Charles Darwin is one of Steampunk’s favorite scientists and rightly so for his revolutionary ideas concerning evolution, not to mention his prodigious beard.  While his adventures on the HMS Beagle make for great reading, On the Origin of Species can be deadly dull reading.

Fortunately, along came the award-winning BBC “children’s” TV show Horrible Histories.  I’ve put the quotation marks there because it’s just as entertaining for adults, at least this adult. You can find lots of excerpts and some entire episodes on YouTube (although it looks like you have to pay for the full episodes).

One episode dealt with Charles Darwin and features an take-off of David Bowie’s
“Changes” to describe evolution.  While it’s not perfectly correct in its details, it makes up for it in entertainment value and, overall, has got to be the best musical explanation of natural selection there is.

Unfortunately, the Beeb seems to have blocked it on YouTube (at least in the States, Brits might be able to access it), but I’ve found a version with Spanish subtitles that’s available.  So, for Fun Friday, look past the annoying crawl and enjoy the song.

I’d also love to know where it was “filmed” (it might be green-screened)–great Steampunk architecture there!