After interviewing him, one would have to say that Skyline’s professor of earth sciences, Mel Zucker, is quite down to earth.

Professor Zucker, not only co-produces the public access TV show “Down to Earth,” but hosts it as well.

“Down to Earth” is a documentary series that focuses on geology and marine biology in the Bay Area, and Zucker, along with his colleague, Skyline geology professor Richard Lambert, have used their show as a helpful teaching tool in their lecture classes.

Their award-winning episodes have also been shown at the Earth Vision International and Environmental Film and Video Festival which is run by Santa Cruz Community Television.

With the completion of filming of the 47th “Down to Earth” episode, Zucker is now working on the 48th episode, filming a commercial for one of the documentary’s imaginary sponsors, an ongoing joke about an imaginary soft drink called Pacifica’s Pride.

When asked where he came up with the idea for Pacifica’s Pride, he replied, “I just thought of it! TV shows are supposed to have some kind of annoying commercial that interrupts the show or breaks the mood …. Since you don’t have access to real sponsors in community television, because we’re actually not allowed to have commercial sponsors, I thought I’d make one up.”

The commercial was originally intended for one episode, but it was such a hit that he has filmed quite a few since.

At the time of the first commercial, a new $53 million wastewater treatment facility was being built in Pacifica that would serve 40,000 people. This was a political endeavor that had created a buzz in the community, and one of the selling points to voters by proponents in favor of building the facility was that the water from the new world-class facility, would be so clean that you could drink it. Thus, Zucker’s “Pacifica’s Pride” gag, the bottled water of the new facilities, worked quite well.

The imaginary drink was meant to reflect the original selling point used by political proponents: “The water that comes out of the new tertiary waste treatment plant exceeds drinking standards of the federal government.”

Ironically, Zucker chose to use a liquid that’s yellow in color, so as to emphasize the imaginary bottled water joke. When asked to identify the actual concoction inside, he responded that it was “a trade secret.”

But besides the ongoing marketing of his “drink,” what is in the future for Down to Earth?

Next April will be the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and Zucker and Lambert represent Skyline College in the 1906 Centennial Alliance, a coordination of regional museums, historical societies, government agencies and schools commemorating the event.

Currently they are planning to do four episodes on the earthquake, fire, and recovery period for San Francisco. If we are lucky, in the future we may also see a celebratory episode packed full of outtakes taken from throughout the series.

“Down to Earth” can be seen on Peninsula Television, Mid-Coast TV and Pacifica Community Television, Channel 26:- Tuesday and Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.