Jason Ferguson, the Chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), has argued for the inclusion of billiards at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics because of the sport’s global reach and influence.  According to Mr. Ferguson, snooker is watched by a half billion people worldwide and played in 90 countries. When pool and carom billiards are added, the sport is played competitively in almost every country in the world.^[1]

I speculate that critical to the sport’s worldwide popularity is the introduction of billiards to children at a very young age through creative and enjoyable television programming. In the past, I’ve blogged about several of such shows, including Pat & Mat (“Billiard”) from the Czech Republic, Shaun the Sheep (“Shaun Goes Potty”) from the UK, and Benrat (“Billiards”) from China.

This time, my globe-hopping, TV-watching peregrinations took me to Scotland, South Korea, and Russia for some billiards-themed programming aimed at the 3- to 8-year-old crowd. It’s hard to imagine how exposure to the sport at such a developing age doesn’t contribute to the ubiquitous phenomenon of competitive billiards.

Nina and the Neurons – Get Sporty: “Snooker”

“How do you play snooker?,” asks one of the two child Experimenters on the “Snooker” episode of Nina and the Neurons, a Scottish television show aimed at helping four to six-year-olds understand basic science.  It’s the type of question that could spark a billiards battle royale. Fortunately, the show’s lead, Nina (Katrina Bryan) is not prone to the braggadocio and showmanship that might accompany a response, but rather enlists her five Neurons (animated characters representing the senses) to answer the question.

In the “Snooker” episode from the 2014 Get Sporty season, the Neuron that answers Nina’s call is Luke, who represents the sense of sight.  Along with the pint-sized Experimenters, Nina and Luke arrange a series of experiments to illustrate various scientific principles of snooker, such as “balls can’t move themselves, so we use a snooker cue” or “balls move in the direction on the opposite side that they’re hit.”  (This particular experiment involves turning the two moppets into giant snooker balls.) Finally, Nina takes the Experimenters to visit professional snooker player Dylan Craig to show how bouncing balls off a rail cushion is another way to move them into pockets. The full 14-minute episode is available to watch here.

Bernard – “Billiards”

Known as Backkom in its native South Korea, the South Korean-Spanish-France computer animated television Bernard series centers on a curious polar bear named Bernard, whose bumbling slapstick antics typically result in the bear being knocked unconscious or being severely injured by the end of an episode. Bernard is also typically accompanied by one or more members of his menagerie of friends, including two penguins, a lizard, a Chihuahua, a do, and a porcupine.

In the three-and-a-half minute “Billiards” episode, which aired sometime between 2006 and 2012, Bernard competes in a game of 9-ball against his lizard pal Zack.  Bernard has a strong break and some modicum of talent, but he’s no match for his lacertilian opponent.  Once it is Zack’s turn, the lizard brings his A-game, making a behind-the-back masse shot followed by a jump shot the length of the long rail and then a second masse shot.

Realizing Zack is about to run the table, Bernard sabotages his game, frightening him into missing a shot and then blocking the path of the 1-ball with his ursine girth. This causes the frustrated lizard to quit. But, the moment Bernard attempts to savor his victory, he slips on a discarded ball, banging his head on the side table, and falling unconscious. The full episode is available to watch here.

Kikioriki – “The Game Must Go On”

Kikioriki is a Russian animated television series that consists of more than 200 episodes, each 6 minutes and 30 seconds, aimed at children 3- to 8-years old. The series premiered in 2004. Four years later, the English-language rights were acquired and it began airing on The CW under the name GoGoRiki. Created as part of Russia’s cultural-education “World Without Violence” project, the series features stylized round animals, known as Smeshariki, that engage with one another around complex themes

In “The Game Must Go On,” which aired in 2009 as part of the second GoGoRiki season, Dokko, a golden moose who is an eccentric scientist, and Carlin, a dark blue crow, play a friendly game of billiards that gets a wee bit too serious.

Oh, there is so much to like about this episode! For starters, the characters are playing Russian pyramid, a version of billiards that requires opponents to sink 15 numbered white balls. Then, there is the priceless dialogue, such as Dokko’s professorial yet condescending opener: “Billiards is a game where everything counts, both physical and geometrical laws, an eagle sharp eye, a hand steady as a boulder, and ice cold nerves. If you lack even one of those things, you’ll never amount to a much of a player.”

As the match progresses, Dokko has a pitch-perfect comment for everything, whether it’s how to make a shot (“The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Give it a little bit of spin, and release the hounds.”), or why his missed shot was an anomaly (“Even I mess up now and again.  Since it happened now, it won’t happen again.”)

But, Dokko vastly under-estimates Carlin, who starts to make his shots.  The score begins to tighten, and each player refuses the other’s mercy offer to end the game.  As the match progresses, torrential rain pours from the sky (“This isn’t billiards. It’s water polo played with a couple of sticks.”), but neither headstrong opponent will call it quits. Eventually, frustration and exhaustion set in, and the players break their sticks, and rip the table apart to use the rails as makeshift cues.  Only when lightning strikes, electrocuting both players, does the game reach its denouement with the players calling it a draw. The full episode is available to watch here.

Well, that’s enough traveling for one today. Fortunately, the pre-tween, billiard scene is sufficiently thriving that I can return to the topic in a future blog post to review shows such as Pleasant Goat (“The Focus in Billiards”), Danny and Daddy (“Billiards or Worms?”) or BinkieTV (“Learn Colors with Billiard Balls”).  Until then, may our kids learn life’s lessons, one billiard ball at a time.

[1]       “Billiards sports queue up for Tokyo 2020 Olympic inclusion,” Inside the Games, January 23, 2015