Editing The Electric Company (section)

==Selected sketches==
* "[[The Adventures of Letterman]]": Premiering during season two, "Letterman" featured the work of animators [[John Hubley|John]] and [[Faith Hubley]], written by author Mike Thaler. The title character (a flying superhero in a varsity sweater and a [[American football|football]] helmet) repeatedly foiled the Spell Binder, an evil magician who made mischief by changing words into new words. (In the "origin of Letterman" segment, "In The Beginning," the Spell Binder was given this motive: "He HATES words, and he hates people who USE them!") It featured the voices of [[Zero Mostel]], [[Joan Rivers]], who narrated the segments, and [[Gene Wilder]]. In his book ''The TV Arab'', [[Jack Shaheen]] criticized the portrayal of the evil Spell Binder as a negative racial stereotype; he found this disappointing, as PBS shows such as ''Sesame Street'' gained a reputation for appropriate portrayals of ethnicities.<ref name=Shaheen>{{cite book |title=The TV Arab |url=https://archive.org/details/tvarab0000shah |url-access=registration |last=Shaheen |first=Jack G. |year=1984 |publisher=Bowling Green State University Popular Press |location=Ohio |isbn=0-87972-310-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/tvarab0000shah/page/35 35–36] }}</ref>
* "Five Seconds": Halfway through the show, viewers were challenged to read a word within a five- or ten-second time limit. In seasons three and four (1973 to 1975), in a send-up of ''[[Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)|Mission: Impossible]]'', the word would self-destruct in a [[Scanimate]] animation sequence after the time expired. In seasons five and six (1975 to 1977), the viewers had to read the word before a cast member (or a group of children) did.
* "Giggles, Goggles": Two friends (usually Rita Moreno and Judy Graubart) conversed while riding a tandem bicycle or performing some other activity together. One would humorously misuse a word and the other would correct her, with the process being repeated several times until they returned to the original word.
* "Here's Cooking at You": A send-up of [[Julia Child]]'s cooking shows, with Judy Graubart playing Julia Grown-Up.
* "Jennifer of the Jungle": A [[Borscht Belt]]-style parody of ''[[George of the Jungle]]'' (which itself was a send-up of ''[[Tarzan]])'', with Judy Graubart as Jennifer and [[Jim Boyd (actor)|Jim Boyd]] as Paul the Gorilla.
* "The Last Word": Shown at the end of season one (1971 to 1972), a dimly lit incandescent bulb with a pull-chain switch was shown hanging; the voice of Ken Roberts would gravely state, "And now, the last word." A single word would appear, usually one that had been featured earlier in the episode. An unseen cast member would read the word aloud, reach his/her arm into the shot, and turn the light off by tugging the pull chain.
* "[[Love of Chair]]": A send-up of ''[[Love of Life]]'' in which Ken Roberts, who was also the announcer for ''Life'', would read a ''[[Dick and Jane]]''–style story about a boy (Skip Hinnant) sitting on a chair and doing simple things, concluding by asking questions in a dramatic tone (the announcer's final, portentous question was always ”And...what about Naomi?“) followed by "For the answer to these and other questions, tune in tomorrow for...'Love of Chair'." "Naomi" was an in-joke reference to [[Naomi Foner]], a producer on the show during its first two seasons; Foner went on to become an [[Academy Award]]-nominated screenwriter (''[[Running on Empty (1988 film)|Running on Empty]]'') and the mother of [[Maggie Gyllenhaal]] and [[Jake Gyllenhaal]]. 
* "Mad Scientist": Monster parody with an evil scientist (Morgan Freeman) and his [[Peter Lorre]]-esque assistant Igor (Luis Ávalos), who tried to read words associated with their experiments.
* "[[Monolith (Space Odyssey)|Monolith]]": Animated short, set in outer space and used to introduce segments involving a [[Phonics|phonic]]. A large, rectangular pillar of rock (as seen in ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]'', but depicted white instead of the film's black depiction to avoid [[plagiarism]] concerns from [[MGM Studios]], the rights holder at the time), was shown disturbed by [[Extraterrestrial life|aliens]] or [[astronauts]], then shuddering and collapsing during a music bed of the entire opening [[fanfare]] of Richard Strauss' ''[[Also Sprach Zarathustra (Strauss)|Also Sprach Zarathustra]]''. The letters of the phonic would appear from the clearing dust, and a [[Bass (voice type)|bass]] voice would pronounce it. Similar segments for "Me" and "Amor" were featured on [[Sesame Street]]. The "Monolith" segments were almost entirely animated and directed by Fred Calvert and produced at Fred Calvert Productions.
* "Pedro's Plant Place": Featured [[Luis Ávalos]] as a garden-shop proprietor who incorporated words into his planting tips, accompanied by the plant-language-speaking guard plant Maurice ([[Jim Boyd (actor)|Jim Boyd]]).
* "Phyllis and the Pharaohs": A 1950s-style [[doo-wop]] group, with [[Rita Moreno]] singing lead and the male adult cast on backup.
* "[[Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner|Road Runner]]": New cartoons featuring the [[Looney Tunes]] character and his pursuer, [[Wile E. Coyote]], produced and directed by [[Chuck Jones]], which reinforced reading skills with words on signs encountered by the characters; used occasional sound and verbal effects.
* "Sign Sing-Along": Often the last sketch on a Friday, these films featured signs with words accompanied by a sing-along song. They were sung once through; viewers supplied the lyrics the second time, while a trumpet-and-bassoon duo played the melody.
* "The Six-Dollar and Thirty-Nine-Cent Man": A parody of ''[[The Six Million Dollar Man]]'' in seasons five and six, with Jim Boyd as Steve Awesome, Luis Ávalos as Awesome's boss Oscar and Hattie Winston as the General; the other adult cast members played villains.
* "Slow Reader": Animated or live-action shorts in which a slow reader was given a message to read by a delivery man. Each message had advice that he needed to follow, but because of his inability to sound out the words, he often wound up in trouble.
* "Soft-Shoe Silhouettes": Two people in silhouette, one making [[Phonics|the initial sound of a word and the other the rest of the word]]; the two then said the word in unison. The soft-shoe music itself was composed by [[Joe Raposo]], one of the [[Children's Television Workshop]] in-house composers at the time.
* "[[Spidey Super Stories]]": Short pieces debuting during season four and featuring [[Spider-Man]] (played by Danny Seagren from 1974 to 1977) foiling petty criminals. Spidey was never seen out of costume as his alter ego, [[Spider-Man|Peter Parker]], and he spoke in speech balloons for the audience to read. A [[Spin-off (media)|spin-off]] comic book, ''[[Spidey Super Stories|Spidey Super-Stories]]'', was produced by [[Marvel Comics]] from 1974 to 1981.
* "Vaudeville Revue": Skits and songs presented in variety-show style on stage, with music fanfare and canned applause; also called the Stage.
* "A Very Short Book": Sometimes the last sketch of the episode. A cast member read a nursery rhyme or story, turning the pages of a book that showed both the sentences and film footage of the action. The stories usually had a humorous ending that was different from the original.
* "Vi's Diner": Lee Chamberlin played the proprietor of a diner where customers read simple menus to place their orders.
* "Wild Guess": A game-show send-up (similar to ''[[You Bet Your Life]]'') with announcer Ken Kane (Bill Cosby in season 1, Morgan Freeman in seasons 2–6) and host Bess West (Rita Moreno), in which the contestant would guess the day's secret word. When the word was not guessed, West would give three clues as to what the word was.

{{Anchor|Selected recurring characters}}