The Electric Company returns to PBS

In Sesame Workshop's Electric Company the cast travels around NYC

If you’re in your thirties or forties, there’s a good chance you’ve logged on to YouTube (during a regression into everything you remember from childhood), typed “Electric Company” into the search box and hummed along with the show’s theme. “We’re gonna turn it on… We’re gonna give you the power…”

Who could forget the Adventures of Letterman, or those beatnik silhouettes enunciating words to the accompaniment of jazzy music? (“Th.” “ing.” “Thing!”) Targeted to kids who’d outgrown Sesame Street, the Laugh In–inspired variety show—which aired on PBS from 1971 to 1977 and in reruns through 1985—featured smart slapstick comedy and actors Rita Moreno and Morgan Freeman, as it subtly incorporated lessons on reading. I remember watching it at age six and feeling incredibly sophisticated, sipping my apple juice as if it were a Manhattan.

Now that we ’70s-television-heads have children of our own, Sesame Workshop, as if on cue, is releasing a modern-day Electric Company. “It’s an homage, but not a rip-off,” says executive producer Karen Fowler. I visited Fowler and the EC cast and crew in Newark, where the show’s main hangout—a colorful café called the Electric Diner—has been constructed. Three hallmarks of the original have been revived: a cast member opens each episode yelling “Hey you guys!,” Paul the Gorilla pops up now and then, and those silhouettes still whisper sweet phonetic nothings. Otherwise, the show has been completely revamped. Instead of the variety-show setup, EC 2.0 follows four teenage friends as they travel around New York City—stops include Morningside Park and a basketball court on the Lower East Side—showing off their verbal smarts. For the venture, Fowler brought together some of the New York theater world’s most talented people, including playwright Willie Reale, founder of the 52nd Street Project, and, as the TV show’s musical directors, the trio of Chris Jackson, Thomas Kail and Bill Sherman from the Tony Award winner In the Heights. The creative group’s mission is to help viewers “get their mouths around words and have fun speaking and reading them,” says Fowler.

Her team is motivated by some harrowing statistics. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 27 percent of public school fourth-graders nationwide score below basic levels. In the 1970s, at a similarly dire time in the country’s education system, the first Electric Company launched with the same intentions. Not that youngsters watching the show realized that. I tuned in as a semiliterate kid and just remember laughing a lot.

The 21st-century incarnation likewise spurs reading while keeping its educational slant covert. “We wanted to make something that has a little broccoli in there,” says Fowler, “but [we know that] if it doesn’t entertain, it’s not going to work.”

To that end, the characters are smart, funny and super powered, a tactic that has worked well on Disney shows like Wizards of Waverly Place. Jessica, played by New York City native Priscilla Star Diaz, has perfect aural recall; fellow New Yorker Ricky Smith plays Keith, a teen who can transform words into animation; Hector (Josh Segarra) has a photographic memory; Lisa (Jenni Barber) can move letters around to make words at superhuman speed.

Perhaps the best role, though, has been left to Chris Sullivan, who plays the show’s human beat box, Shock. His character works at the diner and stars in interstitial breaks as a variety of wacky personas. During my set visit, he delivered an impersonation that had me eagerly awaiting the moment when I could sit down on the couch transfixed—just as I did when six years old.

Kids across the five boroughs and beyond will no doubt be doing the same thing as they sip their apple juice “Manhattans” during the first episode. This time around, I might just make mine a real one.

The Electric Company premieres Jan 19 on PBS; check local listings.

Check out our top ten countdown of classic Electric Company clips.