The Electric Company (1971): Season 2

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Season Details & Credits

PBS | Season Premiere Date: October 23, 1972

Starring: Lee Chamberlin, Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman

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 2 Episodes

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S2:E130. Show 260
Air Date: April 20, 1973
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S2:E129. Show 259
Air Date: April 19, 1973
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S2:E128. Show 258
Air Date: April 18, 1973

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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
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  S2:E130. Show 260
  Air Date: April 20, 1973
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  S2:E129. Show 259
  Air Date: April 19, 1973
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  S2:E128. Show 258
  Air Date: April 18, 1973
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  S2:E127. Show 257
  Air Date: April 17, 1973
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  S2:E126. Show 256
  Air Date: April 16, 1973
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  S2:E125. Show 255
  Air Date: April 13, 1973
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  S2:E124. Show 254
  Air Date: April 12, 1973
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  S2:E123. Show 253
  Air Date: April 11, 1973
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  S2:E122. Show 252
  Air Date: April 10, 1973
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  S2:E121. Show 251
  Air Date: April 9, 1973
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  S2:E120. Show 250
  Air Date: April 6, 1973
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  S2:E119. Show 249
  Air Date: April 5, 1973
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  S2:E118. Show 248
  Air Date: April 4, 1973
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  S2:E117. Show 247
  Air Date: April 3, 1973
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  S2:E116. Show 246
  Air Date: April 2, 1973
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  S2:E115. Show 245
  Air Date: March 30, 1973
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  S2:E114. Show 244
  Air Date: March 29, 1973
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  S2:E113. Show 243
  Air Date: March 28, 1973
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  S2:E112. Show 242
  Air Date: March 27, 1973
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  S2:E111. Show 241
  Air Date: March 26, 1973
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  S2:E110. Show 240
  Air Date: March 23, 1973
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  S2:E109. Show 239
  Air Date: March 22, 1973
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  S2:E108. Show 238
  Air Date: March 21, 1973
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  S2:E107. Show 237
  Air Date: March 20, 1973
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  S2:E106. Show 236
  Air Date: March 19, 1973
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  S2:E105. Show 235
  Air Date: March 16, 1973
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  S2:E104. Show 234
  Air Date: March 15, 1973
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  S2:E103. Show 233
  Air Date: March 14, 1973
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  S2:E102. Show 232
  Air Date: March 13, 1973
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  S2:E101. Show 231
  Air Date: March 12, 1973
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  S2:E100. Show 230
  Air Date: March 9, 1973
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  S2:E99. Show 229
  Air Date: March 8, 1973
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  S2:E98. Show 228
  Air Date: March 7, 1973
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  S2:E97. Show 227
  Air Date: March 6, 1973
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  S2:E96. Show 226
  Air Date: March 5, 1973
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  S2:E95. Show 225
  Air Date: March 2, 1973
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  S2:E94. Show 224
  Air Date: March 1, 1973
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  S2:E93. Show 223
  Air Date: February 28, 1973
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  S2:E92. Show 222
  Air Date: February 27, 1973
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  S2:E91. Show 221
  Air Date: February 26, 1973
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  S2:E90. Show 220
  Air Date: February 23, 1973
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  S2:E89. Show 219
  Air Date: February 22, 1973
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  S2:E88. Show 218
  Air Date: February 21, 1973
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  S2:E87. Show 217
  Air Date: February 20, 1973
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  S2:E86. Show 216
  Air Date: February 19, 1973
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  S2:E85. Show 215
  Air Date: February 16, 1973
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  S2:E84. Show 214
  Air Date: February 15, 1973
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  S2:E83. Show 213
  Air Date: February 14, 1973
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  S2:E82. Show 212
  Air Date: February 13, 1973
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  S2:E81. Show 211
  Air Date: February 12, 1973
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  S2:E80. Show 210
  Air Date: February 9, 1973
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  S2:E79. Show 209
  Air Date: February 8, 1973
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  S2:E78. Show 208
  Air Date: February 7, 1973
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  S2:E77. Show 207
  Air Date: February 6, 1973
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  S2:E76. Show 206
  Air Date: February 5, 1973
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  S2:E75. Show 205
  Air Date: February 2, 1973
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  S2:E74. Show 204
  Air Date: February 1, 1973
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  S2:E73. Show 203
  Air Date: January 31, 1973
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  S2:E72. Show 202
  Air Date: January 30, 1973
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  S2:E71. Show 201
  Air Date: January 29, 1973
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  S2:E70. Show 200
  Air Date: January 26, 1973
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  S2:E69. Show 199
  Air Date: January 25, 1973
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  S2:E68. Show 198
  Air Date: January 24, 1973
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  S2:E67. Show 197
  Air Date: January 23, 1973
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  S2:E66. Show 196
  Air Date: January 22, 1973
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  S2:E65. Show 195
  Air Date: January 19, 1973
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  S2:E64. Show 194
  Air Date: January 18, 1973
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  S2:E63. Show 193
  Air Date: January 17, 1973
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  S2:E62. Show 192
  Air Date: January 16, 1973
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  S2:E61. Show 191
  Air Date: January 15, 1973
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  S2:E60. Show 190
  Air Date: January 12, 1973
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  S2:E59. Show 189
  Air Date: January 11, 1973
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  S2:E58. Show 188
  Air Date: January 10, 1973
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  S2:E57. Show 187
  Air Date: January 9, 1973
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  S2:E56. Show 186
  Air Date: January 8, 1973
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  S2:E55. Show 185
  Air Date: January 5, 1973
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  S2:E54. Show 184
  Air Date: January 4, 1973
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  S2:E54. Episode #154 - 11/23/72: Featuring the Letter "L" and the...
  Air Date: unknown
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  S2:E53. Show 183
  Air Date: January 3, 1973
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  S2:E52. Show 182
  Air Date: January 2, 1973
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  S2:E51. Show 181
  Air Date: January 1, 1973
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  S2:E50. Show 180
  Air Date: December 29, 1972
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  S2:E49. Show 179
  Air Date: December 28, 1972
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  S2:E48. Show 178
  Air Date: December 27, 1972
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  S2:E47. Show 177
  Air Date: December 26, 1972
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  S2:E46. Show 176
  Air Date: December 25, 1972
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  S2:E45. Show 175
  Air Date: December 22, 1972
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  S2:E44. Stand Back
  Air Date: December 21, 1972
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  S2:E43. Show 173
  Air Date: December 20, 1972
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  S2:E42. Show 172
  Air Date: December 19, 1972
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  S2:E41. Show 171
  Air Date: December 18, 1972
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  S2:E40. Show 170
  Air Date: December 15, 1972
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  S2:E39. Show 169
  Air Date: December 14, 1972
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  S2:E38. Show 168
  Air Date: December 13, 1972
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  S2:E37. Show 167
  Air Date: December 12, 1972
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  S2:E36. Show 166
  Air Date: December 11, 1972
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  S2:E35. Show 165
  Air Date: December 8, 1972
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  S2:E34. Show 164
  Air Date: December 7, 1972
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  S2:E33. Show 163
  Air Date: December 6, 1972
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  S2:E32. Show 162
  Air Date: December 5, 1972
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  S2:E31. Show 161
  Air Date: December 4, 1972
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  S2:E30. Show 160
  Air Date: December 1, 1972
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  S2:E29. Show 159
  Air Date: November 30, 1972
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  S2:E28. Show 158
  Air Date: November 29, 1972
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  S2:E27. Show 157
  Air Date: November 28, 1972
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  S2:E26. Show 156
  Air Date: November 27, 1972
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  S2:E25. Show 155
  Air Date: November 24, 1972
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  S2:E24. Show 154
  Air Date: November 23, 1972
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  S2:E23. Show 153
  Air Date: November 22, 1972
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  S2:E22. Show 152
  Air Date: November 21, 1972
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  S2:E21. Show 151
  Air Date: November 20, 1972
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  S2:E20. Show 150
  Air Date: November 17, 1972
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  S2:E19. Show 149
  Air Date: November 16, 1972
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  S2:E18. Show 148
  Air Date: November 15, 1972
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  S2:E17. Show 147
  Air Date: November 14, 1972
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  S2:E16. Show 146
  Air Date: November 13, 1972
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  S2:E15. Show 145
  Air Date: November 10, 1972
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  S2:E15. Episode # 658
  Air Date: October 27, 1976
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  S2:E14. Show 144
  Air Date: November 9, 1972
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  S2:E13. Show 143
  Air Date: November 8, 1972
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  S2:E12. Show 142
  Air Date: November 7, 1972
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  S2:E11. Show 141
  Air Date: November 6, 1972
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  S2:E11. Episode # 245: Featuring the letter 'B' and 'oa'/'ow'
  Air Date: March 30, 1973
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  S2:E10. Show 140
  Air Date: November 3, 1972
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  S2:E9. Show 139
  Air Date: November 2, 1972
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  S2:E8. Show 138
  Air Date: November 1, 1972
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  S2:E7. Show 137
  Air Date: October 31, 1972
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  S2:E6. Show 136
  Air Date: October 30, 1972
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  S2:E5. Show 135
  Air Date: October 27, 1972
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  S2:E4. Show 134
  Air Date: October 26, 1972
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  S2:E3. Show 133
  Air Date: October 25, 1972
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  S2:E3. Episode # 142: Featuring the letter 'I' and double letter...
  Air Date: November 7, 1972
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  S2:E2. Show 132
  Air Date: October 24, 1972
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  S2:E1. Show 131
  Air Date: October 23, 1972
Season 1

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- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: August 21, 2017