Mathnet was a segment on the children's television show Square One in which five seasons were produced (1987-88, 1990-92). This parody of Dragnet featured detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department who solved mysteries using their mathematical skills. There were two main characters: detectives Kate Monday (Beverly Leech) and George Frankly (Joe Howard). Mary Watson also had a regular role as the duo's technical analyst, Debbie Williams. Later on in the series, Kate Monday was replaced by Pat Tuesday (Toni DiBuono) after the show's setting moved to New York City in the third season. James Earl Jones played a recurring role as the chief Thad Green. He also briefly appears in season 4 and indicates he knows Pat Tuesday. When the duo was transferred to New York, Captain Joe Greco (Emilio Del Pozo) became their leader and undercover NYPD officer Benny Pill (Bari K. Willerford) became their semi-regular backup support.

Each segment of the series aired on one episode of Square One, a production of the Children's Television Workshop aimed at teaching math skills to young viewers. Five segments made up an episode (one for each weekday), with suspense building at the end of each segment. A Mathnet comic briefly appeared in 3-2-1 Contact magazine, also a CTW production, but the magazine eventually stopped featuring Square One content.

Both Mathnet and Square One went off the air in 1994, reappearing from 1999-2003 on the cable television network Noggin, a joint venture of Nickelodeon and CTW.

pening narration] rrator: The story you are about to see is a fib, but it's short. The names are made up, but the problems are real.

rrator: [closing line of Morris Norris's mugshot sequence] He spent the next 20 years in rock 'n roll... he piles rocks and he eats rolls.

rrator: [closing line of I. M. Peeved's mugshot sequence] He went to prison, where he learned to like math, teaches it to others, and has become an advisor to a show called Square One TV.