Does anyone remember the old children’s TV show “Electric Company?” In New York, when I was younger, it used to be on right after Mr. Rogers.
The show always started with someone shouting “Hey you guys!”, then two sung lines (quite possibly the same line twice), then the beginning of the theme song “We’re gonna turn it on…”
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Does anyone know what those first sung lines said? I could never make them out.
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
We’re gonna turn it on.
We’re gonna bring you the power.
ladadadada-dah
dadadada-DAH
dadadada-DAAAHHH
The Electric Companeee
The Electric Companeee
The Electric CompanEEEEEE
The channel TV Land actually showed some episodes of Electric Company a few weeks ago. I heard a new channel coming (I think it’s called Noggin, not sure) that’s going to carry it.
Not only do I remember 3-2-1 Contact, I remember Zoom!
We’re gonna Zoom, Zoom, Zoom-ah Zoom!
I worked as an intern at CTW publishing one summer, on one of their magazines. They publish “Sesame Street Magazine”, “3-2-1 Contact Magazine” and “Kid City”. “Kid City” was the name they changed “Electric Company Magazine” to, cause the show had been off the air for so long, the name didn’t have any meaning anymore. I don’t even know if they still publish those magazines. It’s been about 10 years.
The Dave-Guy
“since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?” J.H. Marx
Yup, they still publish Sesame Street and Kid City magazine. My kid just “graduated” from the former to the latter.
I [bold]loved [/bold] The Electric Company. Rita Moreno was on it, remember? Anybody remember who played the part of “Easy Reader”? Morgan Freeman!
Was it “The Electric Company” that had the cartoon “The Adventures of Letter Man”? Remember? “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a word! It’s a plan! It’s Letter Man.” And would, like, add or remove a letter from a word to save the day? (HATE became HAT and they all had a good laugh, or something like that.) Man, I loved that show.
I enjoyed The Electric Company also, as much as my children. “The Adventures of Letter Man” were narrated by Joan Rivers, IIRC. But my favorite song was “Silent E”:
Who can turn a plan into a plane?
Who can turn a man into a mane?
It’s elementary, it’s silent E.
No, that’s not it. The lines I’m referring to aren’t in the song itself, but are right before it, between “Hey You Guys” and “We’re gonna turn it on”…sort of a prelude to the song.
The lines sound like “Uber alles the Jewish” or something, said in a singsong voice. But obviously, that’s nonsense, and I’m trying to get the real words of those lines.
cmk, I think you’re remembering something that wasn’t there, or maybe it was an isolated incident. The way I remember the song is just how I heard it in the recording on that web site - “Heeeyyy yoouuu guuuyyyys!!”, (intro measure), “We’re gonna turn it on…” I remember Letter Man too! Didn’t he go on to host a late night talk show? ::groan:: BTW, that web site I posted the link to also has a lot of “Zoom” stuff, in case you’re interested.
Sorry, Chaim, I got a little confused there. I think it was just the excitement of hearing the song again. I remembered it the way Strainger posted it - with a lot of la’s filling in for the words I didn’t know.
Hey! DO you guys remember “Picture Pages?” , Bill Cosby’s valiant battle against illiteracy??
“Picture pages, Picture pages, runa dn get your picture pages, time to grab your crayon and your pencil…”
and he had a special pen that would make a funky sound whenever he’d write with it??
I’m gonna start a thread at MPSIMS about people’s favorite tv show/commercial theme songs from the past… c’mon over
“I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather - not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car”
The last two years of TEC they changed the theme song a little bit. Perhaps the reason is because the original could only be sung by castrated boy sopranos (noticed how the song kept going up in pitch and children are singing in falsetto at the end?). The words you are thinking of are
Moving out in a new way
Moving out in a new way
There is a link for a TEC web site that includes both versions in realaudio format, but I can’t remember the link. I think it the first part of it was member.home.net/???
Now. Who can supply me with the words to the ZOOM song?
You guys just made my day with the Electric Company stuff. What memeories! And 3-2-1 Contact was the coolest show when I was 10. The Bloodhound Gang-WTTWTOTD.
From Captain Kangaroo-“you know my name is Simon, and the things I draw come true”
