyebrow, and part of the upper cheek. The sculpture is about 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) high and 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) wide. There is a second, similar sculpture of a person's mouth that is standing closer to the viewer; only a portion of it is visible. There is a television camera on wheels between the two sculptures.
Screenshot from the opening credits of Gateways to the Mind (1958) showing part of William Kuehl's stage design. A camera is being rolled between giant sculptures of a human eye and a human mouth, which are props on a large and active soundstage.