Wow! Such a good movie.

A different way of telling a story

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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?

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!

I am really trying to remember 20 years ago to this show. It was very much a spin-off of the success of War Games. Richie had a computer that could do almost anything. It was built from a lot of spare parts that must have been around the studio. If it could flash, it went in the computer. At the time I loved the show because I was young and though computers were neat. I would like to see the show again just to see what I think now.The thing that I remember most about the show is that EVERYTHING seemed to be run by computers. In one episode they were locked in some room. In that room was some discarded terminal that they were able to connect to the building sprinkler system and set it off. Deus ex Machina situations like this happened way too often...and Richie was always like MacGuyver with a keyboard.Still...I remember liking the show back then.

The problem wasn't with O'Herlihy (it never is), it was his character. Prior to his coming on, the show was an entertaining adventure about a quartet of junior crimefighting computer experts that was every bit as much fun as Philip DeGuere's other then-current show "Simon & Simon" (Jeffrey and company even joined forces with A.J. Simon in one episode) - it was closer in tone to "WarGames" than "Scooby-Doo," which was fine with me even then; it also had some good writing to boot, such as one episode ending with their teacher informing the class that even though the FBI had commended them for their work that week, she was still going to punish the boys (the token female had done the homework) for not doing an assignment!Unfortunately, when they were recruited to work for O'Herlihy's organisation (in secret of course), the thrill of their being freelancers was gone. It was the same mistake made when the Hardy Boys (Stevenson and Cassidy version) were taken on by the Justice Department - they went from playing outside the system to being part of it, and the show was never the same. But it was fun while it lasted...