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Standard Deviants (originallyThe Standard Deviants) is a series ofeducationalvideos produced in theUnited States. The name also referred to the troupe of actors and comedians who presented the series. The series is owned by Cerebellum Corporation, founded in theWashington, D.C., area byGeorge Washington University alumni Chip Paucek and James Rena, who created the series to help students learn using humor.[1] As such, the series blended essential information with humorous examples and comic sketches. For example, the English punctuation video illustrates the usage ofexclamation points through a sketch in which two characters excitedly playBattleship. The series was originally targeted at college students, but its intended audience became progressively younger over time, eventually described as "for junior high, high school, college and beyond".[2]
The original videos, which typically have running times of 1–2 hours, were later adapted intoStandard Deviants TV, a series of fifty-two 26-minute episodes onPBS from 2000–2002.[3] They were then retrofitted again into shorter videos for theK–12 school market, which as of 2024 are packaged as two lines:Standard Deviants School andStandard Deviants Teaching Systems.[4]
Cerebellum created two other series, both short-lived.No-Brainers, described as "The Video Guides to Life", features the same cast (but without the Standard Deviants name) in videos aboutlife skills, targeted at adults rather than students. The series comprises 12 videos, two of them adapted from Standard Deviants videos, released in 1998 and 1999.[5] Released in 2002,Jibberboosh is a series of two videos for preschoolers.[6]
These titles were released as theNo-Brainers series:
What the Standard Deviants did for high school and college subjects, the No-Brainers will do for the rest of your life!
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