Monday, February 13, 2006

WE'RE GONNA TURN IT ON, WE'RE GONNA BRING YOU THE POWER: My Best of the Electric Company DVDs arrived over the weekend. Once you get past the clothes and the hair and the unexpected boppiness of Morgan Freeman, the whole thing is pretty impressive. For those of you who by dint of parenthood are familiar with Professor Quigley and the Leap Frog videos, the Electric Company is definitely their direct predecessor. Oh, and the theme song is fantastic, especially the version from the first couple years of the show. (Even without the HEY YOU GUYS, which for reasons still unclear isn't part of most of the episodes I skimmed through.)

I remember the Electric Company as having been my favorite of the PBS trifecta (Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers being the other two, for those with 70s amnesia). That being said, I was surprised at how few sketches I specifically remembered. In many cases I could remember the concept (for example, the two silhouetted profiles saying things like "C" "UP" "CUP!" "C" "UT" "CUT!"), or had a general memory of the character without any recollection of an actual sketch (for Letterman, I remember the whole introductory sequence without being able to come up with any plot details).

One other interesting tidbit: the Electric Company's head writer was Tom Whedon, father of Joss.

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