The Electric Company (1971): Season 3

METASCORE

No score yet Awaiting 4 more reviews

tbd

USER SCORE

No score yet

tbd

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

tbd	Your Score
tbd	User Score No score yet

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Season Details & Credits

PBS | Season Premiere Date: October 22, 1973

Starring: Hattie Winston, Rita Moreno, Mel Blanc

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 3 Episodes

tbd
S3:E130. Show 390
Air Date: April 19, 1974
tbd
S3:E129. Show 389
Air Date: April 18, 1974
tbd
S3:E128. Show 388
Air Date: April 17, 1974

See all Seasons and Episodes

Metascore

tbd

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic reviews are not available for this season yet.

User Score

Write a Review

tbd

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

No reviews yet.

Seasons & Episodes

tbd

Series Overview
Season 6

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

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

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

tbd
- Season 3 Overview
  Air Date: October 22, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E130. Show 390
  Air Date: April 19, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E129. Show 389
  Air Date: April 18, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E128. Show 388
  Air Date: April 17, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E127. Show 387
  Air Date: April 16, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E126. Snip
  Air Date: April 15, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E125. Show 385
  Air Date: April 12, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E124. Show 384
  Air Date: April 11, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E123. Show 383
  Air Date: April 10, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E122. Show 382
  Air Date: April 9, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E121. Show 381
  Air Date: April 8, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E120. Show 380
  Air Date: April 5, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E119. Show 379 - Hircus of the Circus
  Air Date: April 4, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E118. Show 378
  Air Date: April 3, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E117. Show 377
  Air Date: April 2, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E116. Show 376
  Air Date: April 1, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E115. Sticks and Stones
  Air Date: March 29, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E114. Show 374
  Air Date: March 28, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E113. Show 373
  Air Date: March 27, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E112. Show 372
  Air Date: March 26, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E111. Show 371
  Air Date: March 25, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E110. Show 370
  Air Date: March 22, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E109. Show 369
  Air Date: March 21, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E108. Show 368
  Air Date: March 20, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E107. Show 367
  Air Date: March 19, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E106. Show 366
  Air Date: March 18, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E105. Show 365
  Air Date: March 15, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E104. Show 364
  Air Date: March 14, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E103. Show 363
  Air Date: March 13, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E102. Show 362
  Air Date: March 12, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E101. Show 361
  Air Date: March 11, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E100. Show 360
  Air Date: March 8, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E99. Show 359
  Air Date: March 7, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E98. Broccoli
  Air Date: March 6, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E97. Show 357
  Air Date: March 5, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E96. Show 356
  Air Date: March 4, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E95. Show 355
  Air Date: March 1, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E94. Show 354
  Air Date: February 28, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E93. Show 353
  Air Date: February 27, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E92. Show 352
  Air Date: February 26, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E91. Show 351
  Air Date: February 25, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E90. Show 350
  Air Date: February 22, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E89. Show 349
  Air Date: February 21, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E88. Show 348
  Air Date: February 20, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E87. Show 347
  Air Date: February 19, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E86. Show 346
  Air Date: February 18, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E85. Show 345
  Air Date: February 15, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E84. Show 344
  Air Date: February 14, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E83. Show 343
  Air Date: February 13, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E82. Show 342
  Air Date: February 12, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E81. Show 341
  Air Date: February 11, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E80. Show 340
  Air Date: February 8, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E79. Show 339
  Air Date: February 7, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E78. Show 338
  Air Date: February 6, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E77. Show 337
  Air Date: February 5, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E76. Show 336
  Air Date: February 4, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E75. Show 335
  Air Date: February 1, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E74. Show 334
  Air Date: January 31, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E73. Show 333
  Air Date: January 30, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E72. Show 332
  Air Date: January 29, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E71. Show 331
  Air Date: January 28, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E70. Show 330
  Air Date: January 25, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E69. Show 329
  Air Date: January 24, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E68. Show 328
  Air Date: January 23, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E67. Show 327
  Air Date: January 22, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E66. Show 326
  Air Date: January 21, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E65. Show 325
  Air Date: January 18, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E64. Show 324
  Air Date: January 17, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E63. Show 323
  Air Date: January 16, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E62. Some
  Air Date: January 15, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E61. Show 321 - Circus
  Air Date: January 14, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E60. Show 320
  Air Date: January 11, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E59. Show 319
  Air Date: January 10, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E58. Show 318
  Air Date: January 9, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E57. Show 317
  Air Date: January 8, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E56. Show 316
  Air Date: January 7, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E55. Show 315
  Air Date: January 4, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E54. Show 314
  Air Date: January 3, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E53. Show 313
  Air Date: January 2, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E52. Show 312
  Air Date: January 1, 1974
- tbd
  S3:E51. Show 311
  Air Date: December 31, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E50. Show 310
  Air Date: December 28, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E49. Show 309
  Air Date: December 27, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E48. Show 308
  Air Date: December 26, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E47. Show 307
  Air Date: December 25, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E46. Show 306
  Air Date: December 24, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E45. Show 305
  Air Date: December 21, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E44. Show 304
  Air Date: December 20, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E43. Show 303
  Air Date: December 19, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E42. Giant
  Air Date: December 18, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E41. Show 301
  Air Date: December 17, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E40. Show 300
  Air Date: December 14, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E39. Show 299
  Air Date: December 13, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E38. Show 298
  Air Date: December 12, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E37. Winner
  Air Date: December 11, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E36. Show 296
  Air Date: December 10, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E35. Show 295
  Air Date: December 7, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E34. Show 294
  Air Date: December 6, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E33. Show 293
  Air Date: December 5, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E32. Show 292
  Air Date: December 4, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E31. Show 291
  Air Date: December 3, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E30. Show 290
  Air Date: November 30, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E29. Show 289
  Air Date: November 29, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E28. Show 288
  Air Date: November 28, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E27. Show 287
  Air Date: November 27, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E26. Show 286
  Air Date: November 26, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E25. Don't Bug Me
  Air Date: November 23, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E24. Show 284
  Air Date: November 22, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E23. Show 283
  Air Date: November 21, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E22. Show 282
  Air Date: November 20, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E21. Show 281
  Air Date: November 19, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E20. Show 280
  Air Date: November 16, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E19. Show 279
  Air Date: November 15, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E18. Show 278
  Air Date: November 14, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E17. Show 277
  Air Date: November 13, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E16. Show 276
  Air Date: November 12, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E15. Show 275
  Air Date: November 9, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E14. Show 274
  Air Date: November 8, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E13. Show 273
  Air Date: November 7, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E12. Show 272
  Air Date: November 6, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E11. Show 271
  Air Date: November 5, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E10. Show 270
  Air Date: November 2, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E9. Show 269
  Air Date: November 1, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E8. Show 268
  Air Date: October 31, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E7. Show 267
  Air Date: October 30, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E6. Show 266
  Air Date: October 29, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E5. Show 265
  Air Date: October 26, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E4. Show 264
  Air Date: October 25, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E3. Show 263
  Air Date: October 24, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E2. That Was a Firefly
  Air Date: October 23, 1973
- tbd
  S3:E1. It's the Teeth
  Air Date: October 22, 1973
Season 2

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

tbd
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: August 21, 2017