Hello,I've been following the discussion with interest - Whiz Kids was my favourite show on British TV when I was growing up. This and Tron left a big impression!Just a quick note: the music isn't Rossini, it's adapted from Mozart's 'Elvira Madigan' (Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major). It's an amalgam of highlights from Part I of the concerto.My favourite theme of all time :)I do love Whiz Kids. I wish they'd release the DVD already!Dave

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?

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.

an all-American crew ( you know, the white+black+etc guys ) of computer nerds solves complicate police cases with a bit of thrill at times. I laugh sincerely thinking back to my Atari computer from back then, and those guys who with primitive computers & cave ages BASIC programming would work wonders. In the row of the various science based 80's telepictures ( Automan, Street Hawk, Supercar/knight rider etc ) with a streak of War Games & other kiddie star movies like the Goonies. it'd grow old quickly. Basically a salad bowl kind of telepicture. Frankly, i'm not missing it...it held little water even at the time. Supercar etc were waaay better to watch.