A Look at The Electric Company

Synopsis

The Electric Company was an educational television series devised to reinforce reading and vocabulary concepts, produced by the Children's Television Workshop for PBS in the United States.

More than a mere educational tool, The Electric Company served as an excellent means of entertainment as well, with taut writing and top-notch performing by a cast of fine names such as Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, Judy Graubart, and many others. Episodes had a sketch format, with as many as two dozen segments of variable length making up the structure of an episode. The show is also notable for its extensive use of early analog computer graphics using the Scanimate system, groundbreaking by the standards of the day.

780 episodes of the show were produced between 1971 and 1977; the last two seasons then continued to air in rotation on PBS into the 1980s in many areas. 65 edited episodes were rerun on the limitedly-available Noggin network from 1999 to 2003, but otherwise the program was largely relegated to a memory for many years.

In 2006, a set of twenty selected episodes (titled The Best of The Electric Company) was finally released on DVD. Aside from a very small handful of segment video releases for schools in the '80s, this marked the first time this material was ever made commercially available.

Structure of the show

Originally, The Electric Company followed a format with a set (styled heavily after the show logo) and structured segments: An episode would begin with an introduction with the cast members, often followed after several segments by a "competition" where different sounds of a given letter were demonstrated. This rigid format was abandoned very early in the first season in favor of a looser and less predictable structure (by which point tendencies such as placing "Love of Chair" at the end of the episode also fell into place), and by the next year any vestige of a consistent set had disappeared. Several grammar or vocabulary concepts were often introduced throughout the course of a show, with segments referencing a common sound (for example) grouped together. Cartoons and short Scanimate word animations often served as "buffers" between longer live-action segments.

Different features came and went with different seasons: The first year is dominated by "Love of Chair," "Theater in the Dark," "Giggles/Goggles" segments with Judy Graubart and Rita Moreno, and Fargo North, Decoder segments that became less frequent or even disappeared altogether as the show evolved. "The Adventures of Letterman," "Jennifer of the Jungle," and "A Very Short Book" all premiered in the second year, while other features such as Chuck Jones-produced Road Runner segments (third season), Spidey Super Stories (fourth season), and encounters with Jim Boyd's comical Blue Beetle came later on. Existing segments were frequently reused in later episodes.

Summaries of episodes

Here is the big enchilada: Outlines of the segments for every Electric Company episode I've seen and then some. (Special thanks goes out to Brian Hilley and Mike Bode for helping fill in information on non-DVD episodes!)

Like most CTW shows for many years, the long production and research credit crawl for The Electric Company appeared only on Friday episodes. (When watching Square One TV as a youngster, I caught on to this and realized that I could only expect to see the long credits sequence when the on-screen episode number was divisible by 5.) Within the individual episode summaries, the letters "EKA" denote the "earliest known appearance" of a segment repeated in the series:

Season 1 (1971-72)

1*† (Mon, 10/25/71) - G, gl, oo, punctuation
2 (Tue, 10/26/71) - L, ll, pl, ight
5 (Fri, 10/29/71) - op, st, ou, -e
9 (Thur, 11/4/71) - short A, th, all, H
10* (Fri, 11/5/71) - C, cl, ow, -e, un-
12** (Tue, 11/9/71) - O, ow, sh, -e
13 (Wed, 11/10/71) - ump, sm, ou, P
14* (Thur, 11/11/71) - T, sh, ar, contrasts, -n't
19 (Thur, 11/18/71) - short I, ph, ll, alk, B
21* (Mon, 11/22/71) - D, dr, ch, alk, long & short vowels
23 (Wed, 11/24/71) - G, gl, ow, -e, no, punctuation
26*† (Mon, 11/29/71) - B, br, ow
36 (Mon, 12/13/71) - short I, sh, for, -e
37 (Tue, 12/14/71) - H, rd, ow, ou, comparative adjectives
40 (Fri, 12/17/71) - K, sk, ai, of, -e, un-
59 (Thur, 1/13/72) - H, -ing, B
65 (Fri, 1/21/72) - Y, long O, is
72 (Tue, 2/1/72) - el, cl, to
73** (Wed, 2/2/72) - L, lt, all, ll
75 (Fri, 2/4/72) - T, st, ar, -n't
109* (Thur, 3/23/72) - L, fl, ea/ee, -ly
128 (Wed, 4/19/72) - V, ch, -s plurals

Season 2 (1972-73)

131* (Mon, 10/23/72) - B, br, oo, ch, D
142 (Tue, 11/7/72) - it, I, long & short U, -n't, quotation marks
147 (Tue, 11/14/72) - tr, short U, ai, ay, punctuation, -e
150** (Fri, 11/17/72) - W, ch, sw, oo, ph
154 (Thur, 11/23/72) - L, ld, ie, you
165 (Fri, 12/8/72) - P, pl, oi, ch, of
166** (Mon, 12/11/72) - Y, gr, ow, un-, -e
172 (Tue, 12/19/72) - H, end, oo, tion, -e
176 (Mon, 12/25/72) - T, nt, ea, alk, -e
179 (Thur, 12/28/72) - Short E, gr, ow, -ly, punctuation, -e
181* (Mon, 1/1/73) - D, dr, ou, wh
189 (Thur, 1/11/73) - R, tr, ue, ight, -e
197** (Tue, 1/23/73) - X, ee, sn, -e, punctuation
223** (Wed, 2/28/73) - B, br, oo, punctuation, -s plurals
227** (Tue, 3/6/73) - G, gr, ea, -ly, -e, punctuation
230** (Fri, 3/9/73) - T, ft, oa, ir, ur
232** (Tue, 3/13/73) - J, if, double consonants
253** (Wed, 4/11/73) - G, gr, wh, ue, comparative adjectives

Season 3 (1973-74)

285* (Fri, 11/23/73) - short U, st, ar, silent E, quotation marks
321*† (Mon, 1/14/74) - cl, C, ea, un-
322** (Tue, 1/15/74) - O, punctuation
375** (Fri, 3/29/74) - st, ai, Y, tr
379* (Thur, 4/4/74) - R, ow, gr, ir, ur
386* (Mon, 4/15/74) - N, sn, silent E, ea, -'s possessive

Season 4 (1974-75)

391* (Mon, 10/21/74) - tr, ai, to, punctuation
437*† (Tue, 12/24/74) - sp, long & short U, dd, was, short O
453* (Wed, 1/15/75) - ou, wh, ight
475 (Fri, 2/14/75) - ea, th, B
491* (Mon, 3/10/75) - M, ea, sk, is/-'s
502** (Tue, 3/25/75) - G, gr, oa, -ing

Season 5 (1975-76)

27A** (Tue, 11/25/75) - Y, -ed, ie
35A** (Fri, 12/5/75) - ock, pl, sh, punctuation
57A** (Tue, 1/6/76) - gr, short I, double consonants
60A** (Fri, 1/9/76) - pr, ow
72A* (Tue, 1/27/76) - tr, ai, is, punctuation
77A** (Tue, 2/3/76) - B, oy, and, ight
105A** (Fri, 3/12/76) - short U, th, -'s possessive
110A* (Fri, 3/19/76) - sn, ow, -ly
122A** (Tue, 4/6/76) - nk, quotation marks, oi

Season 6 (1976-77)

79B*† (Thur, 2/3/77) - -y, -s plurals, if, punctuation
130B* (Fri, 4/15/77) - ie, ch, it, all

DVD and Electronic Media Releases

[The Best of the Electric Company DVD cover]

Five years ago, I would have considered the prospect of The Electric Company on home video or DVD to be nothing more than a dream. Happily, things have changed a lot since then: An excellent 4-DVD set of twenty selected episodes was released by Shout Factory in February 2006, a label also notable for reissuing many of Herb Alpert's instrumental albums on CD. A second volume was released nine months later, and these releases were soon supplemented by a selection of episodes available for iPod and on-computer viewing from Apple's iTunes Music Store; for those capable of using it.

* The Best of The Electric Company (February 2006)
† The Best of the Best of The Electric Company (a "bargain" single-DVD package) (March 2006)
** The Best of The Electric Company, Vol. 2 (November 2006)