The Electric Company | |
---|---|
Based on | The Electric Company by Paul Dooley Joan Ganz Cooney Lloyd Morrisett |
Developed by | Karen Fowler (Sesame Workshop) |
Starring | Priscilla Diaz Jenni Barber Josh Segarra Ricky Smith Dominic Colón Ashley Austin Morris Sandie Rosa Chris "Shockwave" Sullivan Coy Stewart Carly Rose Sonenclar William Jackson Harper |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 52 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Production locations | Kaufman Astoria Studios New York, NY Newark, NJ |
Running time | 28 minutes |
Production company | Sesame Workshop |
Original release | |
Network | PBS Kids Go! |
Release | January 19, 2009 – April 4, 2011 |
The Electric Company is an American educational children's television series produced by Sesame Workshop and developed by Karen Fowler. It is a reboot of the 1971 series of the same name. [1] [2] The series ran on PBS Kids Go! from January 19, 2009, to April 4, 2011 with reruns continuing on PBS until August 31, 2014. The series aired reruns on HBO Kids on HBO Family from January 1, 2016, until November 1, 2020, as part of HBO's deal with Sesame Workshop. On some services, the series is called The New Electric Company to distinguish it from the 1971–77 series. [3]
The new version has similar short animations, parodies, sketches, and music videos to those seen in the original show, but each episode also features a story line designed to teach four to five vocabulary words with a mix of hip-hop- or contemporary R&B-style music.
Each story revolves around the Electric Company, a group of tween and teen literacy heroes who battle a group of neighborhood vandals dubbed the Pranksters. The heroes' headquarters is the Electric Diner, where their friend Shock, a beat-boxing short-order cook who also appears in the short-form segments, resides.
In a nod to the original series, each episode's opening has a Company member call on the others to assemble by yelling "Hey, you guys!!"—a line that (as yelled by Rita Moreno) led off the opening sequence of seasons two, five, and six. [1] [4] [5] In one episode, an actor who plays one of the Pranksters yells the opening line, as her normal character had switched bodies with one of the Electric Company members. Other nods to the original series include appearances by Paul the Gorilla and updated versions of the soft-shoe silhouette segments in which words are sounded out.
The revival includes interactive Web elements and is promoted and extended via community-outreach projects. The first season consisted of 28 weekly episodes. A second season consisting of twelve episodes began airing on January 18, 2010. A third season debuted on February 7, 2011, and ended on April 4, 2011, with new Company member Marcus and new Prankster Gilda (named after Saturday Night Live cast member Gilda Radner). Later episodes omit Jessica saying the five words and went straight to the episode. Later re-airings of "The Flube Whisperer," "He's Not Frozen, He’s Immobile," "Dirty Laundry," "Out to Launch," "Lost and Spaced," "Franscent," "Trouble Afoot," "Gravity Groove," "The Orangachoke," and all airings of the third season were focused on both expressive reading and the five Ws.
Character | Actor / Actress | Season(s) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | ||
Hector Ruiz | Josh Segarra | Main | ||
Lisa Heffenbacher | Jenni Barber | Main | Guest | |
Jessica Ruiz | Priscilla Star Diaz | Main | ||
Keith Watson | Ricky Smith | Main | ||
Marcus Barnes | Coy Stewart | — | Main | |
Francine Carruthers | Ashley Austin Morris | Main | ||
Manny Spamboni | Dominic Colón | Main | ||
Danny Rebus | William Jackson Harper | Main | ||
Annie Scrambler | Sandie Rosa | Main | ||
Gilda Flip | Carly Rose Sonenclar | — | Main | |
Shock | Chris Sullivan | Recurring | ||
Mario | Lin-Manuel Miranda | Recurring | ||
Leo Watson | L. Steven Taylor | Recurring | Guest | — |
P.J. Watson | Kyle Massey | Guest | Recurring | — |
The Electric Company consists of a group of five friends who protect the neighborhood from the Pranksters. They all have the power to throw wordballs, blue magical balls that create words on any surface. Each member has a special skill.
The following family members only appear in the second-season episode:
The Pranksters are the Electric Company's enemies. Unlike the Electric Company, only Francine has the ability to throw word balls, and the Pranksters are only occasionally seen all together.
The celebrities who have appeared on the show include Pete Wentz, Samantha Bee, Ne-Yo, Kelly Ripa, Mario, Sean Kingston, Marc Ecko, Jack McBrayer, Tiki Barber, Whoopi Goldberg, Kyle Massey, Common, Swizz Beatz, Good Charlotte, Jimmy Fallon, Dwight Howard, David Lee, Christopher Massey, Wyclef Jean, and Doug E. Fresh. Besides his brief appearances in season one, Kyle Massey had a recurring role in season two as PJ, Keith's eccentric cousin.
Mark Linn-Baker appeared occasionally as Annie's uncle Sigmund. Broadway actor-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda does occasional guest appearances and contributes music to the show. He also appears in a season-two episode as Mario, Shock's friend.
Tommy Kail, the director of Miranda's In the Heights , was one of the musical directors with Bill Sherman and the actor-musician Christopher Jackson, a star of the original Broadway production of that show. Members of the hip hop comedy troupe Freestyle Love Supreme (of which Miranda, Sherman, Jackson, and Sullivan are members) make sporadic appearances in the musical segments as well. Karen Olivo, who starred in In the Heights also appeared in some musical segments.
Season | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
First aired | Last aired | |||
1 | 28 | January 23, 2009 | October 1, 2009 | |
2 | 12 | January 18, 2010 | May 7, 2010 | |
3 | 12 | February 7, 2011 | April 4, 2011 |
A new series of two-minute animated shorts titled "The Adventures of The Electric Company on Prankster Planet" (often abbreviated to "Prankster Planet") was shown at the end of each episode of The Electric Company starting May 3, 2011. [6] [7] Prankster Planet eventually supplanted the live show – most actors were no longer employed, but Sesame Workshop continued to have Prankster Planet cartoons made. The educational focus of these shorts expanded beyond reading and literacy, incorporating basic math skills as well.
In animated form, Jessica and Marcus visit the Pranksters' space base, where the Pranksters have full power to build inventions to damage words. Now without powers, Jessica and Marcus have to use their wits to turn off the inventions. Although they overcome the obstacles, the Pranksters catch up to them and prevent them from reaching the switch. The viewer is then encouraged to play an online game (now no longer available), in which you test your wits as well. The segment focuses more on measurement (in various forms) than the rest of the show. The first series of segments features Manny Spamboni's Wordsuckeruppenator which enables him to access all the words in the world. Multiple Pranksters appear to defend the off buttons.
Following the success of the first twelve Prankster Planet shorts, a second season was released starting March 2012, [8] and aired alongside repackaged episodes of eight The Electric Company episodes from Season 1 and Season 2. The second series of segments features Francine's Reverse-a-Ball machine, which reverses words. In this series, Francine watches Jessica and Marcus, along with a studio audience of Manny's robots. "Survey Time" is announced so the audience can vote on an obstacle for the duo, which is graphed. In the episodes alongside, three words reverse, which is shown at the end.
The show received generally positive reviews from critics, and has a 74/100 score on Metacritic, based on eight reviews. [9] Out of 18 Daytime Emmy nominations, the revival won 10, including three consecutive Outstanding Children's Series trophies. [10]
Steven Zeitchik of the Los Angeles Times called the story aspects of the show "unnecessarily complicated and off the point," citing that the 1970s series "spent more time teaching, at no cost to entertainment". [11]
Entertainment Weekly said "Though the hip ’n’ urban vibe seems overly calculated, did studies show that eight-year-olds respond to beatboxing white dudes? And the cast is aggressively up with people. You gotta love new characters."
Monica Hesse of The Washington Post praised the new series but stated that she was reminded of Ghostwriter rather than the 1970s Electric Company. "The original show—low concept, high energy—knew that words didn't have to have literal superpowers in order to be worthwhile and, occasionally, magical." [2]
Marc Peyser of Newsweek wrote "More than lives up to its legacy." [12]
Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times stated that "today’s children will certainly find it watchable and will have better language skills after spending time with it. They just aren’t likely to still be holding it in their hearts 35 years from now." [13]
The Electric Company is an American educational children's television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop. It was co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett. The series aired on PBS for 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971, to April 15, 1977. The program continued in reruns until October 4, 1985. The Electric Company later reran on Noggin, a channel co-founded by the CTW, from 1999 to 2003. Noggin also produced a compilation special for the show.
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