"The Electric Company"

[ImAWaffle]

I remember a while back I shared this silly little idea I had for an animated "Sesame Street" style spot starring Ozy & Millie. It seemed to inspire a happy bit of nonsensical brainstorming among the board regulars.

In that spirit, I'm trying to come up with another spot that's more in the vein of "The Electric Company", which as I understand it is making a comeback.

For those of you who weren't around then, "The Electric Company" was an educational program on PBS. Like "Sesame Street", it was produced by the Children's Television Workshop, however, it differed from "Sesame Street" in several ways;

1. It was aimed at children 6-12, so the brand of humor was considerably more sophisticated.

2. It featured an all-human cast (including Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby and Rita Moreno)

3. It focused squarely on reading, particularly phoenetics

Anyway, I'm going to think about it and see what I come up with. Meantime, feel free to share your thoughts and ideas.

[Niko123000]

With the exception of the actors you mentioned, The description sounds like reading rainbow

[The MAZZTer]

When I was a kid I used to watch Reading Rainbow. I liked the episode where Levar Burton talked about his Star Trek: TNG role (which I also watched). They even stuck him on the sets in his ST:TNG uniform, I think.

[The J.A.M.]

I remember Luis Avalos, Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman as Dracula, Bill Cosby, Tom Lehrer (heh, that means "teacher"), and Joan Rivers as the narrator for "Letterman"!!!

[DesertFoxCat]

Thank the tomato for Wikipedia.

Sadly, I've never heard of this before, so it's going to take me a while to get something right.

[Astral]

Don't look at me, I grew up on Samari Pizza Cats, Count Duckular and the Sooty show

[TailTyger]

I hardly remember this show, it was sort of before my time...

wasn't it kinda... trippy?

[Rikirk]

Spiderman also showed up from time to time on Electric Company, IIRC he also had a tie in to his comic books with "Easy reader"(A Character portrayed by Morgan Freeman) promoting them.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066651/

http://www.spiderfan.org/shows/tv_elect ... ason4.html

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tvshow ... c-company/

This show...along with other PBS shows taught me the basics of my education, reading writing and all that.
I have fond memories of the show, it was pretty good, in my opinion at least.

[Liberal Cynic]

As a kid I don't remember much of what I watched, All I know is that Elmo scares the crap out of me to this day. I do remember something of the Electric Company, not enough to recall any specific event, but I do think it was a good show.