Inspired by the movie WarGames, the short-lived series Whiz Kids chronicled the adventures of a group of teen computer hackers who used their tech expertise to solve crimes. The show starred, among others, Matthew Laborteaux, previously seen on Little House on the Prairie and Andrea Elson who would go on to play Lynn Tanner on ALF.

Richie Adler (Laborteaux) lived with his divorced mother and sister, but hacking ability was in his blood: his father was a computer consultant living in the Middle East. The bulk of Richie's impressive array of tech gadgets came from his dad. The young man had considerable tech skills and assembled all the odds and ends he received as gifts into RALF, a sort of supercomputer system that helped him and the other kids in their detective work.

Richie, Jeremy, Hamilton and Alice followed clues and used computing power to track down evildoers while at the same time trying to be teenagers--which, in Richie's case, meant avoiding his nosy little sister Cheryl. Lew Farley (played by Max Gail) was the fatherly police detective acted as the kids' advisor, mentor and protector when things got too hot to handle.

The series lasted for a brief season of 18 episodes on CBS, then packed up its floppy disks and switched off.