Trivia / Zoom

• Dawson Casting: According to the cast members themselves, Zoomers are cast between the ages of 9 and 13 years old. The second season cast Kenny, who was 14 years old at the time^note a few other ZOOMers, such as Garret and Estuardo in season 5, also bypassed the age limit. However, he could easily could pass for 10 due to his short stature, as well as the fact that he hadn't reached puberty yet. He returned for the following season, and despite hitting puberty, still looked young enough to be on the show.
• Edited for Syndication:
  • The first two seasons of the revival underwent a remastering on some stations in 2002, in order to update the show's sponsors. This led to the original "ZOOM a Cum Laude" segments being replaced with the "ZOOM Into Action!" ones that had been used since season 3.
  • Some things were also edited out when the series was syndicated on Discovery Kids Canada.
  • When the show aired on WGBH's sister station, WGBY in Springfield, Massachusetts, the segments that didn't feature the ZOOMers, such as What Zup and ZOOM Guest, were re-shot with kids from the Springfield area.
• Executive Meddling: A variation. As mentioned in a 1974 TV Guide article on the show and confirmed by many cast members, ZOOMers were contractually forbidden from doing any TV or movies for three years or endorse commercial products for 5 years after they left the show.
  • This is why Levell (season 5, original series) was mostly missing except for one or two segments in later-produced Season 5 episodes. His mother and WGBH management had a falling out in this regard.
• Follow the Leader: The show paved the way for other kids' shows with Official Fan-Submitted Content:
  • Studio See, which aired on PBS from 1977 to 1979, had a very similar format.
  • Sprout's The Sunny Side Up Show and The Sprout Sharing Show included viewer-submitted content, but these shows were targeted to a much younger audience.
• Foreign Remake: According to Tommy (Season 1, original series), there was an Israeli version of the show called ''Rich Ratch''.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The original series has not been reran since 1980. ^note  WGBH aired some episodes in 1994, but only in the immediate Boston area. According to newsgroup postings, most of what was aired came from Season Five. In 1998, WGBH released a video called Best of the 70s, which contained clips from the classic series. In 2008, four full episodes were released on DVD.
  • As of Summer 2015, all the episodes from the revival except the majority of season one have been uploaded onto YouTube by a dedicated fan who went to the lengths of recording every episode twice while the show was on the air, but due to season one being quickly removed by the network, never got the chance to record the remaining season one episodes. If you have any of those episodes, you should probably hang onto them. (As of 2021, three more episodes have been found.)
  • The rare WGBY versions of the episodes are this trope, mainly owing to having only aired in the Springfield, Massachusetts area.
  • In 2022, as part of the series' fiftieth anniversary, both series were preserved by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The original series is available to stream online. The revival can be viewed by appointment at WGBH's headquarters in Boston or at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Red (season 4, original series). His real first name is David. but that season already had a David.
  • Nell (season 5, original series) is a shortened version of Mignella.
• Screwed by the Network: The revival has the unique status of being a victim to this while it was still running. The first season (which is widely considered the best) was suddenly pulled out of rotation a few months before season 5 began. A year later, the same thing happened with season 2 shortly before the premiere of the sixth season. By the time the seventh and final season premiered, only the fifth and sixth seasons were still being regularly rerun.
• Technology Marches On:
  • Material for the original show was based on viewer suggestions sent in via postal mail, and that pretty much speaks for itself.
  • It was said that the revival was canceled due to stiff competition from children's shows on cable TV, but what really killed it was the advent of YouTube, which happened to take place in 2005 and ensured Zoom's hosts were not the only average people in mass media video teaching children how to do things and having widely broadcast discussions about issues which matter to them. The more recent rise of friending networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have further cemented Zoom's obsolete status, as all of these services can get information to children faster than Zoom ever did, and Zoom certainly never operated in real time (except for the "Zoom Along" segments, and even those only focus on crafts and tricks).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Season 8 was going to be renamed Hot Seat (which later became FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman). When the titular character of the latter show was created, plans for Season 8 were scrubbed.
  • The show was going to air on Sprout, but didn’t make it, probably since it was aimed at six to eleven year olds while Sprout was aimed at two to five year olds.

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