11 ms·

50 years ago, The Electric Company used comedy to boost kids' reading skills

209 points by samizdis 5y ago

rmidthun 5y ago
No mention of Tom Lehrer? I still remember the -LY song he wrote. One recurring joke was based on 2001. A giant monolith would crumble to reveal the sound of the day while Also Sprach Zarathustra played. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY0GhNBMkM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY0GhNBMkM8
- dllthomas 5y ago
  > I still remember the -LY song he wrote. https://tomlehrersongs.com/l-y/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/l-y/ Tom Lehrer may be obliquely mentioned (but not named): Lynette Murray of Washington, D.C., who was 12 years old at the time, marveled at the power of the silent e. "One thing surprised me, that the way they take the e off the word and it comes to another word," Murray explained. "Like for ride you can take the e off then the word becomes rid." That same word-play may have appeared in the show outside of it, but Lehrer contributed a song with exactly that gimmick: https://tomlehrersongs.com/silent-e/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/silent-e/
samizdis 5y ago
This is just incredible: > The show's cast included Academy Award winner Rita Moreno, Bill Cosby and a then unknown Morgan Freeman. Guest stars included Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder and Joan Rivers. The teen pop band Short Circus (get it?) included future star Irene Cara. The comedy writers were among the best in the business, and later went on to work on hit TV shows including MASH and Everybody Loves Raymond.
dtgriscom 5y ago
C'mon; aren't there any "Love of Chair" fans out there? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMd0xWleJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMd0xWleJQ
- YesThatTom2 5y ago
  But what about Naomi?
MontagFTB 5y ago
They rebooted the show for a time a decade or so ago - it was a breath of fresh air, and I'm sad it didn't last longer.
- samizdis 5y ago
  There's a surprisingly detailed Wikipedia page on that 2009 reboot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company_(2009_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company_(2009_TV_... Also, the 70s original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company
  - lambic 5y ago
    My son watched the reboot, I credit his ability to use punctuation correctly to that show.
vondur 5y ago
According to my parents, this show is why I was able to read at a young age.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
sundaeofshock 5y ago
I was born in 1967 and just ate this up as kid. The intro with Rita Moreno yelling “Hey you guys!” followed by the theme song brings back a flood of emotion. I was a voracious reader as a kid. I suspect this show had something to do with that. Thanks for sharing.
- busyant 5y ago
  1968 here. I'm not sure why, but The Electric Company resonated with me much more than Sesame Street. I was in awe of Morgan Freeman and his sonorous voice. Years later, I remember seeing him start to get traction in Hollywood and thought, "Hey! That's the guy from the Electric Company!"
  - bsenftner 5y ago
    "Hey! That's Easy Reader!" I had the opportunity to chat with him once. I asked him how many people remember and ask him about Easy Reader. He lit up and says only grey haired people remember Easy, but the light in their eyes warms his heart.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    I was 1971, so a few years younger than you folks. For some reason The Electric Company scared the crap out of me, especially the creepy Spider-man segments. My older brother liked it, so we would watch it. But I had to watch Mr. Rogers afterward just to calm myself down. Obviously I grew out of being scared of it, but by the time I did I'd moved on to other shows.
    - tingletech 5y ago
      72, no older siblings. I don't think I was allowed to watch it till I was in Kindergarten-- the same time my subscription changed from Sesame Street Magazine to Electric Company Magazine.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  I was born in the 70s and I don't think I ever watched a full episode, thus having no point of reference for Sloth in Goonies yelling the same phrase. And now I do.
smhenderson 5y ago
My favorite bit was the Spiderman character that didn't talk. Little thought bubbles, akin to comic books, would appear over his head so you had to read to get in on the joke/gist of the sketch.
- tclancy 5y ago
  He did talk in some things. I used to have an LP of a bunch of the Spider-Man stories from the show. At least I think they were from the show.
- jasperry 5y ago
  Electric Company was still playing in reruns in the early 80s and they would show it to us in school. All the kids would cheer out loud when the Spider-man segment came on.
  - russellbeattie 5y ago
    It's really hard for anyone today to understand how awesome it was to have Spider-Man show up on your TV set in real life!! It was exciting the way a celebrity sighting is... He just wasn't seen outside of comics.
- wenc 5y ago
  I was more into Sesame Street but the Spider-Man segment was the one reason I watched the Electric Company.
brandonmenc 5y ago
I learned to read by watching The Electric Company. My mom tells me that I would sit in a trance while watching this show, especially during the "silhouette" segments. Just zoned out while being programmed by the TV. When I entered preschool, she told the teachers that I could read and they were like, "yeah, right." After about a week they were shocked and amazed that I actually could read. I recently purchased the DVDs for my nephews.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  There were a handful of firms and people that looked at television and recognized the immense educational potential of an immersive audio-visual broadcast media. I've seen inklings of this in VR but nothing I'd call on the scale of an Electric Company, Sesame St, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, or 321-Contact yet.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    PBS also had a show to teach English to native Spanish speakers in the early 70's, Villa Alegre. They made some effort to teach Spanish to English speakers too, but too much of the show was only in Spanish for young me to follow. The theme song from that show is quite the ear worm.
asdff 5y ago
Anyone else learn to read from Pokemon Red or Blue?
- Jill_the_Pill 5y ago
  You baby, this isn't your thread! :)
JJMcJ 5y ago
Most current children's programming now, either PBS or commercial, seems hysterical and intended to create anxiety by comparison. Mister Rogers, Sesame Street, Electric Company, were really excellent.
- handrous 5y ago
  They're so sedate. It's wonderful. From what I've seen with my own kids, they're entirely OK with and plenty entertained by that pace—until they become accustomed to super-fast modern kids' media. Even most of the stuff on PBS seems hyper-caffeinated by comparison. And don't get me started on the damn auto-tune. "Let's teach 3 year olds this is what a normal human singing voice sounds like". Bleh. Friggin' Daniel Tiger.
  - JJMcJ 5y ago
    Cartoon kids talk in hysterical falsettos, even third graders don't talk that high pitched in real life. Adults mostly don't exist. Often the kids have superpowers that solve all the problems. The only PBS Kids shows that seems to have kids in a normal relationship with adults is Molly Of Denali. Also just about the only one that shows adults interacting with each other.
- tclancy 5y ago
  Which shows are these? The biggest difference I see between when I was a kid (born in the 70s) and my daughter (born in the 10s) is that shows now are relentlessly upbeat, focused entirely on teaching and nonviolent. We recently got HBO Max and most of Looney Tunes is lost on her because it’s basically assholes whaling in each other. I still love it, of course.
jmkb 5y ago
My favorite skit: "Hey, what are doing inside that crate? Where's the new loudspeaker I ordered?" "I *AM* A LOUD SPEAKER!"
idworks1 5y ago
Interestingly enough, I watched this growing up in Saudi Arabia. In the late 80s, early 90s there were only 2 TV channels. Channel 1 was in Arabic. Channel 2 was mostly English and had a lot of old school American programs. We watched sesame streets, the electric company, old episodes of Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes. I can't say it taught me how to read, but it taught me English for sure. > Take the detective character Fargo North, Decoder (get it?), who would solve missing letter mysteries. "Kids don't know Fargo, North Dakota," Fowles points out. There was a show my wife watched when she was a kid in Florida. One of the main character was called LaCienega Boulevardes. It sounded like any other name. Until a couple years ago she moved to California. She started laughing hysterically when we drove on La Cienega Blvd.
- jedberg 5y ago
  As someone who is a native of Los Angeles, and spent many childhood drives on La Cienega, I love this story. I had to look up the character -- looks like it was an animated series called The Proud Family that ran on Disney in the early 00s, and was created by an LA native. Growing up in LA I could see a lot of influences from my local area in media (and in the 80s a lot of stuff was filmed in LA too so I'd literally see local spots in movies). But it never occurred to me that the LA inside jokes wouldn't really be inside jokes to people outside of LA.
- hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
  I think it's a good thing though. Parents could watch with their kids and still enjoy it. From what I've seen of today's children's programming, it's not very enjoyable for the parents. I guess it doesn't really matter, most parents just give their kids a tablet.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    SpongeBob (at least the first couple seasons) was aimed as much at parents. The slapstick was for the kids, the sly snark for the adults. Kurgan doing the voice for Mr Crabs was just the strawberry on the shortcake. One bit was when they were on a boat. The name of the boat was on the prow. In a couple of shots, the first letter of the name was cut off by the edge of the screen, and your mind filled it in as a vulgar word. Now that's some A-level snark.
doublerabbit 5y ago
Interactive Educational learning never moved past the television nor the 00's and it's sad. 00's was a dark era for the UK with operation yewtree with discovering that many child tv presenters were doing unspeakable acts to children. That was the start of the decline of kids TV. Shows still exist but are so heavy watered-down in what they can say or do you don't get the same effect. Educational video games were never popular either. Word rescue, Maths rescue, Fun School; taught me english and maths, I found them fun but its a genre that never sells. I have never been a TV person and I still struggle to sit and watch TV. My concern is that kids are now growing up with a mobile phone in their hands but the device lacks in educational learning. That's not to say there are not educational apps but most don't feel the same quality and standard as television once produced.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Khan Academy Kids is pretty good, but the content only lasts maybe a week. It is very repetitive, and I know that’s for reinforcement, but it feels like they just ran out of content because there’s nothing new. Anyone have other suggestions for apps?
samstave 5y ago
I LOVED this show as a kid, the blood hound gang, 321 Contact!. And fraggle rock. Anyway, for all us Nerds who grew up with these shows, this will be enjoyable to the HN crowd in this thread: --- Hard 'n Phirm - Pi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XanjZw5hPvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XanjZw5hPvE
cronix 5y ago
It was such a wondrous time to be a kid. I learned so much from TV in my early years. It makes me sad that once we valued things like reading and writing as a society, as we recognized it benefited all of society, but seem to be going the opposite direction in some places. > Oregon Gov. Kate Brown privately signed a bill last month ending the requirement for high school students to prove proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic before graduation. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-governor-signs-bill-ending-reading-and-math-proficiency-requirements-for-graduation/ar-AAN9yj7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-governor-signs-bill...
- mc32 5y ago
  WTH? And we wonder why we’re losing out to other economies and have to import skilled labor (not a bad thing per se, where it makes sense) but throwing your own under the bus is malfeasance.
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    There's more context to it than most people report. Those requirements haven't always been there - they were added at some point not too long ago - so at worse they're going back to older standards. Also, those particular requirements are/were a bit unusual - I believe many/most states don't have them. So as backward as it may seem, it's not more backward than the rest of the country.
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    Importing immigrants is the easy way out. Improving schools is a non-starter. At least for most public schools. Instead of focusing on the basics like math and language proficiency we have the stranglehold of the teachers unions and the academic sports complex (where there 80 million dollar high school football stadiums): https://www.chron.com/sports/highschool/article/Most-expensive-high-school-football-stadiums-Texas-13145194.php https://www.chron.com/sports/highschool/article/Most-expensi...
    - mc32 5y ago
      We’re failing kids in the most basic academics. How can we ever hope to be long term competitive? Third world countries treat academics with more importance and rigor than this kind of defining the problem out. Let’s see the governor redefine taxes and see if the IRS humors that. Neither will life for these kids.
supernova87a 5y ago
I don't know about anyone else, but listening to the theme song of 3-2-1 Contact just brings me back to coming back from school afternoons, or lazy days in summer as a kid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-LEBc2sO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-LEBc2sO8 By the way, listening now, this song still impresses me. Every single measure in the main part, while sounding repeated, has a slight rhythmic or instrumental variation from the previous one, maybe to keep you on your toes. Very clever. And pure 1980s... Oh what a simpler time we enjoyed growing up.
- 0des 5y ago
  Most of the episodes for 3-2-1 Contact as well as Mr Wizard and other classics are on YouTube now, which is great!
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - uptownfunk 5y ago
    I was just remembering Mr. Wizard today! A show I haven't thought about in decades.. the synchronicity!
- russellbeattie 5y ago
  I am now humming that song from memory. I LOVED watching 3-2-1 contact after school. But as a parent, I can tell you that it's sooo much better growing up today. We had to have shows like that dribbled out to us on a daily basis, and learning stopped after the 30 minutes were over and the McNeil Lehrer News Hour would start. Today, kids have access to that kind of programming any time they want, on various screens, in never ending quantities. Any question can be answered without a trip to the library or reading decades old information out of whatever volume of World Book Encyclopedia your family had on hand. It was simpler when we were younger because our world was so much smaller.
- xbar 5y ago
  I feel it, too. I associate 3-2-1 Contact with its associated print magazine, in particular the issue that highlighted the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
doodpants 5y ago
I loved this show as a kid. ...Holy crap I'm almost 50.
rainandcoffee 5y ago
I recall my brother and I using the Electric Company formula to curse openly--until my mother caught on. Remember the silhouettes that would face each other and one would say part of a word and the other would complete it. My brother and I would sit facing each other and he would say, "Sh.." and I would say, "it". Chased out of the house to play outside.
exogeny 5y ago
I'm from the '80s, so for me, it's Square One TV, Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego, 3-2-1 Contact, and more. I mean, just take Square One as an example here. Imagine walking into a TV producers office and saying, "Alright, I want to do a sketch comedy variety show that is very loose spoof of 'Saturday Night Live', except that it's entirely about math and aimed at 10 year olds." And they actually put it on the air! Amazing. I have to be very careful with nostalgia here, but it certainly seems like PBS has really lost a lot of the clout that it once had. Certainly for me it was immensely valuable.
- jedberg 5y ago
  > I have to be very careful with nostalgia here, but it certainly seems like PBS has really lost a lot of the clout that it once had. Certainly for me it was immensely valuable. If it makes you feel better, PBS has a streaming app and my kids watch it all the time. If I let them they would just watch it all day. So they still have clout, even though my kids don't watch Sesame Street (but they do watch Daniel Tiger, which is cartoon Mr Rogers).
- tclancy 5y ago
  Well, all networks have lost mindshare, but I wouldn’t say their kids programming is worse.
- xen2xen1 5y ago
  Please tell me someone here loved Mathnet? It was a math version of Dragnet.
1cvmask 5y ago
Would the old Electric Company be received the same way if it was released today? There was so much "mature" comedy and comedians in it that it defies disbelief in what was a children's show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company
- joezydeco 5y ago
  Pixar kind of took that baton and ran with it.
- crucialfelix 5y ago
  Storybots is current and very good. Same educational quality, amazing music and guest stars
macintux 5y ago
The Electric Company and Sesame Street taught me to read as a kid. My parents were both in school, very busy, but I was reading and writing before I started talking in sentences. Sadly that accelerated learning curve didn't last very long.
zeruch 5y ago
EC was probably my favorite show as a kid, at least until I discovered the Muppet Show (which is still to this day one of my favorite shows). EC was brilliant.
paulpauper 5y ago
I am really skeptical about the purported efficacy of any tv program to teach kids how to read. I think learning to read comes from actual reading.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  If there are words on the screen and the TV show talks about and explains the words on the screen, the kid is reading and being taught to read, no?
- kleer001 5y ago
  You might be surprised, but the tv program in question does include words on the screen.
WalterBright 5y ago
I'm pretty skeptical of claims that childrens' TV boosts academic skills. Even if it does, the results hardly justify a thousand hours spent watching it. It's probably the most inefficient teaching method ever devised. The reason is simple. It's completely passive. In order to learn, kids have to actively participate.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Didn’t the mermaid in Splash learn English from TV?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    A TV show about a mermaid isn't likely to be presenting reality.
- 0134340 5y ago
  I didn't learn anything from this comment while passively reading. /s Seriously though, I've learned a lot just from reading and watching media growing up, in some cases much more than school because it's something I actively wanted to do. For me, doesn't matter whether it's active or passive, if it's something I enjoy I can learn from it much easier.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Reading is an active process. Watching a show about reading is not. You're not going to learn how to play a guitar by passively watching a show, nor are you going to learn dancing that way, etc. I totally understand that people want to believe that EC and other "educational" TV shows work, because it is effortless for the parent, the teacher, and the child. But the very nature of it being effortless leads to it not working. Heck, I'd absolutely love it if watching an exercise video would add muscle mass. Sadly, it doesn't.
- setpatchaddress 5y ago
  Sure, but is it worse than what they'd have otherwise been watching on TV? Stipulated that in an ideal world, children should watch no television. But if the alternative is, I don't know, reruns of Leave it to Beaver?
chriselles 5y ago
Actor Morgan Freeman was Easy Reader on Electric Company. Morgan Freeman's voice is one of the most distinctive for me as I've been listening to it since I was a very young child learning how to pronounce words and read. No wonder he has played so many trusted characters, his voice alone conveys deep trust from millions of people who grew up listening to it as children.
amacbride 5y ago
I was 3-1/2 when it premiered, and it was my favorite show; apparently I could already read, but I’m certain the show helped improve that. “It’s a word, it’s a plan…it’s Letterman!” (narrated by Joan Rivers, Letterman played by Gene Wilder, with Zero Mostel as Spell Binder!)
- suzzer99 5y ago
  Faster than a rolling O. Stronger than silent E. Able to leap capital T in a single bound. It’s a word! It’s a plan! It’s Letterman!
visiblink 5y ago
I'm old. That is all.
leoc 5y ago
Children's TV nostalgia, eh? Back in the '80s the earliest UK TV in the morning was often a long countdown clock leading into a couple of hours of very slow-paced and somewhat haunted old schools programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs315UWC2Uc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs315UWC2Uc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-lVHi2nnE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-lVHi2nnE . Now that's the stuff of memories. The whole first series/season of the early-2000s TV series Look Around You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You was a parody of this programming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaVwwuErmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaVwwuErmU .

209 points by samizdis 5y ago

No mention of Tom Lehrer? I still remember the -LY song he wrote. One recurring joke was based on 2001. A giant monolith would crumble to reveal the sound of the day while Also Sprach Zarathustra played. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY0GhNBMkM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY0GhNBMkM8

dllthomas 5y ago
> I still remember the -LY song he wrote. https://tomlehrersongs.com/l-y/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/l-y/ Tom Lehrer may be obliquely mentioned (but not named): Lynette Murray of Washington, D.C., who was 12 years old at the time, marveled at the power of the silent e. "One thing surprised me, that the way they take the e off the word and it comes to another word," Murray explained. "Like for ride you can take the e off then the word becomes rid." That same word-play may have appeared in the show outside of it, but Lehrer contributed a song with exactly that gimmick: https://tomlehrersongs.com/silent-e/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/silent-e/

samizdis 5y ago

This is just incredible: > The show's cast included Academy Award winner Rita Moreno, Bill Cosby and a then unknown Morgan Freeman. Guest stars included Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder and Joan Rivers. The teen pop band Short Circus (get it?) included future star Irene Cara. The comedy writers were among the best in the business, and later went on to work on hit TV shows including MASH and Everybody Loves Raymond.

dtgriscom 5y ago

C'mon; aren't there any "Love of Chair" fans out there? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMd0xWleJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMd0xWleJQ

YesThatTom2 5y ago
But what about Naomi?

MontagFTB 5y ago

They rebooted the show for a time a decade or so ago - it was a breath of fresh air, and I'm sad it didn't last longer.

samizdis 5y ago
There's a surprisingly detailed Wikipedia page on that 2009 reboot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company_(2009_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company_(2009_TV_... Also, the 70s original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company
- lambic 5y ago
  My son watched the reboot, I credit his ability to use punctuation correctly to that show.

vondur 5y ago

According to my parents, this show is why I was able to read at a young age.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

sundaeofshock 5y ago

I was born in 1967 and just ate this up as kid. The intro with Rita Moreno yelling “Hey you guys!” followed by the theme song brings back a flood of emotion. I was a voracious reader as a kid. I suspect this show had something to do with that. Thanks for sharing.

busyant 5y ago
1968 here. I'm not sure why, but The Electric Company resonated with me much more than Sesame Street. I was in awe of Morgan Freeman and his sonorous voice. Years later, I remember seeing him start to get traction in Hollywood and thought, "Hey! That's the guy from the Electric Company!"
- bsenftner 5y ago
  "Hey! That's Easy Reader!" I had the opportunity to chat with him once. I asked him how many people remember and ask him about Easy Reader. He lit up and says only grey haired people remember Easy, but the light in their eyes warms his heart.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  I was 1971, so a few years younger than you folks. For some reason The Electric Company scared the crap out of me, especially the creepy Spider-man segments. My older brother liked it, so we would watch it. But I had to watch Mr. Rogers afterward just to calm myself down. Obviously I grew out of being scared of it, but by the time I did I'd moved on to other shows.
  - tingletech 5y ago
    72, no older siblings. I don't think I was allowed to watch it till I was in Kindergarten-- the same time my subscription changed from Sesame Street Magazine to Electric Company Magazine.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
I was born in the 70s and I don't think I ever watched a full episode, thus having no point of reference for Sloth in Goonies yelling the same phrase. And now I do.

smhenderson 5y ago

My favorite bit was the Spiderman character that didn't talk. Little thought bubbles, akin to comic books, would appear over his head so you had to read to get in on the joke/gist of the sketch.

tclancy 5y ago
He did talk in some things. I used to have an LP of a bunch of the Spider-Man stories from the show. At least I think they were from the show.
jasperry 5y ago
Electric Company was still playing in reruns in the early 80s and they would show it to us in school. All the kids would cheer out loud when the Spider-man segment came on.
- russellbeattie 5y ago
  It's really hard for anyone today to understand how awesome it was to have Spider-Man show up on your TV set in real life!! It was exciting the way a celebrity sighting is... He just wasn't seen outside of comics.
wenc 5y ago
I was more into Sesame Street but the Spider-Man segment was the one reason I watched the Electric Company.

brandonmenc 5y ago

I learned to read by watching The Electric Company. My mom tells me that I would sit in a trance while watching this show, especially during the "silhouette" segments. Just zoned out while being programmed by the TV. When I entered preschool, she told the teachers that I could read and they were like, "yeah, right." After about a week they were shocked and amazed that I actually could read. I recently purchased the DVDs for my nephews.

shadowgovt 5y ago
There were a handful of firms and people that looked at television and recognized the immense educational potential of an immersive audio-visual broadcast media. I've seen inklings of this in VR but nothing I'd call on the scale of an Electric Company, Sesame St, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, or 321-Contact yet.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  PBS also had a show to teach English to native Spanish speakers in the early 70's, Villa Alegre. They made some effort to teach Spanish to English speakers too, but too much of the show was only in Spanish for young me to follow. The theme song from that show is quite the ear worm.

asdff 5y ago

Anyone else learn to read from Pokemon Red or Blue?

Jill_the_Pill 5y ago
You baby, this isn't your thread! :)

JJMcJ 5y ago

Most current children's programming now, either PBS or commercial, seems hysterical and intended to create anxiety by comparison. Mister Rogers, Sesame Street, Electric Company, were really excellent.

handrous 5y ago
They're so sedate. It's wonderful. From what I've seen with my own kids, they're entirely OK with and plenty entertained by that pace—until they become accustomed to super-fast modern kids' media. Even most of the stuff on PBS seems hyper-caffeinated by comparison. And don't get me started on the damn auto-tune. "Let's teach 3 year olds this is what a normal human singing voice sounds like". Bleh. Friggin' Daniel Tiger.
- JJMcJ 5y ago
  Cartoon kids talk in hysterical falsettos, even third graders don't talk that high pitched in real life. Adults mostly don't exist. Often the kids have superpowers that solve all the problems. The only PBS Kids shows that seems to have kids in a normal relationship with adults is Molly Of Denali. Also just about the only one that shows adults interacting with each other.
tclancy 5y ago
Which shows are these? The biggest difference I see between when I was a kid (born in the 70s) and my daughter (born in the 10s) is that shows now are relentlessly upbeat, focused entirely on teaching and nonviolent. We recently got HBO Max and most of Looney Tunes is lost on her because it’s basically assholes whaling in each other. I still love it, of course.

jmkb 5y ago

My favorite skit: "Hey, what are doing inside that crate? Where's the new loudspeaker I ordered?" "I *AM* A LOUD SPEAKER!"

idworks1 5y ago

Interestingly enough, I watched this growing up in Saudi Arabia. In the late 80s, early 90s there were only 2 TV channels. Channel 1 was in Arabic. Channel 2 was mostly English and had a lot of old school American programs. We watched sesame streets, the electric company, old episodes of Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes. I can't say it taught me how to read, but it taught me English for sure. > Take the detective character Fargo North, Decoder (get it?), who would solve missing letter mysteries. "Kids don't know Fargo, North Dakota," Fowles points out. There was a show my wife watched when she was a kid in Florida. One of the main character was called LaCienega Boulevardes. It sounded like any other name. Until a couple years ago she moved to California. She started laughing hysterically when we drove on La Cienega Blvd.

jedberg 5y ago
As someone who is a native of Los Angeles, and spent many childhood drives on La Cienega, I love this story. I had to look up the character -- looks like it was an animated series called The Proud Family that ran on Disney in the early 00s, and was created by an LA native. Growing up in LA I could see a lot of influences from my local area in media (and in the 80s a lot of stuff was filmed in LA too so I'd literally see local spots in movies). But it never occurred to me that the LA inside jokes wouldn't really be inside jokes to people outside of LA.
hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
I think it's a good thing though. Parents could watch with their kids and still enjoy it. From what I've seen of today's children's programming, it's not very enjoyable for the parents. I guess it doesn't really matter, most parents just give their kids a tablet.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  SpongeBob (at least the first couple seasons) was aimed as much at parents. The slapstick was for the kids, the sly snark for the adults. Kurgan doing the voice for Mr Crabs was just the strawberry on the shortcake. One bit was when they were on a boat. The name of the boat was on the prow. In a couple of shots, the first letter of the name was cut off by the edge of the screen, and your mind filled it in as a vulgar word. Now that's some A-level snark.

doublerabbit 5y ago

Interactive Educational learning never moved past the television nor the 00's and it's sad. 00's was a dark era for the UK with operation yewtree with discovering that many child tv presenters were doing unspeakable acts to children. That was the start of the decline of kids TV. Shows still exist but are so heavy watered-down in what they can say or do you don't get the same effect. Educational video games were never popular either. Word rescue, Maths rescue, Fun School; taught me english and maths, I found them fun but its a genre that never sells. I have never been a TV person and I still struggle to sit and watch TV. My concern is that kids are now growing up with a mobile phone in their hands but the device lacks in educational learning. That's not to say there are not educational apps but most don't feel the same quality and standard as television once produced.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
Khan Academy Kids is pretty good, but the content only lasts maybe a week. It is very repetitive, and I know that’s for reinforcement, but it feels like they just ran out of content because there’s nothing new. Anyone have other suggestions for apps?

samstave 5y ago

I LOVED this show as a kid, the blood hound gang, 321 Contact!. And fraggle rock. Anyway, for all us Nerds who grew up with these shows, this will be enjoyable to the HN crowd in this thread: --- Hard 'n Phirm - Pi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XanjZw5hPvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XanjZw5hPvE

cronix 5y ago

It was such a wondrous time to be a kid. I learned so much from TV in my early years. It makes me sad that once we valued things like reading and writing as a society, as we recognized it benefited all of society, but seem to be going the opposite direction in some places. > Oregon Gov. Kate Brown privately signed a bill last month ending the requirement for high school students to prove proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic before graduation. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-governor-signs-bill-ending-reading-and-math-proficiency-requirements-for-graduation/ar-AAN9yj7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-governor-signs-bill...

mc32 5y ago
WTH? And we wonder why we’re losing out to other economies and have to import skilled labor (not a bad thing per se, where it makes sense) but throwing your own under the bus is malfeasance.
- BeetleB 5y ago
  There's more context to it than most people report. Those requirements haven't always been there - they were added at some point not too long ago - so at worse they're going back to older standards. Also, those particular requirements are/were a bit unusual - I believe many/most states don't have them. So as backward as it may seem, it's not more backward than the rest of the country.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  Importing immigrants is the easy way out. Improving schools is a non-starter. At least for most public schools. Instead of focusing on the basics like math and language proficiency we have the stranglehold of the teachers unions and the academic sports complex (where there 80 million dollar high school football stadiums): https://www.chron.com/sports/highschool/article/Most-expensive-high-school-football-stadiums-Texas-13145194.php https://www.chron.com/sports/highschool/article/Most-expensi...
  - mc32 5y ago
    We’re failing kids in the most basic academics. How can we ever hope to be long term competitive? Third world countries treat academics with more importance and rigor than this kind of defining the problem out. Let’s see the governor redefine taxes and see if the IRS humors that. Neither will life for these kids.

supernova87a 5y ago

I don't know about anyone else, but listening to the theme song of 3-2-1 Contact just brings me back to coming back from school afternoons, or lazy days in summer as a kid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-LEBc2sO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-LEBc2sO8 By the way, listening now, this song still impresses me. Every single measure in the main part, while sounding repeated, has a slight rhythmic or instrumental variation from the previous one, maybe to keep you on your toes. Very clever. And pure 1980s... Oh what a simpler time we enjoyed growing up.

0des 5y ago
Most of the episodes for 3-2-1 Contact as well as Mr Wizard and other classics are on YouTube now, which is great!
- deleted 5y ago
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- uptownfunk 5y ago
  I was just remembering Mr. Wizard today! A show I haven't thought about in decades.. the synchronicity!
russellbeattie 5y ago
I am now humming that song from memory. I LOVED watching 3-2-1 contact after school. But as a parent, I can tell you that it's sooo much better growing up today. We had to have shows like that dribbled out to us on a daily basis, and learning stopped after the 30 minutes were over and the McNeil Lehrer News Hour would start. Today, kids have access to that kind of programming any time they want, on various screens, in never ending quantities. Any question can be answered without a trip to the library or reading decades old information out of whatever volume of World Book Encyclopedia your family had on hand. It was simpler when we were younger because our world was so much smaller.
xbar 5y ago
I feel it, too. I associate 3-2-1 Contact with its associated print magazine, in particular the issue that highlighted the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

doodpants 5y ago

I loved this show as a kid. ...Holy crap I'm almost 50.

rainandcoffee 5y ago

I recall my brother and I using the Electric Company formula to curse openly--until my mother caught on. Remember the silhouettes that would face each other and one would say part of a word and the other would complete it. My brother and I would sit facing each other and he would say, "Sh.." and I would say, "it". Chased out of the house to play outside.

exogeny 5y ago

I'm from the '80s, so for me, it's Square One TV, Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego, 3-2-1 Contact, and more. I mean, just take Square One as an example here. Imagine walking into a TV producers office and saying, "Alright, I want to do a sketch comedy variety show that is very loose spoof of 'Saturday Night Live', except that it's entirely about math and aimed at 10 year olds." And they actually put it on the air! Amazing. I have to be very careful with nostalgia here, but it certainly seems like PBS has really lost a lot of the clout that it once had. Certainly for me it was immensely valuable.

jedberg 5y ago
> I have to be very careful with nostalgia here, but it certainly seems like PBS has really lost a lot of the clout that it once had. Certainly for me it was immensely valuable. If it makes you feel better, PBS has a streaming app and my kids watch it all the time. If I let them they would just watch it all day. So they still have clout, even though my kids don't watch Sesame Street (but they do watch Daniel Tiger, which is cartoon Mr Rogers).
tclancy 5y ago
Well, all networks have lost mindshare, but I wouldn’t say their kids programming is worse.
xen2xen1 5y ago
Please tell me someone here loved Mathnet? It was a math version of Dragnet.

1cvmask 5y ago

Would the old Electric Company be received the same way if it was released today? There was so much "mature" comedy and comedians in it that it defies disbelief in what was a children's show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Company

joezydeco 5y ago
Pixar kind of took that baton and ran with it.
crucialfelix 5y ago
Storybots is current and very good. Same educational quality, amazing music and guest stars

macintux 5y ago

The Electric Company and Sesame Street taught me to read as a kid. My parents were both in school, very busy, but I was reading and writing before I started talking in sentences. Sadly that accelerated learning curve didn't last very long.

zeruch 5y ago

EC was probably my favorite show as a kid, at least until I discovered the Muppet Show (which is still to this day one of my favorite shows). EC was brilliant.

paulpauper 5y ago

I am really skeptical about the purported efficacy of any tv program to teach kids how to read. I think learning to read comes from actual reading.

cratermoon 5y ago
If there are words on the screen and the TV show talks about and explains the words on the screen, the kid is reading and being taught to read, no?
kleer001 5y ago
You might be surprised, but the tv program in question does include words on the screen.

WalterBright 5y ago

I'm pretty skeptical of claims that childrens' TV boosts academic skills. Even if it does, the results hardly justify a thousand hours spent watching it. It's probably the most inefficient teaching method ever devised. The reason is simple. It's completely passive. In order to learn, kids have to actively participate.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
Didn’t the mermaid in Splash learn English from TV?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  A TV show about a mermaid isn't likely to be presenting reality.
0134340 5y ago
I didn't learn anything from this comment while passively reading. /s Seriously though, I've learned a lot just from reading and watching media growing up, in some cases much more than school because it's something I actively wanted to do. For me, doesn't matter whether it's active or passive, if it's something I enjoy I can learn from it much easier.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Reading is an active process. Watching a show about reading is not. You're not going to learn how to play a guitar by passively watching a show, nor are you going to learn dancing that way, etc. I totally understand that people want to believe that EC and other "educational" TV shows work, because it is effortless for the parent, the teacher, and the child. But the very nature of it being effortless leads to it not working. Heck, I'd absolutely love it if watching an exercise video would add muscle mass. Sadly, it doesn't.
setpatchaddress 5y ago
Sure, but is it worse than what they'd have otherwise been watching on TV? Stipulated that in an ideal world, children should watch no television. But if the alternative is, I don't know, reruns of Leave it to Beaver?

chriselles 5y ago

Actor Morgan Freeman was Easy Reader on Electric Company. Morgan Freeman's voice is one of the most distinctive for me as I've been listening to it since I was a very young child learning how to pronounce words and read. No wonder he has played so many trusted characters, his voice alone conveys deep trust from millions of people who grew up listening to it as children.

amacbride 5y ago

I was 3-1/2 when it premiered, and it was my favorite show; apparently I could already read, but I’m certain the show helped improve that. “It’s a word, it’s a plan…it’s Letterman!” (narrated by Joan Rivers, Letterman played by Gene Wilder, with Zero Mostel as Spell Binder!)

suzzer99 5y ago
Faster than a rolling O. Stronger than silent E. Able to leap capital T in a single bound. It’s a word! It’s a plan! It’s Letterman!

visiblink 5y ago

I'm old. That is all.

leoc 5y ago

Children's TV nostalgia, eh? Back in the '80s the earliest UK TV in the morning was often a long countdown clock leading into a couple of hours of very slow-paced and somewhat haunted old schools programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs315UWC2Uc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs315UWC2Uc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-lVHi2nnE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-lVHi2nnE . Now that's the stuff of memories. The whole first series/season of the early-2000s TV series Look Around You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You was a parody of this programming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaVwwuErmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaVwwuErmU .