I still get the urge to make compilations every once in a while, and here is the one that's been at the top of my list for a long time.
What can't be said about THE ELECTRIC COMPANY? If you were around and watching public television as a kid, between the years of 1971 and 1985, then a great deal of your training for reading came from this amazing show. It was wonderful, trippy, and hilarious; written in ways that didn't insult the intelligence of the viewers who were the target audience, and was accomplished with a dream team of cast, writers, and musicians (this is the part where people always talk about Morgan Freeman, but the entire cast was equally omni-talented). It overflowed with sketch comedy, cool animations, and surreal visuals from the cutting-edge technology of the day, like Scanimate and Chroma-key. It was the cooler older brother of Sesame Street, and, beginning in 1974, it had the first official live-action portrayal of Spider-Man, ever.
Amazingly, though, in comparison to CTW's cash cow that was Sesame Street, The Electric Company had precious little merchandising. You can very nearly count the items on one hand. Sesame Street, of course, had a flood, and seemingly cranked out records by the day, but The Electric Company was only allowed to produce a total of one LP featuring songs and cast members from the show. Which is ironic, because the program featured some of the same geniuses writing the songs...and there were tons of songs! (But, of course, no Muppets to serve as mascots for the show...Electric Company tried a Scanimate chicken puppet early on, but it didn't stick.)
After six seasons, the last two were repeated for several years...and then, it disappeared. Fans (including this author) wrote letters to CTW, and the hold-up seemed to be that they were slowly preparing to launch their own network, NOGGIN (I remember their return letter even saying something about this), but even when that happened, they only utilized a very small percentage of the 780 episodes available. NOGGIN, of course, went away, and after some time, Shout Factory released a boxed set of DVD's featuring episodes from the show, in 2006. It wasn't perfect, and some episodes were messed with [supposedly licensing only allowed for a couple of Spidey segments to be included...which makes no sense at all], but, needless to say, the set was enormously popular, and a second one followed. After this, two groups of 15 episodes were placed on iTunes (and are still there), almost as if they were intended for another box set that fell through.
And then...well, since that time, we have been back in the "nothing happened" category. Hundreds and hundreds of complete episodes remain in a vault somewhere, including tons of skits, songs, and Spidey segments that only exist as faint memories in the back of the minds of aging fans. Apparently, no one is interested in making these available, and as we all know, few studios are taking any risks or spending any money these days. But, wouldn't an online archive, at the very least, be a feasible possibility? After all, these shows could be carrying on their work of teaching upcoming generations to read.
And that's what this set debuting here today is about: preserving, and celebrating, the audio of The Electric Company, because nobody else will do it. There will be three discs total, and this first one will present their only two LPs. "Wait--" I hear you cry, "up above somewhere, you said there was only one LP made!" Yes, yes I did--this is because the second album was comprised of Spidey Super Stories adventures and issued on Peter Pan Records. But, hang on, we will get to that momentarily. Here is what's included on the first disc:
1) THE ELECTRIC COMPANY (Warner Bros. Records, 1972). This official cast LP works like an audio episode of the show. It features the first-year cast, includes two Tom Lehrer songs, and is quite entertaining overall. It was issued more than once, the first time with a die-cut cover, which featured a turning wheel--in other words, it's LED ZEPPELIN III, except teaching kids to read. The LP also included a 24-page full-color book, which I have dutifully scanned and included herein!
I should point out that later editions omitted the cover feature, but still included the book....except for one bizarre 1974 "budget" edition with a totally different cover, that was on Sesame Street records. This strange version cut out over 15 minutes of content, and severely edited other tracks. [Upon close inspection, it dawned on me that all of this was apparently done to remove Bill Cosby completely, as he had left at some point in 1972....today, somebody would do this for an entirely different reason, of course.]
The tracks that were edited are included as bonus tracks. All of the album covers are included in the Info section, as well.
2) SPIDEY SUPER STORIES (Peter Pan Records, 1977). Around this time, a deal was made with Peter Pan Records to produce some read-along storybook sets [of which there are two, which will appear on disc two], as well as this album, which brought to life some Spidey Super Stories adventures from the show and the comic of the same name. I can say nothing more except: I wore out my copy of this LP. I carried it to school. I had it memorized. I made my kids listen to it over the years....It is sacred to me.
In the following two discs, we will present The Electric Company theme and all of its many permutations from the six seasons, other segment themes, some other surprises from the show, the canon of Tom Lehrer songs written for The Electric Company (one is still sadly unavailable, I'll tell you right now), and many more song favorites, so stay tuned.
