"We're gonna turn it on, we're gonna bring you the power!"
1.
The Electric Company was an
Edutainment Show that ran from 1971-77 on
PBS (and the last two seasons reran until 1985) from Children's Television Workshop, the company that previously brought the world
Sesame Street. Its main purpose was to teach reading to reluctant readers by using
Sketch Comedy, but its clever writing, memorable characters (such as Easy Reader, Fargo North Decoder, J. Arthur Crank, Jennifer of the Jungle, Paul the Gorilla), appearances by
Spider-Man, animated inserts with the superhero Letterman, and psychedelic Scanimation visuals made it a cult hit with all ages.
The cast was made up of a diverse group of performers such as Rita Moreno, who was already a well-known actress in her own right.
Bill Cosby was a cast member in Season 1, and "The Adventures of Letterman" shorts featured the voices of
Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel, and Joan Rivers. But most notable was a young and then-unknown
Morgan Freeman, who played Easy Reader (
and has been trying to live it down ever since). Other cast members included Skip Hinnant (best known as the voice of
Fritz The Cat), Judy Graubart (a member of the improvisational comedy troupe
The Second City), Luis Avalos, Jim Boyd, Hattie Winston, and Lee Chamberlin. In addition to the adult cast, there was a
Fake Band called the Short Circus, which consisted of 11- to 17-year-olds;
June Angela was the only member of the Short Circus to stay the whole series' run. Other notable members included Irene Cara, later to become a hit-making solo artist; Todd Graff, brother of
Mr. Belvedere actress Ilene Graff, and Denise Nickerson, at the time known for playing Violet Beauregarde in
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
This series provided examples of:
"Feel the power, yo, and plug it in!"
2. A 2009
Re Tool. Four
teenagers use the power of the "Word Ball" to thwart the Pranksters, a group of small mayhem-loving teenagers. See the "Characters" link at the top of this page for tropes relating to each character.
And it's
Better Than It Sounds.
The new series provides examples of:
- Aliens Speaking English: Skeleckians.
- Alpha Bitch: Francine Carruthers, the leader of the Pranksters.
- Amusing Alien: The Skeleckians, with all their bizarre customs.
- The Artifact: The soft-shoe phonetics routine ("Wuh! All! WALL!"), used with much less frequency.
- Call Back: Keith and Marcus have the same reaction to their first word balls.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Francine can throw wordballs as her power but they're PURPLE
- Comes Great Responsibility: The whole pilot, especially the pledge.
- Continuity Reboot: Almost everything associated with the 1970s version has been thrown out the window, including the cast.
- Criminal Mind Games: Danny Rebus.
- Design Student's Orgasm: Just look at the logo.
◊ - Disproportionate Retribution: Danny Rebus. He takes offense at a lot of things and retaliates harshly.
- Evil Gloating: Lampshaded in "Prankster Holiday." Turns out blurting out the evil plan is a really bad habit amongst the Pranksters.
- Evil Is Petty: Very, very petty.
- Evil Is Hammy: The Pranksters. Special mention to Manny Spamboni.
- Grand Theft Me: Annie Scrambler stealing Lisa's body in "Scrambled Brains".
- Halloween Episode: "Unmuffins."
- I Can't Hear You: "Count Vacula's a little loud!" "What?! I can't hear you. Count Vacula's a little loud!"
- Bonus point because it had a mute button the whole time.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: The Electric Company, Francine and Lisa's friend Dax in the episode "Lost and Spaced".
- And again in the episode "The Flube Whisperer", this time with Keith and Manny.
- It Can't Get Any Worse: Used by Hector in "Trouble Afoot".
- It Got Worse: Used by Lisa in "Trouble Afoot".
- Jumped at the Call: Marcus can't wait to join the company.
- Last-Second Word Swap: Combined with Gosh Dang It to Heck! in the season three premiere.
- Local Hangout: The Electric Diner is a rare example of one being used as home base.
- Mad Scientist: Manuel "Manny" Spamboni is a teenage version.
- Made of Explodium: "I'm special agent Jack Bowser. And this place is about to explode!"
- Master-Apprentice Chain: Hector —> Keith —> Marcus
- Meaningful Name: Annie Scrambler, Danny Rebus and Gilda "flip" who uses a flip phone
- Nakama: The four main characters.
- Ninja: Silent "E" is called "the ninja of the alphabet".
- Pet the Dog: Annie and Danny have occasionally done some good deeds (and are literally both dog lovers.) Manny or Francine have only done it if personal gain is involved.
- Photographic Memory: Hector's superpower.
- Poke the Poodle: The Pranksters' deeds can only be considered evil in context. If PBS Kids took it any further than that, they'd be impressionable.
- Remake Cameo: June Angela had one, but did not say anything.
- The Quiet One: Shock.
- Science Fair: The premise of the episode "Lost and Spaced".
- Sesame Workshop: Produced this show.
- Spiritual Successor: Given the show's time slot and premise, it can be hard not to think of Ghostwriter if you grew up in the 90's.
- Status Quo Is God: At the end of the Unmuffin story, Danny and Manny eat the unbuns to go back to being pranksters. Jessica says they don't have to, but Danny says they do (with no further explanation).
- Super Speed Reading: Viewers at home are told to take their time reading, because a word or sentence might end differently than they expect.
- The Teaser: Used to set up the conflict of the episode. One member of the company sees something going wrong and rallies the team with "HEY YOU GUYS!" This doubles as a Couch Gag.
- Timeskip: Between seasons 2 and 3.
- Tsundere: Annie on occasion; a villainous version.
- Viewers Are Morons: Strangely averted, although some say this is a good thing. The 1970s version seemed to address short attention spans (no overarching stories; some segments lasted only three to five seconds), while this version uses a continuing story arc. If anything, attention spans decreased in the 32 years between that version's end and this version's beginni—hey, a butterfly!
- Villain Song: There are many, trust me.
- Will Not Tell a Lie: In the pilot, Hector explicitly states that the members of the Company do not lie.
- They tend to lie anyway sometimes.
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