Bill Nye’s first foray into the world of entertainment was in 1978. The future host of Bill Nye the Science Guy was only in his early 20s then and working as an engineer for Boeing. Around that time, a Steve Martin lookalike contest was being held in Seattle, and somebody convinced him to participate. Nye ended up winning first place, and the experience encouraged him to follow in Martin’s footsteps.

From there, Nye was asked to imitate Martin at parties and eventually decided to try his hand at stand-up comedy, writing and performing his own material. He would design airplane parts for Boeing during the day, take a nap, and hit the comedy clubs in Seattle later that same night. “I really like mechanical engineering,” Nye explained on Q with Tom Power in 2023. “But after you get laughs in front of an audience, you really like that, too.”

At some point in the early 1980s, Nye met John Keister, one of the stars of the local sketch comedy series Almost Live!, and the two became friendly. Nye expressed interest in writing for the show and would hang around with the crew and submit jokes. “We kind of felt sorry for him,” the show’s director, Steve Wilson, once said. “He’d make these jokes. We called them jokes of the future because they weren’t funny.”

Things finally started looking up one day when a guest canceled an appearance, and host Ross Shafer called on Nye to fill in for them. Knowing that Nye loved science, Shafer asked him, “Why don’t you do that science stuff?” “You can call yourself ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ or something,” he suggested. Nye developed his character on Almost Live! moving forward, and quit his job at Boeing in 1986. Before long, he was given his own nationally syndicated show, Bill Nye the Science Guy, which ran for six seasons between 1993 and 1999. 

Nye’s been working as a science educator ever since, and has continued to incorporate elements of comedy into his performances throughout the years.