The Electric Company (1971): Season 1

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Season Details & Credits

PBS | Season Premiere Date: August 21, 2017

Starring: Lee Chamberlin, Rita Moreno, Bill Cosby

Summary: On the heels of its fabulously successful Sesame Street, the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) created The Electric Company. With its roots in Motown Sound, Broadway and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Electric Company drew attention for six years as the most popular instructional television show. It would win an Emmy for OutstandingOn the heels of its fabulously successful Sesame Street, the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) created The Electric Company. With its roots in Motown Sound, Broadway and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Electric Company drew attention for six years as the most popular instructional television show. It would win an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Series, and its soundtrack album earned a Grammy.

Targeting children ages 6 through 10, The Electric Company aimed to teach basic reading and grammar skills to the young viewers. The show's cast of skit players helped teach these concepts through the use of skits, songs, cartoon and blackout segments and regular features; all of them revolved around sound clusters (e.g., sh-, -ly, -oo-), contractions, punctuation marks, etc. The series provided material for elementary schools, as CTW published a biweekly TEC Teacher's Guide detailing program contents.

Quickly, the cast members began to establish themselves with various personas: • Skip Hinnant (who had played Schroeder in the off-Broadway production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown) had one of the best known characters: Fargo North, Decoder. Early in the run, this Peter Sellers knock-off interpreted messages that people gave to him when they couldn't understand what had been written.
• The show also made Morgan Freeman. He created Easy Reader, the cool dude who loved reading anything he could get his hands on. Freeman also played radio disc jockey Mel Mounds, who usually introduced The Short Circus tunes (see below).
• Rita Moreno created her tagline, "Hey You Guys!", while playing Millie, the Milkman's helper. She put the same fire into playing Otto the Director, who fumed as her actors didn't read their lines properly.
• Judy Graubart, alumnus of The Second City in Chicago, became Jennifer of the Jungle, teaching bits of phonetics to her friend Paul the Gorilla.
• And who can forget J. Arthur Crank? Jimmy Boyd (B. 1939) created the character, strictly as a voice on a telephone during the first season. In all future years, Crank was seen as that bad-tempered loud dresser.

Complimenting the adults in the cast was The Short Circus, a group of five teenaged performers usually involved in songs or dances. Members of The Short Circus drew names from a hat to determine what would be their character name. While the Short Circus changed its talents from one season to the next, they did keep one member constant: June Angela.

The show also set itself apart with the cloud sets by Nat Mongioi (which members of the cast called "Limbo Land"), cool music by the late Joe Raposo and others, unique sound effects Dick Maitland pinned to punctuation marks, and the high-tech computer animation. The logo above can only suggest these elements, which seemed to represent the New Era back in the 1970s.

Among the most popular of the regular features was Spiderman, a live-action segment added during the series' fourth season. The Spiderman segments (for which there were about two dozen or so made) featured The Electric Company cast as various characters.

Beginning in 1972, there was also The Adventures of Letterman cartoon series. The evil Spell Binder would cause trouble by using his magic wand, replacing key letters to make the worse of situations (e.g.: Train into Rain). Then Letterman would take the letter(s) off his varsity sweater and correct the hazard.

Muppet characters from Sesame Street (including Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and Grover) also visited on occasion through the years.

A total of 780 episodes of The Electric Company aired from 1971 to 1977 on PBS; reruns of the final two seasons aired through the fall of 1985. Programs always ended with one of its cast members stating:

The Electric Company
gets its power from
The Children's Television Workshop.

This was followed by a superimposed caption:

The Electric Company is a
trademark and service mark of the
Children's Television Workshop.
© Copyright Children's Television Workshop 1971 to 1977

In 1972, CTW began issuing The Electric Company magazine. Appropriately enough, the mag contained feature articles, games and other activities featuring members of the show's cast. It was published until the late-1980s, when replaced with a magazine called Kid City. A sister magazine, Spidey Super Stories (also issued and endorsed by The Electric Company's producers) contained children's reading level-versions of the web slinger's battles with his arch-enemies plus comic strip versions of the The Electric Company Spiderman segments. Spidey Super Stories were published from October 1974 to January 1982.

Sixty-five episodes of The Electric Company from various seasons – a good share from the 1972-1973 and 1973-1974 seasons – began airing on Nickelodeon's new Noggin network in the spring of 1999 (kicked off with a two-hour retrospective of the show on TV Land, another Nickelodeon sister network). The shows were edited slightly, removing all program numbers and show-ending teases (see Notes within Show 131). Also for the Noggin run, CTW gave credit to Marvel Comics, which had never received a copyright notice on the original run. Thus all episodes from Seasons 4 to 6 had their copyrights redisplayed:

The Electric Company is a
trademark and service mark of the
Children's Television Workshop.
© Copyright Children's Television Workshop 1974 to 1976
The use of the character Spiderman
was provided as a courtesy to
the Children's Television Workshop by
Marvel Comics Group.
© Copyright Marvel Comics Group 1974 to 1976

At first, Noggin aired The Electric Company during several daytime and overnight time slots seven days a week. By the time CTW was renamed Sesame Workshop in 2000, however, the show's timeslots were downgraded to late-nights and then, in 2002, only a couple of weekend overnight airings. In early 2003, with the value of Sesame Workshop's interest in Noggin even less (if not zero), The Electric Company was pulled from Noggin's schedule altogether.

(Note: Classic episodes of Sesame Street, which were shown under the title Sesame Street Unpaved, had also been a part of Noggin's schedule. Noggin had shown 65 classic episodes (originally airing between 1969 to 1986) of the series. Like The Electric Company, Sesame Street Unpaved had originally aired weekdays before being placed in downgraded timeslots (eventually weekend overnights). Both shows had attracted primarily adults (who had watched the show as children) and college-aged fans, and both shows were too dated for their intended childhood audience. Noggin underwent a total personality change beginning April 1, 2002, placing more emphasis on original programming (in addition to airing reruns of Nickelodeon kiddie shows).
The general effect of removing The Electric Company from the airwaves, has not been a pleasant one for American society. Some people believe Sesame Workshop discusses The Electric Company only when lowering the wrecker's ball on those who have violated their copyrights. (To this day, The Electric Company™ and the logo are trademarks and service marks of Sesame Workshop, © 1971-1977.) Though it appears Sesame Workshop chooses not to live in the past, it has been digitizing segments from all its old shows in preparation for DVD releases. The first DVD of The Electric Company is scheduled for release in 2006. (This is the result of an independent campaign for a TEC DVD release; see below.) The Electric Company will always be remembered by its fans as an entertaining series which taught children to read. Elementary classroom teachers regularly scheduled their days so their students could watch the show, and reading scores increased as a result of in-class and home viewing. Hey You Guys! petersmith among them We're gonna turn it on We're gonna bring you the power We're gonna light up The dark of night Like the brightest day In a whole new way We're gonna turn it on We're gonna bring you the power It's coming down the line Strong as it can be Through the courtesy Of The Electric Company™ from The Electric Company Theme Music and Lyrics by Joe Raposo © 1971 Jonico Music… Expand

Genre(s): Comedy, Kids

Season 1 Episodes

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S1:E249. Episode 249
Air Date: April 5, 1973
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S1:E131. Show 130
Air Date: April 21, 1972
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S1:E130. Show 129
Air Date: April 20, 1972

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Seasons & Episodes

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Series Overview
Season 6

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- Season 6 Overview
  Air Date: October 18, 1976
Season 5

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- Season 5 Overview
  Air Date: October 20, 1975
Season 4

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- Season 4 Overview
  Air Date: October 21, 1974
Season 3

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- Season 3 Overview
  Air Date: October 22, 1973
Season 2

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- Season 2 Overview
  Air Date: October 23, 1972
Season 1

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- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: August 21, 2017
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  S1:E249. Episode 249
  Air Date: April 5, 1973
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  S1:E131. Show 130
  Air Date: April 21, 1972
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  S1:E130. Show 129
  Air Date: April 20, 1972
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  S1:E129. Show 128
  Air Date: April 19, 1972
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  S1:E128. Show 127
  Air Date: April 18, 1972
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  S1:E127. Show 126
  Air Date: April 17, 1972
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  S1:E126. Show 125
  Air Date: April 14, 1972
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  S1:E125. Show 124
  Air Date: April 13, 1972
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  S1:E124. Show 123
  Air Date: April 12, 1972
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  S1:E123. Show 122
  Air Date: April 11, 1972
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  S1:E122. Show 121
  Air Date: April 10, 1972
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  S1:E121. Show 120
  Air Date: April 7, 1972
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  S1:E120. Show 119
  Air Date: April 6, 1972
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  S1:E119. Show 118
  Air Date: April 5, 1972
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  S1:E118. Show 117
  Air Date: April 4, 1972
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  S1:E117. Show 116
  Air Date: April 3, 1972
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  S1:E116. Show 115
  Air Date: March 31, 1972
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  S1:E115. Show 114
  Air Date: March 30, 1972
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  S1:E114. Show 113
  Air Date: March 29, 1972
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  S1:E113. Show 112
  Air Date: March 28, 1972
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  S1:E112. Show 111
  Air Date: March 27, 1972
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  S1:E111. Show 110
  Air Date: March 24, 1972
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  S1:E110. Show 109
  Air Date: March 23, 1972
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  S1:E109. Show 108
  Air Date: March 22, 1972
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  S1:E108. Show 107
  Air Date: March 21, 1972
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  S1:E107. Show 106
  Air Date: March 20, 1972
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  S1:E106. Show 105
  Air Date: March 17, 1972
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  S1:E105. Show 104
  Air Date: March 16, 1972
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  S1:E104. Show 103
  Air Date: March 15, 1972
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  S1:E103. Show 102
  Air Date: March 14, 1972
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  S1:E102. Show 101
  Air Date: March 13, 1972
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  S1:E101. Show 100
  Air Date: March 10, 1972
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  S1:E100. Show 99
  Air Date: March 9, 1972
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  S1:E99. Show 98
  Air Date: March 8, 1972
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  S1:E98. Show 97
  Air Date: March 7, 1972
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  S1:E97. Show 96
  Air Date: March 6, 1972
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  S1:E96. Show 95
  Air Date: March 3, 1972
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  S1:E95. Show 94
  Air Date: March 2, 1972
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  S1:E94. Show 93
  Air Date: March 1, 1972
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  S1:E93. Show 92
  Air Date: February 29, 1972
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  S1:E92. Show 91
  Air Date: February 28, 1972
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  S1:E91. Show 90
  Air Date: February 25, 1972
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  S1:E90. Show 89
  Air Date: February 24, 1972
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  S1:E89. Show 88
  Air Date: February 23, 1972
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  S1:E88. Show 87
  Air Date: February 22, 1972
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  S1:E87. Show 86
  Air Date: February 21, 1972
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  S1:E86. Show 85
  Air Date: February 18, 1972
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  S1:E85. Show 84
  Air Date: February 17, 1972
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  S1:E84. Show 83
  Air Date: February 16, 1972
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  S1:E83. Show 82
  Air Date: February 15, 1972
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  S1:E82. Show 81
  Air Date: February 14, 1972
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  S1:E81. Show 80
  Air Date: February 11, 1972
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  S1:E80. Show 79
  Air Date: February 10, 1972
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  S1:E79. Show 78
  Air Date: February 9, 1972
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  S1:E78. Show 77
  Air Date: February 8, 1972
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  S1:E77. Show 76
  Air Date: February 7, 1972
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  S1:E76. Show 75
  Air Date: February 3, 1972
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  S1:E75. Show 74
  Air Date: February 4, 1972
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  S1:E75. Episode 75
  Air Date: unknown
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  S1:E74. Show 73
  Air Date: February 2, 1972
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  S1:E73. Show 72
  Air Date: February 1, 1972
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  S1:E72. Show 71
  Air Date: January 31, 1972
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  S1:E71. Show 70
  Air Date: January 28, 1972
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  S1:E70. Show 69
  Air Date: January 27, 1972
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  S1:E69. Show 68
  Air Date: January 26, 1972
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  S1:E68. Show 67
  Air Date: January 25, 1972
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  S1:E67. Show 66
  Air Date: January 24, 1972
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  S1:E66. Show 65
  Air Date: January 21, 1972
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  S1:E65. Show 64
  Air Date: January 20, 1972
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  S1:E64. Show 63
  Air Date: January 19, 1972
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  S1:E63. Show 62
  Air Date: January 18, 1972
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  S1:E62. Show 61
  Air Date: January 17, 1972
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  S1:E61. Show 60
  Air Date: January 14, 1972
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  S1:E60. Show 59
  Air Date: January 13, 1972
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  S1:E59. Show 58
  Air Date: January 12, 1972
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  S1:E58. Show 57
  Air Date: January 11, 1972
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  S1:E57. Show 56
  Air Date: January 10, 1972
- tbd
  S1:E56. Show 55
  Air Date: January 7, 1972
- tbd
  S1:E55. Show 54
  Air Date: January 6, 1972
- tbd
  S1:E54. Show 53
  Air Date: January 5, 1972
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  S1:E53. Show 52
  Air Date: January 4, 1972
- tbd
  S1:E52. Show 51
  Air Date: January 3, 1972
- tbd
  S1:E51. Show 50
  Air Date: December 31, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E50. Show 49
  Air Date: December 30, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E49. Show 48
  Air Date: December 29, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E48. Show 47
  Air Date: December 28, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E47. Show 46
  Air Date: December 27, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E46. Show 45
  Air Date: December 24, 1971
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  S1:E45. Show 44
  Air Date: December 23, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E44. Show 43
  Air Date: December 22, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E43. Show 42
  Air Date: December 21, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E42. Show 41
  Air Date: December 20, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E40. Show 39
  Air Date: December 16, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E40. Show 40
  Air Date: December 17, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E40. Episode 40
  Air Date: unknown
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  S1:E39. Show 38
  Air Date: December 15, 1971
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  S1:E38. Show 37
  Air Date: December 14, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E37. Show 36
  Air Date: December 13, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E36. Show 35
  Air Date: December 10, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E35. Show 34
  Air Date: December 9, 1971
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  S1:E34. Show 33
  Air Date: December 8, 1971
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  S1:E33. Show 32
  Air Date: December 7, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E32. Show 31
  Air Date: December 6, 1971
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  S1:E31. Show 30
  Air Date: December 3, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E30. Show 29
  Air Date: December 2, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E29. Show 28
  Air Date: December 1, 1971
- tbd
  S1:E28. Show 27
  Air Date: November 30, 1971
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  S1:E27. Show 26
  Air Date: November 29, 1971
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  S1:E26. Show 25
  Air Date: November 26, 1971
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  S1:E25. Show 24
  Air Date: November 25, 1971
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  S1:E24. Show 23
  Air Date: November 24, 1971
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  S1:E23. Show 22
  Air Date: November 23, 1971
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  S1:E22. Show 21
  Air Date: November 22, 1971
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  S1:E21. Show 20
  Air Date: November 19, 1971
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  S1:E20. Show 19
  Air Date: November 18, 1971
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  S1:E19. Show 18
  Air Date: November 17, 1971
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  S1:E18. Show 17
  Air Date: November 16, 1971
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  S1:E17. Show 16
  Air Date: November 15, 1971
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  S1:E16. Show 15
  Air Date: November 12, 1971
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  S1:E15. Show 14
  Air Date: November 11, 1971
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  S1:E14. Show 13
  Air Date: November 10, 1971
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  S1:E13. Show 12
  Air Date: November 9, 1971
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  S1:E12. Show 11
  Air Date: November 8, 1971
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  S1:E11. Show 10
  Air Date: November 5, 1971
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  S1:E10. Show 9
  Air Date: November 4, 1971
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  S1:E9. Show 8
  Air Date: November 3, 1971
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  S1:E8. Show 7
  Air Date: November 2, 1971
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  S1:E7. Show 6
  Air Date: November 1, 1971
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  S1:E6. Show 5
  Air Date: October 29, 1971
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  S1:E5. Show 4
  Air Date: October 28, 1971
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  S1:E4. Show 3
  Air Date: October 27, 1971
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  S1:E3. Show 2
  Air Date: October 26, 1971
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  S1:E2. Show 1
  Air Date: October 25, 1971
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  S1:E2. Episode 8B
  Air Date: October 27, 1976
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  S1:E1. Here Comes The Electric Company
  Air Date: October 21, 1971