Joe's TV List Turns a Can into a Cane

#41: The Electric Company
(PBS, 1971-1977)

Hey you guuuuuys! If we’re going to add new blood to the cast of Heroes, why not Letterman? By simply pulling a letter from his shirt, narrator Joan Rivers told us, the guy could turn, say, a peanut butter and jam sandwich into a peanut butter and ham sandwich. Think about it: today, he could singlehandedly stop global conflict: for example, he could turn Iran into bran, immediately redirecting that nation’s aggression toward fighting cholesterol and poor digestion. Alas, such thoughts are the residue of the mind-bending education we 1970s youngsters received from The Electric Company, sketch comedy that was, at least in its final two seasons, structured as in-the-classroom curriculum (I can vouch for the half-hour of free time this show gave my first-grade teacher). So that’s how a generation of kids wound up learning phonics and reading skills from the likes of Morgan Freeman, Rita Moreno, and Spiderman. Yes, Spidey was somehow involved. I don’t think Miss Tufano cared, as long as we all made like silent E and just watched the damn TV.

Comments

[Lori]

Wish this was still on! Ryan would have loved spidey... my favorite Letterman episode was when they turned the woman's heels into eels!!

[Joe]

Lori, you can find a bunch of Electric Company stuff on YouTube, including these two great Tom Lehrer songs, which have never really left my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxVoHqgemWE

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVC9TayQIh8&feature=related