One would humorously misuse a word and the other would correct her, with the process being repeated several times until they returned to the original word. Comedian, actor and writer Paul Dooley created the series and served as head writer. "Mad Scientist": Monster parody with an evil scientist (Morgan Freeman) and his, "Phyllis and the Pharaohs": A 1950s-style. 1. In late 2007, another collection of 15 episodes dubbed "Volume 2" became available from iTunes. The Electric Company is no longer available at pbskids.org The best way to find more fun on pbskids.org is to explore! Starting with season three, a show's number would be presented in the sketch-of-the-day teaser segment, a parody of soap-opera teasers, which would highlight a particular sketch that would be shown during that episode. The Electric Company Podcast SmashUps are a series of portable shorts available for free. Each message had advice that he needed to follow, but because of his inability to sound out the words, he often wound up in trouble. That's pretty hug, um, huge! But the thought was that if we produce two final seasons of The Electric Company that were designed to be repeated, that would give the show four more years of life. The Monsters: Werewolf (Jim Boyd), Frankenstein (Skip Hinnant), and Dracula (Morgan Freeman). "Vi's Diner": Lee Chamberlin played the proprietor of a diner where customers read simple menus to place their orders. Dave Conner was the music director for Seasons 5–6. The Electric Company also featured celebrity guest appearances, including: With the exception of Tom Lehrer, all the individuals listed below were Children's Television Workshop in-house composers. The most notable episodes were the ones where Letterman himself, rather than some innocent victim(s), was the target of Spellbinder's torment. Irene Cara appeared during the first season (1971–1972) and would go on to become a pop-music star. Mar 5, 2013 - Explore Sue Lepore's board "The Electric Company", followed by 171 people on Pinterest. The Spellbinder taunts the aged Letterman, but drops the "b" in the process; Letterman picks it up and re-adds it to the word to change it back to "bold", restoring him to his youthful condition. After the litter begins reeking, Litterman arrives to correct the situation. "The Six-Dollar and Thirty-Nine-Cent Man": A parody of. NEW YORK –Watch out for silent e. That little stealth agent can turn a glob into a globe, a plan into a plane. Notably, some episodes in seasons three through five had serious technical errors with either their sketch-of-the-day teaser segments or their next-show teaser segments, which was probably because of the failure of the linear analog video-editing equipment. Also appearing on the show during this period was Irene Cara, who was a member of a child singing group called the Short Circus. The Spell Binder, the evil villain, expresses disgust at what is occurring. The Adventures of Letterman is a series of animated skits that was a regular feature on the 1970s PBS educational television series The Electric Company. The Electric Company media and resources entertain and engage children ages 5–9 while teaching four crucial areas of literacy that are challenging for struggling readers: Decoding, Vocabulary, Comprehension of Connected Text, and reading Motivation. For seasons three (1973–1974) and four (1974–1975), Grant and Nickerson were replaced by tap dancer Gregg Burge and Broadway actress Bayn Johnson. Jim Boyd, who was strictly an off-camera voice actor and puppeteer during the first season, began appearing on-camera in the second season, mostly in the role of J. Arthur Crank. There was no way, it was felt, that they could reduce the number of original shows of Sesame Street. The only significant items the show licensed were comic books and a Milton Bradley board game of the Fargo North, Decoder character. "Volume 1" contained Episodes 5, 13, 23, 128, 179, 249, 261, 289, 297, 374, 416, 475, 91A, 8B, and 32B. For the 2009 reboot, see, From 1994–2011, the category was split into, Gloria Domina, James Cravero, Kevin Mackie, Patrick Robinson & Steve Pullara (producers) –, the initial sound of a word and the other the rest of the word, Ad for "Here Comes The Electric Company" from, "Intellivision: Children's Learning Network", The Electric Company's Greatest Hits & Bits, Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Series, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program, New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts with Leonard Bernstein, Marlo Thomas and Friends in Free to Be... You and Me, You Can't Go Home Again: A 3-2-1 Contact Extra. A total of 780 episodes were produced in the show's six-season run, 130 per season. [citation needed]. One episode functioned as an origin story, portraying Letterman's childhood and growing up. The voice of a cast member would say a variant of, "Today on The Electric Company, the so-and so says, '(bleep),'" and the action would freeze as the graphic of the word of the day (or a card with the word of the day printed on it) became visible to viewers. Series favorites like "Silent E is a Ninja" and "Bossy R" are mixed with pieces starring celebrities like Jimmy Fallon, Kyle Massey and Wyclef Jean. See more ideas about electric company, educational videos, phonics videos. Paul the Gorilla (Jim Boyd): the sidekick of Jennifer of the Jungle; named after head writer, Vincent the Vegetable Vampire (Morgan Freeman): a send-up of. Spell Binder changes the "trunk" into "junk," then proceeds to shrink Letterman down to six inches tall by changing "junk" into "shrunk." Able to leap capital 'T' in a single bound! The music for this segment was a repetitive, funky instrumental groove featuring a call-and-response between horns and a scratchy wah-wah electric guitar. Jack Shaheen, Professor Emeritus of Mass Communication at Southern Illinois University, criticized the Spell Binder as a negative racial stereotype "who resembles those turbaned Arabs in the escapist Arabian Nights films of the fifties and sixties. Enjoy this animated song from The Electric Company, a memorable creation by the great musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician Tom Lehrer in 1972. The Workshop produced the show at Second Stage, located within the Reeves Teletape Studios (Teletape), in Manhattan, which had been the first home of Sesame Street. Otto the Director (Rita Moreno): a short-tempered film director who tried in vain to get her actors to say their lines correctly, with the help of a cue card to highlight the word they kept missing. Pages Media TV & Movies TV Network PBS KIDS Videos The Electric Company | 24: Cake (Silent E) | PBS KIDS GO! An unseen cast member would read the word aloud, reach his/her arm into the shot, and turn the light off by tugging the pull chain. Goodnight Moon and Other Sleepytime Tales, Nick News Special Edition — Faces of Hope: The Kids of Afghanistan, Nick News with Linda Ellerbee: Never Again? "Betterman" – Spellbinder changes the "L" in "Letterman" to a "w" ("wetterman"), causing Letterman to struggle in a pool to keep from drowning. I hope someone can tell Me how I can get more of them 1972 episodes found. [8], This article is about the original 1970s series. For season six, because the teaser music was changed to a shorter, self-contained composition, these errors do not occur, with the exception of the teaser of 33B shown at the end of 32B (available on iTunes), where the teaser was accidentally cut by a fraction of a second. Big B… Stronger than silent 'E' (removing the "e" at the end of "tube") Because of the frequent reuse of segments, a practice derived from Sesame Street, actors continued to appear after their departures from the cast. This second volume contained 20 episodes from seasons one through five plus a 30-minute documentary on the effects of in-school viewings of The Electric Company from 1975. PBS broadcast 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971, to April 15, 1977. Unlike its counterpart Sesame Street, which licensed its Muppet characters for merchandising, The Electric Company never had a stand-alone brand or character that could have helped to generate additional profits. Lorelei the Chicken (Jim Boyd): an animated chicken who appeared in live-action scenes. In "Silver Threads Among The Bold", the narrator declares Letterman to be our "bold" hero. Letterman then gets his revenge on Spell Binder by bending his wand, rendering it useless and setting Spell Binder to breaking down and sobbing hysterically. (A sign for Tessie's Diner resembling the "T") The Electric Company 1970s Season: 1 Episode: 45 It's silent 'E!' These were hosted online at various places and received heavy attention from the blogosphere (e.g., Boing Boing)[6] until a cease-and-desist letter took down the most prominent of these sites in 2004. It was released on DVD on March 6, 2007. Following the last original episode on April 15, 1977, The Electric Company continued on PBS in reruns until early October 1985. Noggin ran 65 select episodes until 2005, when they were pulled from the program lineup because Sesame Workshop sold its half of the network to Viacom, which already owned the other half. The next-show teaser, which was introduced in season two without music, worked in the same way, and usually used a different take of the music heard during the sketch-of-the-day teaser, except that the voice said "Tune in next time, when...," and there was no show number shown. They were sung once through; viewers supplied the lyrics the second time, while a trumpet-and-bassoon duo played the melody. The earlier shows did not resurface until February 2, 1999, when the Noggin network, which was partly owned by Sesame Workshop at the time, rebroadcast the show as a result of its co-ownership of the network. Spellbinder then proceeds to get a drill to try to drill holes in Letterman. Episode 131, from October 23, 1972 1. Spellbinder removes the "b", leaving "old" and turning Letterman into an aged version of himself. Silent E can. But first, we need you to sign in to PBS using one of the services below. "Giggles, Goggles": Two friends (usually Rita Moreno and Judy Graubart) conversed while riding a tandem bicycle or performing some other activity together. Most of the cast had done stage, repertory, and improvisational work, with Cosby and Moreno already well-established performers on film and television. Episodes that have these errors in their sketch-of-the-day teasers include 297, 390, 1A, 8A, and 15A—sometimes the music started too late, ended too early, or played too long; sometimes the errors are negligible, with the teaser music only playing a fraction of a second longer than usual. Get ready for rich learning moments! The last two seasons were designated as such because they were designed as year-long curricula for schools. The show was directed by Robert Schwarz (1971 and 1977), Henry Behar (1972–1975), and John Tracy (1975–1976), and written by Dooley, Christopher Cerf (1971–1973), Jeremy Steven (1972–1974) and John Boni/Amy Ephron (1972–1973). Use one of the services below to sign in to PBS: You've just tried to add this video to your Watchlist so you can watch it later. Art Animation Comedy Cool Commercials Cooking Entertainment How To Music & Dance News & Events People & Stories Pets & Animals Science & Tech Sports Travel & Outdoors Video Games Wheels & Wings Other 18+ Only Fashion From … It is unclear if these episodes were altered from the versions originally shown on television. June Angela was the only Short Circus member to remain with the show during its entire six-year run. It is believed that these changes were probably made to avoid repeats of segments that were on the first DVD set, but it is more likely that it was due to ownership rights—the segments that were used to cover up the material not under Sesame Workshop's control (Spider-Man, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, etc.) This page was last edited on 23 January 2021, at 21:29. The final episode of The Electric Company featured a short musical and dance number featuring the final cast members (with the exception of Rita Moreno, Bill Cosby, and Lee Chamberlin, who did not take part in this episode) including the then-current members of the Short Circus. [4] These games featured both the show's title logo on the game's packaging and label and the first several notes of the theme song played on the title screen of the games. The series was notable for its extensive, innovative use of early computer-generated imagery, especially Scanimate, a then-state-of-the-art analog video-synthesizer system. From its first episode on Oct. 25, 1971, until it was canceled in 1977, Freeman starred on The Electric Company, a sketch-comedy program on PBS that helped kids with their reading and grammar skills. Cara was replaced in the second season (1972–1973) by Denise Nickerson, who previously appeared on the ABC daytime series Dark Shadows and was best known for her appearance as Violet Beauregarde in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. "Soft-Shoe Silhouettes": Two people in silhouette, one making. Season five was numbered 1A–130A (1975–1976), while season six was numbered 1B–130B (1976–1977). Jan 22, 2012 - Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. These deletions included the episode numbers, the Scanimate word animations, the segments of up to 15 seconds, and the teasers of the next episodes (in seasons 2–6). Before Spellbinder returns, Letterman is able to convince a small bird to take a "g" from his front and replace the "w", thereby turning him back into the "feeling-good" Letterman, just in time as Spellbinder attempts to drill into him. To understand how version 2.0 of "The Electric Company," PBS's resurrected reading-skills show, has changed since its '70s heyday, look no further than the talent roster. An hour-long television show called The Electric Company's Greatest Hits & Bits[7] was broadcast on many PBS stations in late 2006. "[1] Shaheen finds these segments discontinuous with Sesame Workshop's realistic portrayals of other minorities. She was a caricature of actress. The Electric Company is an American educational children's television series created by Paul Dooley and produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW, now called Sesame Workshop) for PBS in the United States. "Sign Sing-Along": Often the last sketch on a Friday, these films featured signs with words accompanied by a sing-along song. In each segment the narrator, Joan Rivers, describes a simple, everyday situation. [1] Since it was intended for children who had graduated from CTW's flagship program, Sesame Street, the humor was more mature than what was seen there. I do not know if the Electric company Volume two would have any 1972 episodes or not. http://www.pbskidsgo.org/electriccompany 'Silent E oh how it changes everything!' 0:16. "[5] Most PBS programs at the time were produced entirely by local stations, instead of being the work of independent producers like CTW. Though nearly all episodes of the segment were stand-alone stories that followed the same general story line, there were some exceptions. The series was not seen since it was pulled from Noggin's schedule until Sesame Workshop, under license to Shout! "Vaudeville Revue": Skits and songs presented in variety-show style on stage, with music fanfare and canned applause; also called the Stage. The new additions were Episodes 2, 36, 40, 75, 142, 154, 165, 172, 189, 218, 245, 290, 337, and 350. 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