The educational value of representations of science and innovation in the animated TV series Professor Balthazar

Abstract

This paper reviews the popular TV cartoon series Professor Balthazar, which was first produced in Yugoslavia in the 1960s–1970s and has recently been revived with the release of a new season and computer game. The paper argues that, despite its somewhat clichéd portrayal of a scientist, the series still manages to present a rather nuanced representation of the scientific process, including the scientific method and the importance of failure for innovation. This could partly stem from the Zagreb School of Animation's preoccupation with abstract critiques of issues such as modern technology, and from the humanist socialist political environment in which the series was first developed. This new analysis suggests that the cartoon series, which has been overlooked in science and technology studies, could be used more directly in science education, extending beyond its current use in the media culture curriculum in primary schools.

1. Introduction

Walking in downtown Zagreb in March 2025, I did a double take as I noticed a billboard that made me feel like I had travelled back in time: a character from a quirky cartoon that first aired in the 1960s was staring at me, advertising the cinema premiere of a new episode of the series. Fans of Professor Balthazar will be familiar with time travel and other seemingly impossible feats, such as voyaging to distant planets and solving various environmental crises. Professor Balthazar is a cheerful, bespectacled, middle-aged gentleman in a top hat: at first glance, he fits the cliché of a scientist—an eccentric loner working on unusual inventions in his laboratory. The professor has his ‘miraculous machine’, which, at the pull of a handle, produces inventions in liquid form and drips them into a test tube, allowing him to deliver them where they are needed. The 1967 pilot episode describes him as a ‘famous inventor’ who ‘worked on many curious inventions’. These inventions include ‘ever-lasting super suspenders’, a ‘snow-o-mat’ that bottles ‘ice-energy’ and a flying streetcar, to name a few.

The colourful cartoons, co-produced between 1967 and 1977 by Zagreb Film in Croatia and Windrose-Dumont-Time in Germany, mostly follow a similar pattern: someone asks for help; the professor ponders the problem; he then quickly comes up with the solution—often in the form of a technological invention—leading to a happy ending. Despite Balthazar being presented and perceived as a successful innovator who easily and instantaneously solves the world's problems with his quirky inventions, close watching of the series reveals a much more complex picture that communicates many nuances of the scientific process, as well as the pitfalls of innovation and new technology. Repeatedly, the episodes portray nuances and realities of the scientific process: it takes time and effort, and can be both serendipitous and messy. Beyond communicating the value of mathematics, the arts and the humanities, the series addresses how failure and unintended consequences can occur in the pursuit of technological solutions. This suggests that the series’ didactic value for science education may have been underappreciated.

Some scholars have started to analyse the cartoon's potential for use in education (see e.g., Jelavić Šako, 2021; Pejakušić, 2018), noting the importance of the educational topics in the cartoon (Scarpa, 2011) and describing its educational value as being partly due to inspiring children to ‘continually improve themselves, help others, work and [be] dedicated to their work’ (Plantak, 2021). However, so far, such studies of Professor Balthazar's educational value have mainly focused on general aspects of teaching children how to be good citizens and have overlooked the series’ potential value for science education more specifically. Although some literature on the cartoon has been published in the fields of education and film studies, no articles have been dedicated to how it represents science and technology.

The cartoon is widely recognizable in the Western Balkan region. For example, one study (Pejakušić, 2018) suggests that nearly 100% of schoolchildren in Croatia know who Professor Balthazar is, perhaps because the series is featured in media culture studies in the primary school curriculum. The cartoon was also popular in other countries and regions; the educational organization Association Professor Balthazar has noted its prominence in Scandinavia, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal, Iran, Australia and New Zealand, in particular (personal communication). According to the organization's analysis, Balthazar videos released recently on TikTok were viewed 4.4 million times in just over a year by people from dozens of countries around the world, which ‘suggests a strong global appeal’.

2. The image of the scientist

Mead and Metraux (1957) identified the clichéd image of a scientist through their draw-a-scientist test, which has been repeated by others who found similar results (see e.g., Chambers, 1983). The cliché is a man who wears a white coat and works in a laboratory. He is elderly or middle-aged and wears glasses. He is small. He may be bald or may be unshaven or unkempt. He may be stooped or tired. He is surrounded by equipment: test tubes, Bunsen burners, flasks and bottles. Meanwhile, studies of representations of scientists in popular media have identified the image of an absent-minded professor who is a socially isolated man completely absorbed in his work, or a mad scientist with misguided or evil intentions (see e.g., Nisbet et al., 2002).

Professor Balthazar has some, but not all, of those characteristics. He does not wear a lab coat, is usually upright and full of energy, and is surrounded by equipment only in those brief moments when he is actively working on an invention. While he lives alone and performs experiments on his own, he is socially engaged and a respected member of his society. As such, he could be used to generate thought-provoking discussions about what a scientist looks like, and why.

Professor Balthazar is portrayed as an ordinary human being with faults and limitations. His thinking gets ‘stuck’ when he misses his breakfast. He sometimes forgets things and is ‘confused’ when confronted with challenges. He does not always know the answer immediately, and occasionally makes ‘a slight error in [his] calculations’. His ‘infallible method’ goes ‘wrong’, and, in one episode, we are told that ‘Professor Balthazar had failed’ when his invention results in unintended consequences. So, while some elements of the professor's image and his laboratory machine can come across as clichéd, the cartoon arguably communicates interesting aspects of the realities of being a scientist and scientists’ place in wider society.

Beyond that, the series also generally does well in presenting the scientific method. For example, it demonstrates that it is a process that involves asking questions, thinking, reading books, applying mathematics, observing and experimenting, working on solutions manually, and often failing and trying again. I will next outline some examples of episodes that can be used to explain various aspects of how science works and the issue of failure in research and innovation.

3. The ivory tower and the framing of research

The Zagreb School of Animation often tackled issues related to science and innovation, and themes of space travel, alien life, complex technological machinery, robots and wacky inventors regularly appeared in its various cartoons in the 1950s–1980s. Balthazar, however, is a more sophisticated character than those seen in the school's other science-focused cartoons, such as Playful Robot / Nestašni Robot (directed by Dušan Vukotić in 1956) and Djevojka za sve (directed by Nikola Kostelac in 1959). The scientists appearing in these other examples seem fully engrossed in their work in large laboratories, cutting themselves off from society at large and pursuing projects for personal gain. These earlier works of the school echo the concept of the ivory tower, which emerged in the early to mid-twentieth century as a means to criticize features of academia deemed irrelevant to society (Shapin, 2012); that is, the scientists locking themselves away in a lofty space separate from the rest of the world. This idea remains pervasive, despite efforts to make science and universities more relevant to economic growth and societal needs in the modern economies of the twenty-first century.

Balthazar, in contrast, is presented as a fully active citizen of his town, engaging in ordinary activities like any other person: eating out, enjoying walks around town and the park, travelling, and so on. He mainly goes to his laboratory when he has a specific problem to solve, and those problems are usually brought to him by the townsfolk—ordinary people. In this way, he perhaps represents an idealized image of a socialist scientist, one who works on humanist and socially useful projects rather than seeking financial or other rewards (Parrington, 2017). This portrayal may have been influenced by the Yugoslav cultural context and the general ideological values of the time—the cartoon's creators were, on the whole, likely loyal citizens and ‘ardent advocates’ of the socialist state (Ajanović, 2000).

As is often the case, the exception proves the rule. One striking episode highlights what can happen when scientists conduct their work while cutting off from society. In the episode ‘Two bees or not two bees / Drama oko cvijeća’ (directed by Ante Zaninović in 1977), Balthazar is so wrapped up in his inventions that he does not even notice a major crisis developing outside his laboratory: the city is quickly deteriorating, suffering from industrial pollution and ecological breakdown. The narrator tells us: ‘During this time, Professor Balthazar had been so preoccupied with his inventions that he hadn’t even noticed what was happening … It was only when the other townspeople asked him to help that Professor Balthazar discovered what had happened.’ Here, he responds to the real-world problem only when his fellow citizens come to ask for his help, when the situation is already quite desperate. This perhaps offers a lesson about the imperfect forecasting powers of science and reflects that scientists might not always be inclined to solve the problems people need them to. It is an example of the scientist stuck in his ivory tower, although in this case a scientist who is willing to come out and help when called upon.

The series also hints at the importance of both public involvement in setting research agendas and citizen science, often showing ordinary people involved in both the initiation of research and its eventual applications. This is especially relevant at a time when various efforts are ongoing to better align research with societal needs and pursue science that has a direct impact in solving real-world problems (Hart and Silka, 2020), and when citizen science is increasingly being used to collect data and promote greater public support for science (Sorensen and Jordan, 2025).

4. Thoughts and process

‘He thought, and thought’ is an oft-repeated line in many episodes of the series, highlighting the process and effort that goes into discovery and innovation, as Professor Balthazar paces up and down in his study, figuring out how to solve the latest challenge. Thinking, of course, is key to hypothesis setting and experiment design in science, and is under threat in today's world of ever-increasing distractions (Nature editorial, 2024). In the episode ‘Some like it hop / Figaro hop’ (directed by Boris Kolar in 1971), Balthazar's invention to facilitate the humane removal of loud frogs—the ‘frog-o-mat’—fails when one whistling frog is not bothered by the machine's deterrent noises. Balthazar quickly has an idea to fix the issue and takes the frog back to his laboratory, where he works for three long days and nights behind closed doors before he is ready to present the solution: a musical frog, Figaro, who is transformed from a local nuisance into a sensation admired by musicians and experts worldwide. Despite his almost instantaneous idea for a solution in this case, Balthazar must work hard for a very long time in the cartoon's time frame to actually produce it, reflecting the fact that the fruits of science can involve a drawn-out process. Indeed, it can take years to move from an idea to a published paper in science (Oliveira, 2018; Roland and Kirkpatrick, 1975).

5. Perseverance, literature review and data collection

The value of time and perseverance is also highlighted in the episode ‘Vanilla monster / Neman fu-fu’ (directed by Ante Zaninović in 1977), in which a retired natural historian, Rudy, spends a whole year unsuccessfully trying to detect a Nessie-like monster in the town park's pond. ‘No one believed his theory about the monster, but he was deeply sure that he was right’, we hear at the start of the episode. ‘A great deal of persistence is necessary to prove something which everyone else thinks is nonsense. Rudy was very persistent indeed.’ In order to help the man, Professor Balthazar turns to an old Chinese book on dragons, in which he identifies the creature as a ‘Fu-Fu dragon’; this demonstrates the process of conducting a literature review as a starting point of research. The image of Balthazar reaching for a book or reading also features in several other episodes. When the book alone does not help in the search for the monster, Balthazar, like a good scientist, decides to ‘investigate the matter more thoroughly’ and deploys personal observation by diving into the pond to look for clues on his own expedition. This is one of many examples of the professor observing and collecting data for himself—a key step in scientific research.

The problems in ‘Vanilla monster’ continue to mount, but ‘Professor Balthazar was determined’ to solve them, and eventually ‘found the most ingenious solution’. He invents a ‘pill-o-mat’, which produces vanilla-scented anti-seasickness pills that appeal to the monster, safely luring it to the surface, to the delight of the public. The narrator states that the two researchers’ ‘persistence, in proving that even the impossible is possible, was well-rewarded’ in the end. This episode, like many others, follows the basic structure of problem‒thinking‒solution and depicts the professor encountering various hurdles along the way, showing that persistence, rethinking and attempting different approaches and solutions is the key to reaching the end goal, just as it is in real-world science (Lieff Benderly, 2013; Wachsman, 2021). This specific example also raises the opportunity to discuss a range of more advanced issues related to sociology and the epistemology of science, such as the dangers of holding on to pet theories despite a lack of evidence, holding on to minority views, what it means to ‘prove’ things in science, and the difference between what is considered ‘possible and impossible’.

6. Serendipity, accidents and failure

The history of science is peppered with examples of accidental discoveries that paved the way for major breakthroughs, such as the discovery of penicillin's antibiotic action, or X-rays (Shackle, 2015). The sometimes serendipitous nature of discovery is reflected, for example, in ‘Water we doing / Amadeusove uši’ (directed by Ante Zaninović in 1977), in which citizens are digging throughout the town in search of groundwater sources during a major drought and unearth treasures including dinosaur bones, ancient Roman statues and coins. These finds are all later preserved in a new museum, demonstrating the value of citizen science and archaeological preservation.

The history of science and technology is packed not just with serendipity, but also with mishaps, missteps and failures, many of which have eventually helped scientists and engineers find the way forward. ‘Learning from failure is critically important to the processes of scientific inquiry, discovery, and invention’, according to Makkar et al. (2023), who add that ‘examples of failures, errors, setbacks, and accidents that led to innovation and discovery abound for use in instruction’. They note, however, that ‘many science textbooks are stories of past successes in science and often neglect the failures or missteps that led to major discoveries’ even though ‘reflecting on failure can also decrease stigma, promote resilience, and positively impact student wellbeing’. The importance of failure has most recently been embraced in the technology sector, with the oft-repeated Silicon Valley mantra of ‘failing fast’, but it also has a long history; for example, in Thomas Edison's quote about finding the 10,000 ways in which a lightbulb will not work during prototyping (Hendry, 2013). Many episodes see Balthazar struggle to find a solution, echoing the messy and non-linear progress of science and technology and their applications in the real world.

In the episode ‘Somewhat over the rainbow? / Duga profesora Baltazara’ (directed by Ante Zaninović in 1971), we see both an invention that went terribly wrong (causing pollution) and an admission of the failure to foresee an obvious possibility (that it could rain). Inventors are fallible. Technology can backfire. In ‘Bim bam bum / Bim i bum’ (directed by Zlatko Grgić in 1971), Balthazar invents a giant vacuum cleaner to rescue some citizens from a hole, which is later used by the Devil to emerge from Hell, representing perhaps the ultimate metaphor and warning about the potential unintended consequences of new technology. In other episodes, Balthazar's experiments fizzle out in a puff of smoke or result in an explosion—one destroys his house and hospitalizes him. Morton (2018) notes that ‘Balthazar's attempts to solve crises, while successful, are often not fully satisfactory. Each of his inventions has a theory behind them, but the practice of those theories never follows the initial predictions.’ He adds that ‘The new invention solves the problem, but not in the way Balthazar intended. Professor Balthazar is a controller, but only for one moment in any given short, and his control is limited.’ Morton argues that the animation school's focus was often on the plight of the ‘small man’, the ordinary citizen, who has little direct control over the wider geopolitical and techno-economic trends that shape their life.

Such examples of failure in the cartoon demonstrate the fallible nature of innovators, the difficulties in scientific discovery and technological development, and the potential unintended adverse effects of technology, all of which could be used for teaching. ‘Failure is how research advances,’ notes Barwich (2019); ‘Failures, whether clear-cut or ambiguous, are heuristically fruitful in their own right.’ Another way these examples could be educational is in explaining the importance of safety equipment and procedures, as Balthazar—perhaps surprisingly—does not appear to use lab coats, gloves or safety glasses while performing his experiments.

7. The value of mathematics

Students often perceive mathematics as difficult and sometimes question its real-world value outside the classroom (Langoban, 2020; Purbaningrum et al., 2023). Balthazar, however, often uses mathematics to his advantage. In ‘Happiness for two / Sreća u dvoje’ (directed by Zlatko Grgić, Boris Kolar and Ante Zaninović in 1970), he ‘calculates scientifically’ that an alternative world exists, and even works out how to get there. A piece of chalk and a blackboard are all he needs for this feat, demonstrating the power of mathematics and theoretical science. Balthazar also dabbles in mathematics to demonstrate his work on the ‘use of fog for peaceful purposes’ in London, UK. We see a long calculation on the blackboard behind him, for which he receives a big round of applause. Some of Balthazar's failures (mentioned above) are linked to the poor use of mathematics, and calculation errors sometimes result in near-catastrophic consequences. This emphasizes the real-world dangers of making mathematical errors and underlines the importance of mastering mathematics.

8. The role of the social sciences, arts and humanities

Some of Balthazar's work arguably falls into the domains of social sciences, arts and humanities, which are currently making a strong case for their importance in a world dominated by the pursuit of profit and economic returns from technological innovations (Albertson et al., 2016). Indeed, some scholars argue that these fields should be integral to natural and technical sciences and not seen as separate from or lesser than them (National Academies Press, 2018). Balthazar, as an erudite scientist, personifies interdisciplinarity. His science begins on the street, or in places where people live and work, and he starts by talking to citizens. For Balthazar, helping people deal with problems is not always about laboratory work or technical invention—he lectures on peace, helps to set up museums and science centres, and promotes arts and crafts, including singing, painting and knitting.

Sometimes, Balthazar just listens to people's problems and offers words of advice. For example, he gives a fellow citizen, Martin, a book titled How to Climb to the Top of Success. The book has empty pages that Martin can fill with the story of his own success, which motivates him to succeed. Such unconventional examples go beyond techno-fix approaches to science and problem-solving. In one episode, Balthazar acts as a therapist, listening to a rich but depressed apple producer and advising him on what he should do. Invention is not all about rocket science; some problems call for simpler solutions. In some episodes, such as ‘Of mouse and men / O mišu i satovima’ (directed by Zlatko Grgić, Boris Kolar and Ante Zaninović in 1969), Balthazar deploys his oratory and diplomatic skills to solve a problem. At other times, his inventions are made for fun, or created as art, as in the case of his rainbow maker, invented for the town's ‘festival of beauty’.

9. Evidence versus belief

While Balthazar is largely rational, relying on thinking, mathematics, books and laboratories to solve problems, his world is also populated by aliens, ghosts, magicians, a dragon and talking animals, most of which clearly depart from an evidence-based scientific world view. This mixing of science with pseudoscientific ideas is perhaps not surprising when one considers that a major popular science magazine in the country at that time did the same (Tatalović, 2018). Even now, one of the longest-running and most popular TV shows within the science programming of Croatian public TV, Na rubu znanosti, concerns itself with phenomena ‘at the edge of science’. While the creators of Professor Balthazar are rightly celebrated for their ingenuity (Amidi, 2021), they also occasionally got their scientific facts wrong. For example, we see dinosaurs living alongside humans in the Stone Age, penguins at the North Pole, and a six-armed octopus. But these errors could also be used as a starting point for outreach and in educational settings to discuss the importance of evidence, the difference between science and pseudoscience, and common misconceptions about the natural world.

10. Conclusion

This paper has discussed the ways in which Professor Balthazar presents and reinforces key steps of the scientific method, modelling the scientist as a good citizen, engaging with his local community to understand the problems that ordinary people face and come up with solutions that work. Thus, while the character does conform to some common stereotypes of scientists, he also pushes back against the notion of scientists as distant figures engaged in arcane research into obscure, potentially dangerous areas. In an era in which public trust in science is under threat, the sane, sociable scientist Balthazar may be the role model today's pupils need. In conclusion, beyond its use in teaching media studies, the animated series Professor Balthazar has great untapped potential for use in primary science education.