Saturday television will never be the same thanks to Standard Deviants TV, a half-hour educational adventure geared towards everyone from 12-year-olds to senior citizens. The show, which airs on PBS in Northern Virginia and Richmond, is the brainchild of George Mason University grads Chip Paucek and James Rena. The two got the teaching itch from their college astronomy professor, who taught them that learning could be fun and voluntary — not boring.

Paucek and Rena got their education training company off the ground in late 1994. They called it Cerebellum — for the part of the brain that controls voluntary actions — and produced their first educational videotapes in their basement. It was on the low end of low budget, but after successfully building brand awareness, Cerebellum caught the eye of PBS and big-whig corporate sponsors such as Microsoft and Amazon.com.

Standard Deviants TV debuted on PBS this past season. Each weekly program covers a different subject from Italian to Algebra to World History. With 50 staffers, the company is constantly expanding into new territory. It also keeps a hand on the pulse of local acting talent, hiring actors rather than professors to teach each lesson.

But that doesn’t mean the shows lack substance, says Lara Hopewell, director of production. "The content is the core of our programs," she says. Cerebellum recruits professors, adjuncts and grad students from around the country to teach the company’s writers everything they need to know and to review the final script for accuracy. Apparently making learning fun is profitable. Paucek expects the company to pull in about $7 million this year in revenues. "We are profitable now," Paucek says. "It’s a pretty recent development."