The Electric Company 1973 | S.2 E.100 | PBS 3/9/73 | Taxi, I've Got A Secret, Mad Scientist | Noggin

Show 230 (Season 2, Episode 100) of the original The Electric Company which first aired on PBS on 3/9/73. Recorded from Noggin in 2003 via Comcast Cable in Eugene, Oregon.
Episode contains:
Brenda tries to call for a taxi, but none of them show up to where she is. Mark comes over and decides to be a taxi by carrying her to where she needs to go.
Did Someone Call for a Taxi?
Celebrity Carol Burnett: "Did someone call for a taxi?"
Taxi
Cartoon An alligator spells out "Taxi" with his phonetic machine.
Tic Tac Toe
Cast Roberto and Winnie play tic tac toe.
Tick Tack Toe
Scanimate animation tick-tack-toe word animation
Top Topple
(Non) Silhouette Blends T
Silhouettes "t/ot/tot" (with visible faces)
Blond Haired Cartoon Man
Mel Brooks Cartoon The blond haired man named words that have "T" and "TT" in them, but soon after when he names "hotel" the "t" in it is missing and only says "ho_el"
(Animated by Cliff Roberts)
Winnie’s Lost Tot
Cast Winnie tries to find her missing "tot"
Left Out
Cast Jim Boyd (off-screen) tells J.J. to go left.
I’ve Got a Secret Sound Logo
I’ve Got a Secret Sound FT
Cast I've Got a Secret Sound game show - The panel is stumped by the ending blend "FT."
Down Escalator
Scanimate animation Transition animation
Goat in a boat
Cartoon A goat afloat in a boat has an oat stuck in his throat.
Tyrone's coat
Cast Tyrone (Jim Boyd) must put on a coat before going out, but his mother (Rita Moreno) puts on too many coats on him, which leads to Tyrone going to the shower instead of going outside.
OA word animation
Scanimate animation "oa" letter animation
Coat eating horse
Cast Winnie comes across a talking horse who wants to eat coats.
Typewriter Plant
Mad Scientist intelligent monster
The Mad Scientist The Mad Scientist created an intelligent monster who reviews the words "stir," "curdle," and "monster."
Rabbit Turtle
Message Man Slippery when wet
Slow Reader cartoon The Slow Reader reads a sign saying "Slippery when wet." without realizing the sign means that he’s standing on a wet floor he was mopping.
AVSB Humpty Dumpty
A Very Short Book "Humpty Dumpty"
Crank's very short book
Cast Crank expresses his disappointment about Very Short Books - "I bought me a very short book, and the pictures ain't moved even once."
Love of Chair The boy is walking
Love of Chair "The boy is walking...The boy's not walking anymore…"
The Electric Company is an American educational children's television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW, now known as Sesame Workshop). It was co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett. The series aired on PBS for 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971, to April 15, 1977. The program continued in reruns until October 4, 1985. The Electric Company later reran on Noggin, a channel co-founded by the CTW, from 1999 to 2003. Noggin also produced a compilation special for the show.
The original cast included Morgan Freeman, Rita Moreno, Bill Cosby, Judy Graubart, Lee Chamberlin and Skip Hinnant. Most of the cast had done stage, repertory, and improvisational work, with Cosby and Moreno already well-established performers on film and television. Ken Roberts (1971-1973), best known as a soap opera announcer (Love of Life; The Secret Storm), was the narrator of some segments during season one, most notably the parody of the genre that had given him prominence, Love of Chair.
Jim Boyd, who was strictly an off-camera voice actor and puppeteer during the first season, began appearing on-camera in the second season, mostly in the role of J. Arthur Crank. Luis Ávalos also joined the cast at that time.
Cosby was a regular in season one, and occasionally appeared in new segments during season two, but left afterward. Segments that Cosby had taped for the first two years were repeatedly used for the remainder of the series run. Similarly, Chamberlin was a regular for the first two seasons, and her segments were also repeatedly used throughout the show’s run. As a result, they were billed as cast members throughout the whole series run.
Added to the cast at the beginning of season three (1973-1974) was Hattie Winston, actress and singer who later appeared on the sitcom Becker. Beginning in season four (1974-1975), Danny Seagren, a puppeteer who had worked on Sesame Street and also as a professional dancer, appeared in the role of Spider-Man; Marvel Comics published Spidey Super Stories that tied into Seagren's appearances as Spider-Man in character, who never spoke aloud or unmasked himself.