Mad Science Creates Mad Parents

Invite Mad Science into your home and you are indeed going to get madness. But it’s going to be your anger that creates the madness.

Mad Science is a business that is supposed to create science education for grade school children. They do school programs, after school classes and in home shows for birthday parties etc.

One Mad Scientist told me the story of how he set money on fire for a show using alcohol. But a burning drop fell off the bill and set the whole pan of alcohol on fire. The fire burned itself out in the pan. But what would have happened if that burning drop had landed on a child’s shirt?

I experienced a disaster created by a Mad Scientist and started looking into what other dangerous situations Mad Science and their performers create. And there are plenty of examples.  All of the following examples happened in my home city. You can extrapolate how many life-threatening situations Mad Science is creating, as they operate internationally.

I started interviewing performers from Mad Science and they were happy to tell me “funny” stories that happened while they were performing. They laughed and laughed at the situations they put the public into. Not one of the “scientists” I interviewed from Mad Science understood the danger in the stories they were relating.

I witnessed a performer from Mad Science drop a bottle of acetone (nail polish remover) on an expensive hard wood dining room table. The acetone immediately ate through the varnish and the wood stain. The spill dripped over the edge of the table and scarred two chairs as well. The repair cost seven hundred dollars.

Mad Science uses many dangerous chemicals and flammable materials in their shows. Invite them into your house at your own peril.

I was told another story where a performer actually lit a customer’s dining room table on fire.

Acetone was used to melt a Styrofoam head. Later in the show while lighting a candle for a fire trick, the fumes from the acetone lit the Styrofoam on fire. The drippy fire set the tablecloth on fire. The performer had not come prepared with a fire extinguisher so the mom ran and got one to put the fire out. Several of the experiments the performer was planning to do were ruined because of the spray from the extinguisher. So the rest of the show was a flop.

From my research I discovered that every show Mad Science does includes some sort of fire trick.

Another performer told me of the time he lit his flash paper on fire and a spark from that landed in his supply of flash paper and the entire bin went up. It created a huge burst of flame. The fireball singed all the hair on one of his hands and both of his eyebrows.

For school shows Mad Science uses big balls of flame in their demos. One trick ignites flour that is shot out of a funnel.

Another show uses a burning powder in a trash can that is then supposed to shoot smoke rings over the audience.

A performer I spoke to told me about the time the company gave him the wrong powder. He lit the powder but it did not smoke. He stuck his head into the garbage can to blow out the flame but the toxic fumes from the fire actually made him pass out.

There is nothing quite as entertaining as having a performer faint during a show. And then having to cancel the rest of the show because paramedics are treating the performer.

Another example was a school auditorium show where the performer lit some flash paper and threw it at the audience. But the paper was too old and it burned slowly, so it landed on the dry leaves being used as decorations at the front of the stage. The leaves caught fire. The performer stomped on the flames knocking some of the burning leaves closer to the front row of children. The performer leapt off the stage to put out the mini- fires near the kids. In the mean time the fire on stage was getting bigger. So the performer ran back up and squirted what he thought was water onto the fire. But the squirt bottle was full of a flammable liquid. A teacher came over with a fire extinguisher and put out the fire.

Just how much training are these performers getting? The answer is shocking.

For an entire eight-week course of after school programs, Mad Scientists receive four or five days of training. A Birthday party is taught to a performer in one hour before they are sent out to perform it.

How much supervision is there during an after school program? None!

Your kids will be there alone with the Mad Scientist. There are times when there is no school staff any where in the building except perhaps in the office.

What if the barely trained Mad Scientist starts a fire during an after school program? Or passes out because of fumes? Or what if a child gets sick or is injured?

On one occasion a Mad Scientist was at a school where the secretary forgot there was a class going on. She went home and locked up the school behind her. The Mad Scientist was told that parents would come to the classroom to pick up the kids. But the parents couldn’t get into the school. About fifteen minutes after the class ended the performer finally took the kids down to the front door.

During those fifteen minutes how worried would you have been as one of those parents?

You can hire Mad Science to come to your home if you dare.

Or Mad Science can come to your child’s school to do a show and you might not even know about it.

But in my opinion the odds of Mad Science creating mad parents is greater than that of them creating happy children.