:-X

  tetratron, you have a knack for dredging-up these obscure, long forgotten TV shows that ring a bell with me but exist only on the murky-extreme-outermost and far flung reaches of my memory...

  You're doing this on purpose, and I'll get you for it... :P

  Allow me to ooglegay these (and a couple on the 80s board groove ;) on...

NOTE : This was from 321 Contact not Electric Company

Are you following my internet activity??? For the last 2 months I have been Bloodhound Gang crazy! This guy uploaded 4 full episodes on You Tube, 3 of them were due to my incessant "hounding". I saved one of them, but his account got suspended after a few weeks.

Anyway the storylines were great! Where the hell was Mr Bloodhound anyway? And their answering speil was hilarious "Hello Bloodhound Gang Detective Agency, if you've got the crime, we've got the time"... by which time the crooks have got a clean get-away into the neighbouring state.

And the theme tune... how I love the theme tune!

3-2-1 Contact MUST COME TO DVD!!!

And the "3-2-1 contact, is the moment, is the blah blah, when everything happens..."

Another great great theme tune! The 70s electric guitar at the beginning gets me everytime! After an intro like that... geek or no geek... no were ready to learn!

Unfortunately this is the 80s intro without guitar...  >:(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gbws553qtg

  Yeah, I remember 3-2-1 Contact.  The toad catching the fly was pretty cool...

  The Sesame Street intro is still my most memorabe...

  I well remember sitting in the dentist's chair being gassed into a blissful stupor, when I was, like, eight/nine years old and hearing the Sesame Street intro music reverberating/echoing in my mind.  This happened every time...

  Weird groove ;) on...

Holy shtuff, Batman!!!!

I remember 3-2-1 Contact, the Bloodhound Gang, and I can't believe someone actually remembers this!

I also remember The Electric Company, as well as Sesame Street, and a show called "Villa Allegre".
(Remember the Spider Man skits????)

Did Mr Blood Hound Pay these kids?
???
I really have to see an episode again so I can make even more
obscure jokes about them that 15 people will get.


Okay the deal is when Mr Bloodhound was on a big case, the kids would "babysit" the office and handle the smaller more trivial cases.

You know on the You Tube episodes I did my very own sarcastic comments on each episode but no-one cared to play along.  ;D

I have part one of an episode saved... all about some pig being trained to read minds. It's quality stuff as you can imagine. It also happens to be the premiere episode and comes with opening sequence / theme song. If anyone wants it just pm me your e-mail and I'll try and send it to you. The file's 55,420KB whatever than means. It's about 7 mins long and on MPEG.

3-2-1 Contact was an attempt to put out a newer and updated Electric Company.  It started shortly after EC wrapped up production, and tried to make a show that was much more "kid oriented".

One of the things that kids realized is that EC (unlike SS and Zoom) did not have kids as part of the regular cast.  3-2-1 was an attempt to bring about a show with heavy involvement from kids and early teens.  In addition, they tried to make a show with much more "Continuity".  This is because a lot of stations would simply buy the shows, and re-run them over and over and over again, in any order they watned to.  With 3-2-1, the stations had to buy entire seasons at a time, and air them in order.

Overall, it failed because of the early breakout cable networks.  Most of the kids shows in the next 10 years would move to cable, and not try to run in PBS.

In addition, Children's Television Workshop took a financial hit when the Government cut it's funding.  Instead of trying to make a successfull show aimed at pre-teens and teens, they abandoned that market and instead decided to concentrate on children (3-10).  After all, this is where the real money is, because of merchandising.  CTN made a little money with EC Comic Books and other spin-off products, but nowhere near as much as they made with SS related products.

So these PBS shows were at war with one another?


No, they were not.  Each show was aimed at a different age group.  But remember that the Children's Television Workshop is a Corporation, and it's goal is to make money.  In this, it is no different then the producers of Barney, Dora The Explorer, or any other company that makes children's programming.

In the early 1980's, CTW made the choice to cut out some of the deadwood.  The man target was shows that did not make much money.  Mister Rogers could not be touched, since he owned the show himself, and was such a long-running show, cutting it would have resulted in a large backlash.  Instead, they went after the show first that had the lowest merchandising income.  And that show was The Electric Company.

Since the 1960's, SS was a merchandising powerhouse.  And each year this only increased.  Young children are easy to sell to, you only need to make a doll that looks like Elmo, and it will sell.  By the time they reach 10 though, they want something a little more sophisticated.  And this is one of the major reasons that Electric Company was hard to merchandise.  Selling Big Bird is easy.  Even Ernie had a big record that every kid owned (Rubber Ducky).  But how do you merchandise "Easy Reader"?  Or "A Boy And His Chair"?  Silent E was very popular, with a song written and sung by Tom Lehrer, but how do you make money off of it?

Other then a few comic books, EC never really merchandised much of anything.  I remember comic books (which co-starred Spider-Man), lunch boxes, and a few books, but that was about the extent of it.  And when the Government started to make rumbling noises about cutting funding, it was obvious which show would be cut, Electric Company.

A long time ago in a place far away, educational programming was about "edutainment".  You entertained kids, and had them learn at the same time.  And that was the entire goal of the show.  Every city had at least one children's tv hose, who did a live show on weekday afternoons, combining cartoons, entertainment, and a little learning.  Now, it is all big business, with Sessame Street over them all.

The only "war" between SS and EC was the war over how much money each could take in.  And Electric Company (and 3-2-1- Contact) both lost.