Racial politics of kiddie TV: The Electric Company

I had a bicultural childhood, spent mostly in the DR, but with yearly visits to Queens, where I gorged on Cocoa Pebbles and Underdog. For learning English, Sesame Street and other "educational programs" were key. So the news that PBS is reviving "Electric Company" brought back a lot of fond memories.

The show, which ran 1971-1977, was supposed to be the follow-up, age-wise, to Sesame Street. Like Sesame Street, TEC was set in a sort of multiculti utopia. Even when the characters were not racial minorities, the idea of tolerating difference and alternative cultures was always implied.

But I had totally forgotten that Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno were both regular members of the cast. Cuban character actor Luis Avalos, Bill Cosby and Irene Cara (as a pre-teen member of the Short Circus) also had recurring roles.

Here is the first version of the show intro, very groovy, op art and full of early video f/x.

And here is a hip song featuring Rita as "Millie the helper," built around her trademark yell that was used to open the show: "Hey you guys!" It was one of the only times in her career she was allowed to play against the Latin spitfire type, and allowed to be funny.

And here is Morgan Freeman performing a song worthy of Screamin Jay Hawkins, "I Love to Take a Bath in a Casket." One of Morgan's recurring characters was called "Easy Reader," an Afro'd hep cat, part bebop, part beat, who dug the books.

If the soundtrack of the original show, and the sensibility, was funk and salsa, the new show will of course have a hip hop vibe to it. It only makes sense.

What's going to be interesting is seeing how "Electric Company," which was very focused on the old-fashioned skills of phonics and making reading cool, will fare compared to the juggernaut of Dora the Explorer and newer, browner kids' TV in the Nick-Noggin-Cartoon Network universe.

UPDATE: I didn't have time to do more intensive research on the music attached to the show, but do check this post on the 1972 cast recording with some of the original music. (thanks for the heads up, Dan!) I keep wondering: Is Joe Raposo, the show's musical director for the first three seasons, Latino or Italian?

Comments

[Dan Neely]

Love your blog and just saw this post about the Electric Company! Back in September I put together a little post about the music on that show (and some of the records that were a result of the show) and thought, in light of this post, you might be interested in knowing about it. If you have a chance, please take a look at it!

DanNeely

http://arcmusic.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/hey-you-guy-ys/

[papupu]

Morgan Freeman singing while taking a bubble bath inside a casket is just too much! Can you imagine the writer of a children's show today even pitching something like that during a meeting?