For a generation of British children, the subject of mathematics was not a dusty blackboard filled with intimidating equations or a tedious hour of rote memorization. Instead, it was a vibrant, energetic, and often hilarious adventure led by a man with boundless enthusiasm, a distinctive shock of hair, and an uncanny ability to explain the complex in terms of the simple. That man was Johnny Ball. To reduce Johnny Ball to merely a "TV presenter" is to overlook the profound educational revolution he spearheaded from the late 1970s through the 1980s. Before STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) became a buzzword in educational policy, Ball was its most charismatic evangelist. He did not possess a doctorate in physics or a professorship at Cambridge. He was a comedian, a drummer, and a former Butlin's Redcoat who left school with only two O-Levels. Yet, it was precisely this lack of academic pretension that became his greatest asset. He approached science not from the ivory tower, but from the stage of a working men's club-engaging, punchy, and desperate to entertain.