The Electric Company (2009 TV series)

The Electric Company
The 2009–present logo
Format	Children's television series Comedy
Starring	Priscilla "P-Star" Diaz Jenni Barber Josh Segarra Ricky Smith Ashley Austin Morris Chris Sullivan Coy Stewart Carly Rose Sonenclar
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	52 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	28 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	PBS Kids GO! (2009)
Original run	January 19, 2009 (2009-01-19) – present

The Electric Company is an American children's educational series for young children aged 4–8 on PBS, derived from the 1971 series. The series premiered as a four-episode mini-marathon on PBS on January 19, 2009, then became a weekly series with an episode shown each Friday. On September 7, 2009, it became a daily series. Like the original, this version is produced by Sesame Workshop. The series is sometimes referred to as The New Electric Company to distinguish it from the 1970s series. It airs on PBS.

Conception

The new version has similar short animations, sketches, and music videos to those seen in the original show, but each episode also features a story line designed to teach four to five vocabulary words with a mix of hip-hop- or contemporary R&B-style music.

Each story revolves around the Electric Company, a group of teenage literacy super heroes who battle a group of neighborhood villains dubbed the Pranksters. The heroes' headquarters is the Electric Diner, where their friend Shock, a beat-boxing short-order cook, works, and also appears in short-form segments.

In the show's nod to the original series, each episode's opening has a Company member call to the others to assemble by yelling "Hey, you guys!!"—a line that (as yelled by Rita Moreno) led off the opening sequence of seasons two, five, and six. Other nods to the original series include appearances by Paul the Gorilla and updated versions of the soft-shoe silhouette segments in which words are sounded out.

The revival includes interactive Web elements and is promoted and extended via community-outreach projects. The first season consisted of 28 weekly episodes. An additional season of twelve more episodes began airing January 2010. The third season debuted February 7, 2011, with new Company member Marcus and new Prankster Gilda.

Characters

The Electric Company

The Electric Company consists of two friends who are also friends of two siblings, a brother and a sister, who protect the neighborhood from the Pranksters. They all have the power to throw word balls, blue magical balls that create words on any surface. In season 3, a new character, Marcus Barnes, joined the company. In addition, each member has a special skill:

• Hector Ruiz: The oldest member of the Electric Company. He has the power to replay any image that he sees, much like a video camera. Hector is very athletic and good at basketball. He is portrayed by Josh Segarra. In Season 3, Hector owns The Electric Diner, since it would go out of businiess if, Mr. Watson didn't let him run the diner. Hector is the leader of the company and always the one to go to if there is trouble and he has a strong rivialry with Manny since they were kids.
• Jessica Ruiz: Hector's younger sister. She has a power similar to her brother's—she can replay any word or phrase that she hears, much like a tape recorder. Jessica is occasionally brash, especially when it comes to dealing with the Pranksters, particularly Manny. Beginning with Season 2 she hosts a vocabulary segment at the beginning of each episode. She is portrayed by P-Star (Priscilla Diaz).
• Lisa Heffenbacher: A sweet, well-liked girl. She has the power to unscramble any anagrams that she finds. In the Season 3 premiere she appears on a hovering TV screen announcing that she will no longer be around as much because she is going places with a science program, and Hector will keep her posted on everything that happens. Lisa is portrayed by Jenni Barber. She is constantly has a strong rivialry with Annie since she caused her so many problems like saying one of her ancestors was a traitor and swapping her brains with her to make Lisa look bad. Lisa is also a very good scientist.
• Keith Watson: The second youngest member of the Electric Company, he can generate images in mid-air, which comes in handy when explaining difficult words. Keith is logical and level-headed and frequently creates solutions for dealing with the Pranksters' tricks. He is portrayed by Ricky Smith. Keith barely appeared sometimes and he is good at basketball just like Hector and may beat him at "Horse" sometimes and his father was the owner of The Electric Diner. Keith first discover his power while playing basketball with Hector when saying he wants a "E" since they were playing Horse and threw a wordball at the word.
• Marcus Barnes: The newest youngest member of the Electric Company, who made his debut in Season three. He first discovered his wordball power while playing baseball. He uses math skills like numbers and can solve math problems. And really has cravings for waffles along with a love of pickles. He is portrayed by Coy Stewart. Francine gets his name mistaken for "Marty Farms" and he bought a ball that didn't even work from her twice, but got his $5 back. Marcus has all kinds of favorite numbers and a good athelte.

Allies

• Shock: A short-order cook at the Electric Diner, where the Company converges when trouble occurs. Shock rarely speaks directly, instead he beat-boxes and uses his hands to act out ideas. He appears in some segments with Jessica. He is played by Chris Sullivan. electric business
• P.J. Watson: Keith's cousin, played by Kyle Massey (only shown season 2). He got starred in Lisa's movie and got help from Lisa to write a paper from back home about a old western story in a refrigerator.
• Leo Watson: The proprietor of the Electric Diner and Keith's father. In Season 3, he opens up a new restaurant and passes the diner to as Hector becomes the owner. He is portrayed by L. Steven Taylor.
• The Great Calvero: The local magician who performs in the park. He is portrayed by Jason Antoon.
• Bandini: Calvero's brother, who is trapped in a painting, but The Electric gang got him out of the painting and got reunited with Calvero.
• Mario: Shock's best friend, who is a hip hop emcee who makes guest appearances alongside Shock in some musical segments. He is portrayed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also contributes music to the show.
• Sabi or Sammy Spamboni: Manny's little brother, who was frozed by Manny so many times but gave the Electric Company advice to how unfreeze Keith and he never got in trouble with his mother expect Manny.[?]
• Paul the Gorilla: Paul was a recurring character on the original show and was brought back for the new series.
• Dax: A skeleckian who is sometimes getting the company tied up in his problems, such as getting shrunk and having a steering wheel stolen. He is a good friend of Lisa's.
• Polly Hashimoto: A Japanese American secretary and author of the public library. She appears in the episode called "One Smart Cookie."

The Heffenbacher Family

The following family members only appear in "Revolutionary Doughnuts":

• Caroline: Lisa's mother. When asked, she reveals the family tree of the Heffenbachers and then explains to her daughter that Cordelia is a traitor.
• Mildred: Lisa's aunt. She generously allows her niece and her friends to find out about Cordelia.
• Cordelia Heffenbacher: Lisa's great-great-great-great-great grand aunt. She has been first mentioned by Annie Scrambler saying that is a traitor, but Lisa proves that Annie is wrong. Cordelia has distracted the British Redcoats by offering them doughnuts.

The Pranksters

The Pranksters are the Electric Company's rivals, and they never win. In the Prankster Cam segments, every one of the Pranksters explain about the letters with Manny talking about punctuation.

• Francine Carruthers: The leader of the Pranksters. She has the same power as the Electric Company—the ability to generate word balls only hers are purple. Francine has a very high opinion of her own intelligence. Most of her plots involve making herself look good at the expense of the Company. In Season 3, she gets an assistant, named Gilda Flip. She usually calls Marcus "Marty Farms" and usually get 100 or 200 presents for her birthday. She is portrayed by Ashley Austin Morris.
• Annie Scrambler: A girl who is frequently envious of the accomplishments of others. She has the power to scramble any word or sentence with a stomp of her foot which results in making new words, but sometimes she scrambles the existing words to create nonexistent ones. Annie is often jealous of the Electric Company's good luck and sometimes works with her uncle Sigmund (Mark Linn-Baker), a hypnotist, to get back at her rivals. She will work with the Electric Company if she has to, such as to help her uncle out in "Bananas". She is portrayed by Sandie Rosa.
• Danny Rebus: A suave, sophisticated Prankster. He can turn any sentence into a rebus puzzle. Most of his messages make fun of the Electric Company. Danny is very proud, yet with a touchy personality, easily being offended. He often charges the Electric Company with making him look bad, prompting vengeance. He has helped the Electric Company out on occasion, despite being a Prankster. He is portrayed by William Jackson Harper.
• Manny Spamboni: The loudest of the Pranksters. He is the only member of the group that does not have any powers, but he is quite skilled in the art of robotics and mechanics. Manny is rude and crude, and uses his many gadgets to make trouble for the Electric Company. He is spoiled by his mother who says he is her "little angel". He is portrayed by Dominic Colón.
• Gilda Flip: The newest member of the Pranksters and Francine's assistant and doesn't have any powers just like Manny and her only gagdet is her Flip Phone. She is portrayed by Carly Rose Sonenclar.

Allies

• Sigmund Scrambler: Annie's uncle who works as a hypnotist. He is slightly bumbling, but helps Annie in her pursuit of bothering the company. He is played by Mark Linn-Baker.
• Sandy Scrambler: Annie's aunt who is a hypnotist, like Sigmund Scrambler. She is played by Ana Gasteyer.
• Antigone Carruthers: The C.E.O of the Antigone Carruthers Corporation and Francine's mother. She is portrayed by Julie Halston and usually calls the Electric Company, "The Electricians".
• Mrs. Spamboni: Manny's mother.

Animated characters

The Adventures of Captain Cluck

• Captain Cluck (voiced by Emily Hahn) is a chicken-themed child superhero who has brown hair with high short curly pigtails, and wears a pink outfit with a matching mask and cape. She has the ability to correct things.
• The Poultry Patrol are the chickens who belong to Captain Cluck. In one of the segments, they all have female names revealed with apostrophes and "s" at the end because they're hens. They are named Amy, Cluck, Fay, Fran, Helen, Jan, Jen, Jean, and Joan.
• The Lost Girl is an African American girl who only appears in the comma segment in which she is confused as she looks at her shopping list.

Pets Home Alone

• Donnie is a yellow canary with green wings and a matching tail. Donnie likes to call all of his fur-covered friends, "Fuzzball" and plays with Nuggets' hamster ball to pretend to be an astronaut.
• Nuggets (voiced by Jeff Bennett) is a pink Hamster who appears in some live action backgrounds.
• Petunia (voiced by Oprah Winfrey) is a blue bulldog with a pink bow on her head. She sits right next to a Green-Skinned Mummy in the live-action bench  and she doesn't like taking baths.
• Tom (voiced by Rachael Lillis) is a peach-colored cat, he is very nice and shy and knows how to use a laptop and knows the website "NachosforPets.com" and he put himself in the nachos after Nuggets rushed through the word tomatoes for Tom.

In the Haunted House

• Werewolf (voiced by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph) is a werewolf with brown fur. He lives in a haunted house with Bat and Mummy.
• The Brown Bat (voiced by Cree Summer) is the only flying monster. He lives in a haunted house with Werewolf and Mummy. Bat was once given a present by a monster which turned out to be a mini-version of the monster.
• Mummy is a green-skinned mummy who wears toilet paper. He lives in a haunted house with Bat and Werewolf. Mummy does not like peas but he likes pie.
• Aunt Hilegard is a green-skinned witch with a turbo broomstick. She also has red goggles for her flight.

Others

• The Three Red Gorillas (voiced by Jim Cummings, Tress MacNeille and Tim Curry) - The Gorilla in the middle is female. All these gorillas demonstrate things with words that start with "gr," "fl," "dr," have "oo," "ink," and end with "mb", "ing" and "ed".
• Special Agent Jack Bowser (also voiced by Jim Cummings) is a blue android dog who wears a black sweater with a white horizontal stripe on it and is trapped in the treats/things. This sketch is a parody of the TV Series 24 and in fact the sketch lasts 24 seconds.
• Music Man is a deep-voiced singer who appears in many segments. He is the only character from the first two seasons to appear in the third season since he appeared in "Wordball Games" fully animated in a different style of Flash animation and actually had spoken dialogue for the first time. He is portrayed by Reggie Watts.
• Pet Shop Owner: A wacky pet-owner who owns many unusual pets, which causes his customers to leave. This segment was replaced with "Pets Home Alone."
• Josephine: An African American girl who wants to sell things to the people and the mummy who live in houses.
• Felix & Oscar: The animated version of The Odd Couple who appear in many segments. Felix is an elderly man wearing a green shirt who makes comments and Oscar is the dim-witted, lanky, and tall teenaged boy who lives with Felix and has to live without most of his teeth, socks, or deodorant. Although their names aren't revealed, Felix was referred to as Old Man in one episode.
• The Two-Headed Long-Necked Monster: Completely female and skilled at skiing, they have light green skin. They often argue about their jacket they're wearing. One head with red eyes, lips and antennae wants it zipped while the other head with blue eyes, lips and antennae wants it unzipped. They both end up down the hill blaming each other and their purple hooded jacket loses its zipper.
• Ray and Fay: Blue monsters with horns on their heads. These names do rhyme. Ray tries to offer flowers to Fay who's sitting in a bench. She wears pigtails.

Cast

Cast members include P-Star as Jessica, Jenni Barber as Lisa, Josh Segarra as Hector, Ricky Smith as Keith, Coy Stewart (Tyson Stewart) as Marcus Barnes, and Chris Sullivan as Shock.

The Celebrities who have appeared on the show include Pete Wentz, Samantha Bee, Ne-Yo, Mario, Sean Kingston, Marc Ecko, Jack McBrayer, Tiki Barber, Whoopi Goldberg, Kyle Massey, Common, Swizz Beatz, Good Charlotte, Jimmy Fallon, Dwight Howard, David Lee of the Golden State Warriors, Christopher Massey, Wyclef Jean and Doug E. Fresh. Besides his brief appearances in season one, Kyle Massey had a recurring role in season two as PJ, Keith's eccentric cousin.

Mark Linn-Baker appears occasionally as Annie's uncle Sigmund. Broadway actor-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda does occasional guest appearances and contributes music to the show. He also appears in a season-two episode as Mario, Shock’s friend.

Tommy Kail, the director of Miranda's In the Heights, is one of the musical directors with Bill Sherman and the actor-musician Chris Jackson, a star of the original Broadway production of that show. Members of the hip hop comedy troupe Freestyle Love Supreme (of which Miranda, Sherman, Jackson, and Sullivan are members) make sporadic appearances in the musical segments as well.

Episode descriptions

Main article: List of The Electric Company (2009 TV series) episodes

Pilot (2006)

• The New Electric Company

Season 1 (2009)

• Skills
• Scent of a Human
• Lights, Camera, Beetles!
• Call Me Tiki
• Lost and Spaced
• Trouble Afoot
• The Skeleckian Hiccups
• Dirty Laundry
• He Ain't Heavy, He's Just Frozen
• Scrambled Brains
• Abracadabra Cadabra Ca-Green!
• Game On
• War of the Words
• Mighty Bright Knight
• The Orangachoke
• Gravity Groove
• The Limerick Slam
• Pop Goes the Easel
• Electric Accompany
• The Wordball is My Oyster
• Franscent
• The Flube Whisperer
• Out to Launch
• Fromage Here to Eternity
• Friends or Aunts
• A Whole New Francine
• Mighty Bright Fight
• Oh, Danny Boy

Season 2 (2010)

• Wicked Itch
• One Bad Apple
• One Smart Cookie
• The Unmuffins
• Madame President
• Goodnight, Robot
• The Great Compromise
• The Potato Custom
• Bananas
• Bluefoot
• Jules Quest
• Revolutionary Doughnuts

Season 3 (2011)

• Off Target
• A Fistful of Confetti
• Spooky Summer Soirée
• Revenge of the Zeros
• Pies for Puppies
• Prankster Holiday
• The Wordball Games
• The Incredible Return-a-Ball
• Wiki Wiki Walter
• Shrink, Shrank, Shrunk!
• Tip it or Dip It
• The Junior Assistant

Songs

From season 1

• "The Hypnotism Tent Advertisement/The Last Note" - Annie Scambler, Lisa Heffenbacher, Hector Ruiz and Sigmund Scrambler
• "Keith's Birthday Song for Dad" - Keith Watson
• "Follow Through" - Lisa
• "One Part You and One Part Me" - Lisa and Francine Carruthers
• "Love" - Manny Spamboni
• "Help Me Clear My Name" - Hector

From season 2

• "Don't Undo Undanny" - Danny Rebus and Jessica Ruiz
• "Separate the Truth From the Lies" - Lisa
• "Observe the Ape" - Lisa, Annie, Sigmund and Natalie McNally
• "Good Friends Good as Gold" - Jessica, Jules and group
• "Great" - Lisa and Cordelia Heffenbacher

From season 3

• "Wordball on His What?" - Hector, Jessica and Marcus Barnes
• "Gilda's World Record Breaking Song" - Gilda Flip and kids
• "Here Come the Animals Dressed As Monsters" - Hector, Jessica, Marcus, Keith and Shock
• "Appreciate a Zero" - Danny and Annie
• "Little Puppies" - Jessica and puppies
• "The Electric Company Doesn't Like You" - Danny and Manny
• "Take Back This Return-a-Ball" - Francine, Gilda, Hector, Keith, Jessica and chorus
• "Beatbox" - Doug E. Fresh and crowd
• "I Love My Power" - Manny and his robot
• "The Song of Hector and Francine" - Francine, Hector and chorus

Critical reception

Positive

The show received generally positive reviews from critics, and currently has a 74/100 score on metacritic.com, based on eight reviews. Newsday said "With a visual sensibility that mimics a video game, Web browser and iPhone, as well as a hearty online presence with a social-networking bent, the new Electric Company seems to deliver."

Entertainment Weekly said "Though the hip ’n’ urban vibe seems overly calculated, did studies show that eight-year-olds respond to beatboxing white dudes? And the cast is aggressively up with people. You gotta love new characters."

Negative

Reviews that cited negative aspects of the show compared it to the 1970s Electric Company.

• The New York Daily News said, "The only problem here is that once in a while the producers and cast get so enthusiastic about their production numbers [that] their words become almost unintelligible."

• The New York Times stated that although the new series is respectable, "it all feels a little corporate somehow" and "today’s children will certainly find it watchable and will have better language skills after spending time with it. They just aren’t likely to still be holding it in their hearts 35 years from now."

• The Los Angeles Times called the story aspects of the show "unnecessarily complicated and off the point," citing that the 1970s series "spent more time teaching, at no cost to entertainment".

• The Washington Post praised the new series, but stated that it reminded them of Ghostwriter, not the 1970s Electric Company. "The original show; low concept, high energy, knew that words didn't have to have literal superpowers in order to be worthwhile and, occasionally, magical."

Funding

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Viewers Like You
• Chuck E. Cheese's
• Starfall
• Nelvana

External links

• Official Web Site
• The Electric Company at the Internet Movie Database
• Season one press kit
• Season two press kit
• Season three press kit
• [http;//www.sesameworkshop.org/inside/pressroom/tec4/Season four press kit]
• Literacy Learning with The Electric Company