Greg Foot, Fran Scott and Dominic Byrne fronted this 2014 BBC Knowledge strip that crammed physics tricks, archive clips and cartoon explainers into one frantic hour. Each week the trio competed for points by firing facts at warp speed: a single episode might leap from the chemistry of popcorn to the aerodynamics of a paper plane while a homemade rocket screamed across a warehouse. The studio looked like a cross between a playground and a lab bench, and the scoreboard never stayed still.
Produced by 360 Production and also sold as "Really Cool Stuff" abroad, the ten-part run was BBC America's first co-buy with BBC Worldwide. Executive producer Lucy Pilkington pitched the show to BBC Knowledge as the channel's answer to the US explosion-fact boom, yet the budget stayed modest; most stunts were built from hardware-store parts and the animated inserts recycled the corporation's archive. Ratings were modest too, but the format lived on in schools science packs.
The hosts brought split expertise: Foot supplied the daredevil demos, Scott engineered the contraptions, and newsreader Byrne handled the stats. Their on-screen rivalry was real; crew diaries note the trio kept score between takes and argued over whether a trebuchet could beat a compressed-air cannon in distance per fact delivered. The series ended after one season when BBC Knowledge pivoted to natural-history repeats, leaving the scoreboard permanently frozen at 9,847 facts.
Production Details
BBC Knowledge / 1 Season / 10 Episodes / 2014
Showrunner(s): Lucy Pilkington
Main Cast
Greg Foot as Self - Host
Fran Scott as Self - Host
Dominic Byrne as Self - Host
