The Electric Company had plenty of teaching tools over the course of its six seasons (1971-7). One of the odder ones was Love of Chair, which ran mostly during the first season. It was a parody of CBS' long running daytime soap, Love of Life, and employed the latter's announcer, Ken Roberts, in the same capacity in these skits.
As Roberts' narration appears on the screen, the idea is for the young viewers to read along, as if they were reading a book. Most of the content on the show was driven toward that goal, unlike Sesame Street, which taught numbers and the alphabet.
Skip Hinnant appears as The Boy. The skits ended in season 2 when The Boy decides he's had enough, leading to a musical number that was never used again. In the first installment, as Roberts leads us out, a quick jump cut to Bill Cosby punctuates the end of the skit.
Older kids watching the show might dismiss this as a bathroom break. The target audience got the message. However, it did get boring after a while.
Rating: B-.
2 comments:
But...what about Naomi?
I didn't see enough of these skits to answer that question.
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