The Other PBS Program

This year is the 40th anniversary of the groundbreaking Children’s Television Workshop TV series, Sesame Street.  Prior to the advent of this program,  most of the available children’s programming was aimed at being  fun and not focused on being primarily educational.  Sesame Street changed that in a big way and perhaps single-handedly saved public television at the national level.  Sesame Street was aimed at preschoolers and very young elementary students.  But there was another program produced by the Children’s Television Workshop that was aimed at older kids and had, quite frankly, a much more powerful cast. Yes, more powerful and credible than Bert and Ernie and Big Bird combined.

 The program, The Electric Company aired from 1971 to 1977 and had a cast that would be hard to duplicate today,  in terms of stature and industry respect.  The show featured academy award winner, Rita Moreno; future academy award winners, Morgan Freeman and Irene Cara; Emmy winner Bill Cosby and Emmy nominee, Lynne Thigpen.  The show would open with Rita Moreno hollering off camera, “Hey you guys!!!!” and the fun would start.   In my mind, that remains one of the best openings to any of the public television series with the possible exception of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. The Children’s Television Workshop ultimately canceled The Electric Company because of cost.  Unlike Sesame Street, which was able to license the Muppets, The Electric Company had no characters that it could franchise or license.  It remained in reruns for almost 10 years after the original production ceased.

There was an attempt in early 2009 to revive the program, but this “re-imagination” of the original pales when compared with its predecessor.  There will never be anything to match watching  Morgan Freeman as a mad scientists, frustrated by his assistant’s inability to sound out words. Or hearing Rita Moreno sing lead in a doo-wop group that had Bill Cosby as a background singer. Or watching Spiderman solve crimes based on his ability to read. 

The Electric Company was a fun show and is available on DVD.  That gives today’s generation a chance to see the show the way I saw it and smile at perhaps one of the greatest assembled cast in television history teaching phonics.