Speaking of my mother
My mother has always reminded me of Rita Moreno in The Electric Company. This has to do with the “Hey, you gu-u-u-u-u-ys!!!!” at the beginning of each episode; it sounds exactly like my mom. Plus my mom is bossy, loud, assertive, smart, and pretty — just like Rita. And she has great legs (although she is taller) — just like Rita.
My mom swears that Electric Company is the reason that all of us learned to read in preschool. (A note here: my mom can never seem to get our ages right for when we started reading and sometimes she shifts ‘em around. Like she’ll say I was three and Erica was four. No, I was four and Erica was three. Wait, somebody was two. Justin was nearly five. Her memoirs would so have to have a disclaimer at the beginning!) She might be right but frankly, I just thought I was having a good time clicking the television on after lunch. I loved that show. I STILL love that show.
Well, you can imagine my surprise when a PR person’s email showed up in my inbox talking about The Electric Company. Now I get a lot of PR email, snail mail and (ugh) phone calls because of my job and I’m used to hitting delete an awful lot but this one I read with a great yearning because this one said they were sending out review copies of the brand, spankin’ new Electric Company DVD set to reviewers. Only see neither of my regular reviewing jobs have Electric Company viewers as their target audience. In other words, there was no way that I — lover of Electric Company — could legitimately ask for a review box. But wait! Then I noticed it was addressed to THIS email address — the one connected to this blog and not my official email address at all! Could it be? Was it true? Did they want me to talk about it on my blog???
I get lots of those offers, too. Well, not LOTS compared to the zillions of baby velcro bottle warming covers in leopard print offers I get in my official capacity but plenty. Most of them are products in which I have no interest (videos for 6-month old babies, inspirational self-published books, etc.) so I couldn’t believe it. I shot back an email, did she mean me? Yes, she answered, just send in an address.
Well, lemme tell you, I will TOTALLY whore out my blog for The Electric Company. Don’t tell the PR person this but I would have BOUGHT the dvd set and then written an entry this long. (Actually I would have talked my mother into buying it — it wouldn’t have been hard — and then just visited it occasionally.) edited to add: My mom just emailed me to tell me she bought it anyway!
So first, here is a link to buy this excellent 4-DVD set.
Here is the online trailer where you can hear Rita sounding just like my mom. (It chokes me up just to hear it!)
I can’t WAIT to show these to Noah — he’s gonna love ‘em!
And I’ll put some trivia below the cut!
Letterman was Gene Wilder? I never would have guessed.
It’s a good thing that Alena has a birthday coming up. Now I have an excuse to go buy that! Thanks.
Oh, I *loved* seeing the trailer!
My kids seem to have a _thing_ for disco music, LOL! I HAVE to get this for them!
Oh, man. I’ve got to see if I can talk the library into getting this one, too.
I really loved Sesame Street. I enjoyed the Electric Company a lot. But when I see the various animated bits, and the weird muppets, I also realize that a lot of that psychedelic 1970s animation gave me bad dreams. Even just the trailer gives me weird flashbacks to dark-brown rec rooms and distorted staircases and … well, strange dreams. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s remarkable and completely cool that all sorts of “real” artists in the 1970s were aiming their stuff as kids (as opposed to the autonomously developing aesthestic of Blue’s Clues, Dora, etc., that doesn’t seem to have any real connection to the art being made for adults) but whoa, am I freaked out by the imagery.
Oddly enough, I didn’t make the connection between my various bad dreams then with the stuff I was watching on TV. The relationship seems very obvious now. Is that because I’ve been having those same types of dreams for 30 years? Or does it just mean that my kids’ dreams will be haunted by the imagery from the TV they watch?
Everything about what PBS was making in the 1970s screams out, we’re all using lots of recreational drugs and we love it.
I’ve been burned in some nostalgia-based DVD purchases for my kids, but I am absolutely convinced the The Electric Company will be a hit. So many things from that show became bywords and in-jokes in my family; my father refers to Morgan Freeman exclusively as Easy Reader. Every time I see the word vacation I think of Fargo North Decoder saying “I am on…vay-kay-tie-on.” The list goes on.
Pony and I were discussing the other day how much we wished the Electric Company was still on. I am so getting this set.
Fascinating what you say,Jody, I have never thought about that… I mean I guess those thoughts have floated around but I have never focused on them. I will be thinking on this.
I adore Rita, but really wasn’t into the Electric Company (I am a bit older than you, Dawn ;-)). I will always recall Morgan Freeman from it though - I always have a flashback when I see him. He should be proud.
I LOVED the Electric Company, but I was never allowed to watch because the opening “Hey you guys” got on my grandmother’s last nerve, and overall, she thought the show was just too “noisy.” Or maybe she caught the psychedelic drug vibe from it, who knows.
Between this and the Muppet Show, I can totally relive my childhood! Oh, and I’m sure the kid will like them too.
Ok, I am totally freaking out — Morgan Freeman was on the Electric Company?????? And Joan Rivers? Mel Brooks? This is all blowing my mind! That link was SUCH a blast from the past, totally got me smiling!
Now I’m gonna have to buy it!
Dude, I so blogged about this a few weeks ago.
But not that I was getting the DVD for freesies! I gotta go order that pronto. Is it actually out yet?
I loves me some Easy Reader.