Hey, you guys!

July 14, 2024 5:58 AM

Morgan Freeman, DJ (SLYT)
posted by bq (11 comments total)

I was 5 years old when this first aired. Morgan Freeman taught me how to read.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:18 AM on July 14 [4 favorites]

Such a fantastic show.
posted by humbug at 6:37 AM on July 14 [1 favorite]

When I was 14, my mom and I saw the Michael Keaton movie "Clean and Sober." (Side note: it was a hell of a movie to see as a 14 year old.) When the movie was done, Mom said, "Did you recognize the actor who played the counselor? That was Easy Reader!"

There should be more shows like "The Electric Company," if only to blow the minds of adolescents when they see their favorite childhood characters in dramatic roles.
posted by RakDaddy at 8:23 AM on July 14 [5 favorites]

Imagine being the kid who knows Carlin from Thomas the train.
posted by Mitheral at 9:21 AM on July 14 [3 favorites]

Adolescents? Heck, my mind was blown about ten years ago when I saw the kindly Gordon from Sesame Street as the very unkind Willie Dynamite. But I digress.

Yeah, Gen X was kind of nutso lucky with their TV pals. Millennials got everyone on The Adventures of Pete & Pete, but I'll still take EC's Morgan Freeman, Rita Moreno, Mel Brooks and Zero Mostel.
posted by queensissy at 9:27 AM on July 14 [4 favorites]

That was 50 years ago when he was a pre-venerable 37. Kind of hard to imagine Geoff Peterson doing an impression of the then him.
posted by y2karl at 9:51 AM on July 14 [2 favorites]

There is a radio ad from the mid-1960s that the label Columbia Records created to advertise the song, "The Time Has Come Today," by The Chambers Brothers, but the announcer on that ad sounds exactly like Morgan Freeman! I wish I could track it down online, but I'm having no success. But I can testify to hearing the ad myself, when it was included on the CD version of The Chambers Brothers, Time Has Come LP.
posted by jonp72 at 11:35 AM on July 14

I was 5 years old when this first aired. Morgan Freeman taught me how to read.

You and me both.

A friend of mine was a teacher in our suburban school district in the 70s-80s and told me that Sesame Street and The Electric Company upended their entire curriculum.

The expectation was that five year-olds entered Kindergarten knowing not much more than their name and maybe some basic phonics and counting. And, now, they were beset by classrooms full of kids that could read complete sentences on the first day of school.

CTW was an amazing project and it changed America. They have my eternal gratitude.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:01 PM on July 14 [10 favorites]

My parents told me they found out I could read when, after Sesame Street, The Electric Company came on and I could read full sentences.

I entered first grade understanding the silent E, the concepts of adverbs, and a bunch of stuff due to the Electric Company.

One of the presents I gave my niece when she turned 5 was a collection of the show. (My brother said he'd "have to review it to see if it was appropriate for her". I told him I watched it when I was her age, and he said, "yeah, but that was the 70s, things are different now." It was at that moment I realized something was very wrong with my brother.)

I really loved the show.

Who can turn a plan into a plane
Who can turn a can into a cane....
posted by mephron at 5:19 AM on July 15 [3 favorites]

I entered first grade understanding the silent E, the concepts of adverbs

Both thanks to the great Tom Lehrer
posted by Daily Alice at 7:22 AM on July 15 [4 favorites]

One of the presents I gave my niece when she turned 5 was a collection of the show. (My brother said he'd "have to review it to see if it was appropriate for her". I told him I watched it when I was her age, and he said, "yeah, but that was the 70s, things are different now." It was at that moment I realized something was very wrong with my brother.)


I’m with him. There’s a ton of shit we watched as kids that is totally inappropriate by today’s standards. I have had a clear policy (with other adults) that my kids are not to be shown Disney movies without my explicit approval of the movie in question. Peter Pan, for example, is off the table. EC and Sesame Street are all AOK as far as I recall but a lot of classic kids media (and literature) is ….not ideal.
posted by bq at 8:20 AM on July 15