Wow, I used to watch Electric Company ALL the time. I don’t remember hardly anything about it tho. Is it available anywhere? DVD maybe?
Square One was cool too, especially Mathnet. Not at all ashamed to admit I watched that as an adult!
Oh yeah, and 3-2-1 Contact! And Bill Nye.
And the best of all… Professor Julius Sumner. Every once in a while, the local PBS will do these latenight shows, for teachers to tape and use in class. Why they think today’s kids, in school, would enjoy a 900 year old insane man from 1950 teaching them science very, very badly, I will never understand. But the next time I see him, I’m taping it. Holy Crap, that guy just cracks me up! He’s smart, and he knows what he’s talking about, and he does some really cool little experiments. But he’s really old, and he doesn’t have the faintest idea how to talk about what he’s talking about, and his experiments almost never work. Or as he says “They worked, we just didn’t get the results we were expecting!” That’s why I dig him. That and his belt is in his armpits.
And, if it’s a particularly good night, a special treat as the sun rises over the freshly-dug graves of billions of my brain cells…
TELETUBBIES.
No, seriously.
I mean it. Stay up all night, and watch the teletubbies. Try to avoid laughing too loudly.
I watched Electric Company as a kid, mainly because it came on right after (right before?) Sesame Street. I never liked it much, honestly; it always struck me as a bad knockoff of Sesame Street. I clearly recall watching, at age seven or eight, because I felt I “should” and then keeping my mouth shut when the other kids talked about how much they liked it.
Does anyone remember a show called Clyde Frog? It was a marionette puppet show (about a frog named Clyde), and I absolutely loved it. I don’t know what station it was on; it’s possible that it was an Atlanta-local show. This would have been mid-to-late-70s.
Regular Network TV is such dreck that we non-cable poor folks must make do PBS. But that’s just frikkin’ fine. Thing I love the best about PBS is it is actually clean programing. I can sit in front of it for hours and not be exposed to gratuitious sex, overt violence and bad language.
Kid’s shows…
Zaboomafoo and Kratt’s Creatures. (Yowza! them brothers is hot)
Arthur (Gotta love any show that starts with a Ziggy Marley tune)
Adventures from the Book of Virtues (Animated animals from N.America and the same voice as Bobby Hill)
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (Loved Rockapella! Makes one miss Lynn Thigpin even more)
Other Programing
Antiques Roadshow (We have a good time trying to guess which appraisers will show up)
Ken Burn’s American Stories (Kinda annoying him reshowing a few parts of his Jazz and Baseball series)
NOVA (Voices of Lev Shriver and Stacey Keach make me ooze)
Scientific American Frontiers (Who dosn’t love seeing Alan Alda?)
Mystery ('Specialy Brother Cadfael, and our favorite hobbit with Hetty Wainthrop)
Do-It-Yourself
Ask This Old House ( A must view for someone like me)
Woodwright’s Shop (Roy is a darling. He answers his own E-Mail)
American Woodshop (A Chick and a scroll saw)
Cooking
All of them! But my favorite is Breaking Bread with Father Dominic (Whoever says that food ain’t spiritual ain’t seen this Monk bake up a loaf)
Reality
Frontier House (Oh Rudy and Nate where art thou?)
Manor House (The servants films cracked us up)
1900 House (I’da hidden the damn shampoo)
And let’s not forget the plethora of Local History programs. I’m in the same area as Suse and on Wednesday nights we have whatever the local station has on tap. I’ll bypass TOH everytime.
Here I though I was the only person who was a fan of Julius Sumner Miller. Some of those films are as old as I am (I swear)
Julius Sumner Miller! THat’s the guy!..he seemed like the true “crazed scientist”…had that creepy music in the background with the drinking bird thing…
Wow…memories…
D>
Next thing you know we’ll be bringing up candy cigarettes and those huge plastic pixie stix that would damn near kill you when you tried to eat them…
Dang it people, it’s Mr. Rogers, NOT Mr. Roger’s!!! NO APOSTROPHE!!!
taking deep breath, trying to be mellow like Mr. Rogers
If I have kids, they WILL see Mr. Rogers. As, well, painful as some of the Land of Make-Believe stuff is for any adult, I’m not sure there’s been a better kid’s show ever.
I cannot believe no one’s mentioned New Zoo Revue! Freddy the Frog, Charlie the Owl, Henrietta Hippo, and Doug and Betty Jo! Every day’s a different shooooooow!
Was the New Zoo Revue on PBS? I remember watching that as a kid. I also watched Romper Room. OH And Captain Kangaroo but those aren’t/weren’t pbs shows.
I watch PBS for:
Keeping up Appearances
Chef! (when it was on)
Mr. Bean
And there was this other series…w/two women and it ended up w/them floating out to sea then rescued by a fishing boat. It’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t remember the name. I almost bought the series on VHS but I’m wondering if I can get it on DVD
Who’s faster than a rolling “O”, more powerful than silent “E”. able to leap capital “T” in a single bound???
It’s a word, it’s a plan, it’s Letterman!!!
This was probably the best kid’s show EVER. I remember we used to watch it in school on Friday afternoons. Each week, the teacher would give us a choice of The Electric Company, Sesame Street, or Mr. Rogers. Once or twice I voted for Sesame Street, but Mr. Rogers? Blech! He always seemed too patronizing, though I know that wasn’t his intention.
Today’s PBS kids shows that I like…Arthur, Teletubbies, and Between the Lions. Oh, and dare I add Barney to this list? C’mon, how can you object to a cute purple dinosaur???
C’mon, sing along…you know you WANT to…
I love you.
You love me.
We’re a happy family.
With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you.
Won’t you say you love me too?
Did anybody else watch The Letter People? I loved them when I was in pre-school, but I don’t find many people who’ve heard of them. It was on when I was a kid (in southeastern Missouri) right before Sesame Street and The Electric Company. It was a bunch of muppet-like characters representing letters. Tall Teeth, Super Socks, that kind of thing. Apparently they started as reading-instruction toys, but I only remember the tv show.
The song was great, too. “Come and meet the Letter People, come and visit the family. Words are made of Letter people, A-B-C-D follow me.”
These two are even better when they’re run back-to-back. One show has Norm in his state-of-the-art workshop, the other has a guy carving a chair out of a stump with a chisel.
Are you thinking of Mapp & Lucia ?
I’m not Miss Mapp, but I play a major E.F. Benson fan irl.
It is out on DVD and much cheaper than when I bought both volumes on tape. <pout>
I am a total sucker for the Masterpiece theatre type things where the casting is always spot on… Love in a Cold Climate, etc.
Kid shows I like:
Kratt Brothers
Liberty Kids
Mr. Rogers–there needs to be a DVD of all the videos which Mr. McFeely dropped by to narrate.
another vote for old Zoom
What my 4 year old likes:
Calliou (ugh)
Dragon Tales
What my 6 year old likes:
Liberty Kids
Schoolhouse Rock
Bill Nye
the Brian Jacques thing with the rats
What they both have no tolerance for:
Sesame Street
What they both like:
Arthur
What they both LOVE:
Cyberchase
What they both have no tolerance for:
Sesame Street
but I can’t remember the name. I almost bought the series on VHS but I’m wondering if I can get it on DVD