When I cashed in my Lexis points for Barnes and Noble gift certificates I used them on some DVDs, including a box set of Electric Company DVDs. (Er, well, technically I got the single DVD "The Best of the Best of the Electric Company," but that wasn't what I wanted (what a confusing title) so I sold it to a friend and went out and got the bigger, plain old "The Best of" version instead.)
What a great show that was. I used to watch it every weekday afternoon after Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. I was never all that crazy about Mr. Rogers, but I loved the Electric Company. I think for a while I was much younger than its target demographic, but I found it enthralling. (And probably also educational, whether I realized it or not.) In watching these episodes now it's amazing how much I remembered: lots of the skits, lots of the cartoons, lots of the music…
But it's also interesting what I don't remember. Like the actors. I remember many of the characters, like Crank, but with only one exception I never recognized any of the actors in anything afterwards. (The exception is Luis Avalos, because he always confused me: You see, there were two guys who looked very similar, but one had a mustache and the other didn't, and I never could quite figure out if it was one person or two… So later on, when I got older and started to see adult movies and TV I'd recognize him, because at least he looked like one of the faces I was always trying to figure out…)
But Rita Moreno? Morgan Freeman??? I like Morgan Freeman from what I've seen from his recent work, like The Shawshank Redemption. And I can recognize him from role to role now, but I never, ever recognized him from his work on the Electric Company, even though I watched him nearly every day over the course of my young childhood. I did find an interview with him where he talks about how you can either be a star, or an actor. If they are coming to see you, he said, you're a star, but if they are coming to see the role, you're an actor. And what a great actor he was, since I was always so absorbed in the performance that I never thought to worry about who was behind it. (Luis Avalos is actually deserving of this compliment too, and if it hadn't been for his confusing mustache I don't think I would have looked for the man behind the curtain either.)
Watching these shows now through adult eyes I can really appreciate the acting. It is very, very good. Excellent comedic timing, dancing, singing… Now I want to see these actors. Now I want to see them show off their talents in other contexts. For Rita Moreno, Luis Avalos, and Morgan Freeman that's not too hard (although I do think it's a shame that Freeman's comedic and musical talents are rarely tapped into in his more recent roles). But some of the others, like Jim Boyd and Skip Hinnant seem to have rarely performed since then, and that's really a shame. Plus in these retrospectives a lot more emphasis is put on the contributions of those who were and became more famous, like Freeman and Moreno, and even Bill Cosby who appeared in it for about a year. Even some of the child performers like Irene Cara get a lot of attention for it because of how famous they came to be. But the contributions of the lesser-known cast members, like Boyd and Hinnant, and Judy Graubert, and child performer June Angela (who seems even more talented than Cara) should not be overlooked, especially since they often are even better.
In any case, I hope they do another box set. This one has a lot of older episodes I don't particularly remember (I suspect they may have taken some of the earlier ones out of circulation by the time I started watching) and it's missing some great sketches that I do (like "Whimper and Whine," and the "T-I-O-N Shun Shun-Shun Shun" song). But it's been nice to watch these episodes and remember a lot of things I'd thought I'd forgotten. Like how "It's the plumber; I've come to fix the sink!" ended up in my family's lexicon… And how good children's television can be.