The Electric Company: The Show That Turned the Lights On for a Generation

On April 15, 1977, PBS aired the final new episode of The Elec­tric Com­pa­ny. After six sea­sons and near­ly 800 episodes, the funky, fast-paced, and slight­ly chaot­ic children’s pro­gram signed off, leav­ing behind a glow that still warms those old enough to remem­ber.

If you were a kid in the 1970s—or caught the reruns that played well into the ’80s—you prob­a­bly still hear the voic­es, the music, and of course, that boom­ing intro­duc­tion: “HEY, YOU GUYS!”

A Classroom in Your Living Room

The Elec­tric Com­pa­ny wasn’t just TV—it was school in dis­guise. It took the build­ing blocks of read­ing and wrapped them in skits, songs, super­heroes, and slap­stick com­e­dy. Let­ters flew across the screen, words came alive, and sud­den­ly phon­ics felt like play­time. For many kids, this was where read­ing “clicked” for the first time.

While Sesame Street taught you the alpha­bet, The Elec­tric Com­pa­ny showed you how to actu­al­ly use it. It was the next step up, the cool old­er sib­ling of children’s pro­gram­ming.

A Cast That Became Icons

Even if you didn’t know it back then, you were watch­ing future leg­ends. Rita Moreno brought her Broad­way fire and trade­mark shout. A young Mor­gan Free­man made read­ing look easy as the effort­less­ly cool Easy Read­er. There were super­heroes, goofy detec­tives, and ani­mat­ed sketch­es voiced by com­ic roy­al­ty. It felt less like a class­room and more like a vari­ety show just for kids.

The Vibe of the ’70s

Part of the mag­ic was how unapolo­get­i­cal­ly ’70s the whole thing was. Bright col­ors, funky music, groovy graphics—it was all designed to grab your atten­tion and nev­er let go. For kids sit­ting cross-legged on shag car­pets or watch­ing from the back of the class­room when teach­ers rolled in the big TV cart, The Elec­tric Com­pa­ny was the def­i­n­i­tion of “edu­tain­ment” long before that word exist­ed.

A Legacy That Lasts

When the lights final­ly dimmed in 1977, a lot of kids felt like they were los­ing a friend. Luck­i­ly, reruns stretched into the mid-1980s, keep­ing its spir­it alive for anoth­er wave of view­ers. And for so many, the lessons stuck: read­ing was pow­er, words had mag­ic, and learn­ing could be fun.

Even now, decades lat­er, mem­o­ries of The Elec­tric Com­pa­ny can spark instant nos­tal­gia. The songs. The skits. The sense that you were in on some­thing spe­cial.

Because if you were there, you know: once that pow­er switch flipped and the theme song kicked in, you were part of a club that’s nev­er real­ly gone away.