Barouk here in New York and we're talking with Bill Nye the Science Guy about the environment, bow ties, and why he'd love to make a Dancing with the Stars comeback.

So how did you become so connected with the bow tie?

Uh, it was I was a junior in high school. So the, uh, they have a thing called the Girls Athletic Banquet where I went to high school, Washington, DC. And at the Girls Athletic Banquet, the girls, the young women get their awards for field hockey, gymnastics, soccer, whatever they're doing. And the boys are the waiters at this banquet. And it occurred to me even then, this is going to be a situation where the girls will talk to us. We're going to go right up to them, we're going to bring them food and they'll, they'll talk to us, man. This is going to be awesome. I thought, well, if we're going to do this, let's look like waiters. So I asked my father about it, who's very skilled with bow ties. He showed me how to do it. I practiced and practiced. I tied everybody's tie that afternoon, that evening. And you know, we were successful.

And the women spoke to you?

Yes, they did.

And they've been speaking with you ever since.

Uh, didn't, I didn't say that. Uh, okay.

Is it true that your career started when you won a Steve Martin look-alike contest?

Yes.

Tell me more.

Yes. I mean, you can say my career started in high school when I was Tio in Taming of the Shrew. Naturally. You could say that. But, uh, yeah, so I had a group of friends in college who thought I was just like Steve Martin. This is when C Martin's first album came out. Then a whole completely different set of friends in Seattle, where I got a job at Boeing. I was recruited out of engineering school. I worked at Boeing. Don't worry. It's very well supervised. They said you're just like Steve Martin. And this contest came on and I won in Seattle. I did not advance beyond that. The guy who won the national one kind of looked like Steve Martin, Andy from Nashville, he could play the banjo, like serious bis. But my claim, and you can evaluate this, my claim is that I understood what Steve Martin was driving at in those days better than the other contestants.

Which was?

Uh, that if you read his book Born Standing Up, he talks about this. The funniest moment in your life is when you choose to laugh. When the laugh's not forced on you. And so Steve Martin did all these extraordinary things where you thought, wait a minute, is this guy in on it or is it he like nuts? And so this he created this tension that you just would laugh both with and at at the same time. And this is crystallized in that moment when you say to your friends, well, you had to be there. Well, you had to be there. To see how funny it was, you had to be there. You go to anywhere in Asia, China, everybody knows Mickey Mouse. This is maybe not intentional, but our tech our culture is exploded. So is our technology, our software. So if we lead the world in renewable energy production, we can change it. And then I think about my grandfather, who went into World War I on a horse. On a freaking horse. Into battle. Can you imagine guys shooting at you with bullets propelled by gun cotton by, you know, the bullet fuel? But 20 years later, when World War I became World War II, nobody who is serious about it went into battle on a horse. In just two decades, everything changed. So let's change it again. Come on, everybody, let's change everything. Let's go.

Now, my generation grew up with Bill Nye the Science Guy. We love you. How did that show change the game?

Well, we'll see. So, if you read the beginning of the book, I have a copy of the sheet of paper that I gave everybody who came to work on the show. I usually gave it to the person. Sometimes somebody at the front desk gave it to the person. We had a lot of interns. And it's the rules of the road. And it says right there at the top. Objective, change the world. And it talks about you, so that the next generation after mine, you will embrace these global problems and solve them.

Now that we're tackling serious topics, I've got to ask you, Dancing with the Stars. Cool stuff. You love dancing. Had you not been injured, do you think you would have won the trophy?

Ah, I sure would have tried. Just keep in mind, Amber and, uh, I mean, there were some real dancers on there. I mean, real athletes. I was just sort of messing around. And Bill Engvall, man, he's a showman. I mean, this two years ago.

What was the best part of the show?

You it's a team. You feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself. And the other thing I loved about it was the focus. When they engage you on this and you realize these other people are working really hard, by that, I mean, learning this thing. It's athletic and you have to memorize stuff. You have to pay attention to somebody much younger than you are telling you what to do because she's an expert and you're an idiot. All this stuff, uh, it just it just engages your mind fully. It's a really really great experience. I say to anybody, if they ask you to be on Dancing with the Stars, do it. But I got the gig, you know, pretty late in life. And I tore my quadriceps tendon. And it's still not all the way back. Over two years later, if I go up steps two at a time, I can still feel the soreness.

But was it worth it?

Oh, yeah, yeah. But I just just looking back, we had this move that I did rehearsed over and over where I was on one knee and jumped up. And I think that just it just wore out. But it happened like that. It's not like you felt it coming on and then it really it just boom. Oh, what a drag. And it wasn't over hyper-extended or anything. It just I went to the sports medicine guy. He goes, "Hey, you're old." Dude. No. That's what he said. Well, he's right, yeah. But I would do it again in a second. If they asked me back, I'd be back in a second. You heard that here. Ask him back. And, uh, Tyne, my partner, is just cool. She's lovely. She's, uh, she went and she was she dances all the time now.

Well, maybe we'll be seeing you back on there.

Yeah, yeah, it was cool.

Bill Nye, thank you so much.

Thank you. Carry on, let's change the world.