The New Zoo Revue

As the National Geographic Channel's television special "Generation X" from a few years ago noted in its opening segment of the series, to get to the world that shaped Generation X as a group of people, you kind of have to step back to the late 1960's when Baby Boomers were being drafted to fight a war in Vietnam.  The result was widespread war protests among young Boomers, while people like me were at home, watching it happen on television (in between content better suited for kids, such as cartoons).

Among the shows we watched was the long-running CBS children's show "Captain Kangaroo" which ran from 1955 until 1984. That show was conceived and the title character was played by Bob Keeshan, who based the show on "the warm relationship between grandparents and children". Aside from Captain Kangaroo, I've already written about a local show called "The Magic Garden" which I watched and enjoyed. Some kids of that era also watched a syndicated children's show called "Romper Room". "Romper Room" was never a show I watched; I felt it was condescendingly stupid for children, and my attention went elsewhere.

About the only other dedicated children's show of that time was another syndicated television program called "New Zoo Revue". Doug Momary began working as the creator of what became an award-winning syndicated, half-hour children's television show that ran from 1972-1977. Aside from being writer/producer, Doug was also one of the show's human hosts. Indeed, he reportedly wrote over 600 songs for 195 different episodes. His co-host was a woman by the name of Emmy Jo (Emily) Peden, who was described in the show's theme song as Doug's "helper" but not his girlfriend or wife.

In reality, Doug and Emmy Jo were young newlyweds at the time (back in 1972; many kids [like me!] didn't even realize they were married). In fact, young viewers of the show had little reason to suspect there was any romantic involvement between the two, since I don't recall them ever acknowledging that fact or showing any overt affection for one another on camera; instead, the show aimed to teach kids such basic principles of getting along with others, respecting the community and oneself, and doing the right thing. Aside from the two human co-hosts, the show featured costumed full-bodied puppet characters, primarily a shy, female hippopotamus with a Southern accent named Henrietta Hippo, a wise if cranky old male owl named Charlie the Owl , and a fun-loving male frog named Freddy the Frog whose behavior most resembled that of a child's. There were also a handful of human guests, among them Mr. Dingle, who was played by Chuck Woolery, a man perhaps better known as a Hollywood game-show host ("Love Connection" anyone?!). The series also hosted several celebrity guest stars during its run including Henry Mancini (a musician), Jim Backus (a well-known actor, perhaps known best as the man who played millionaire Thurston Howell III on "Gilligan's Island" due to incessant re-runs) and JoAnn Worley (perhaps most famously as a cast member on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" from 1968-1973, but also appeared in many other movies and television shows over the years).

Freddie the Frog was voiced by Joni Robbins, Henrietta Hippo was voiced by Larri Thomas, and Charlie the Owl was voiced by Bob Holt. Other characters included Frieda the Frog, Mr. Dingle (Chuck Woolery), an elderly postman, storekeeper and jack-of-all-trades, and Mrs. Goodbody (Fran Ryan), a nosy neighbor who serves as an advice columnist for The All New Zoo Gazette.

The woman known as Emmy Jo was basically a personification of a young, hippy woman, not too dissimilar from Nancy Sinatra who gained fame for the 1966 hit single "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" ... she was attractive, and she wore very short mini-skirts that continued to be in fashion well into the early 1970's -- often with high go-go boots (a style of women's knee-high, square-toed fashion boots with block heels that were very popular in the 1960's and continued into the 1970's).

Meanwhile Doug, who was really the creative talent behind the series, was kind of a dork with a bushy, porn-star looking mustache (which was the Baby Boomer version of Millennial hipster men's fascination with beards) and unfashionable clothing that were made of polyester in plaid or other ugly colors, such as the faintly mournful "autumn" color palette - dark orange, oxblood, copper, brown, harvest gold, avocado green of that era. He was kind of a dork, even if the show was the product of his personal creative genius. Since "New Zoo Revue", Doug has gone on to become the founder and CEO of a company called Laguna Productions now based in Las Vegas, NV which produces video content (TV commercials, and/or other video content for clients). When the business began, it was based in California.

Doug began working as the creator and co-star of what became an award-winning children's hit series "The New Zoo Revue". Doug married Emmy Jo (Emily) Peden in 1972, just a few weeks before they got the go ahead for the show. "The New Zoo Revue" was actually filmed in Hollywood during the early 1970's (1972-1975; reruns ran in syndication until 1977), and Doug was the sole writer of over 190 episodes and some 600 songs.  All told, the show reached over 3 million children every day.  Doug and his wife Emily starred in the series singing and dancing along with three giant animal characters, with the idea of teaching children positive messages in an entertaining fashion.

Of note is the fact that Doug and Emmy Jo have (impressively) been married since 1972, which means they will celebrate their 47th wedding anniversary in 2019. That's really quite impressive given how many other people in the children's entertainment space of that era ended up divorced. Indeed, Gen X kids were scarred by widespread divorce of their parents, leaving many to become "latch-key" kids who had no parents at home when they finished school, unlike the Baby Boomers who typically came home to stay-at-home mothers.

The couple's company Laguna Productions maintains an account on Vimeo, and they include episodes of the "New Zoo Review", one of which can be watched below, or by visiting https://vimeo.com/317029596:

Optimism from Laguna Productions on Vimeo.

Now, I should note that when home videos started to emerge in the 1980's, a more colorful outtake from this show surfaced. While clowning around on the set, Freddie the Frog and Charlie the Owl were filmed dropping the F bomb and displaying acts of un-edited crudity while the off screen cast and crew laughed it up.

Before watching the YouTube clip below, or by visiting https://youtu.be/G9ySgnifxeQ, be forewarned that frog and owl use some pretty vulgar language. It definitely paints a different, NOT made-for-TV image for those of us who grew up watching the show as kids, proving that real, human actors were in those animal costumers (as if there was even a question about that?)!



As noted, after "The New Zoo Revue" ended its run, the couple left Hollywood where the original show was filmed and they moved to the Sacramento area (you know, the unglamorous capital of California, which although a mere 45 minutes from the Bay Area, is about 7 hours from Los Angeles, but Sacramento shares more in common culturally with the Central Valley town of Fresno than it does with San Francisco, except that as the seat of the California state government, it's much more affluent than Fresno is -- the area is also home to the university U.C. Davis). However, since that time, the production company has kind of relocated to the Dallas, Texas area (although its legal home remains in Las Vegas, Nevada).

As noted, the couple began a film and video production company called Laguna Productions around 1984 or 1985, which handles everything from concept to completion on a contractual basis, and the business has proven itself to be quite successful, enduring when many similar firms close shop in a few years. The couple relocated their family and business from Sacramento to Las Vegas around the turn of the new century.  Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Emily went back to school and earned her master's degree in marriage and family counseling.  She did that for a while, but she now works as Laguna's VP of Finance.  Although the couple is certainly now eligible to retire (Doug is age 72 and Emmy Jo is age 75 as of 2019 -- who realized she was 3 years older than Doug? She certainly looked much younger than he did!), their company enables periodic breaks from work, and they have a staff who does many of the day-to-day operations now.

That said, the series "The New Zoo Revue" operated in a big space that was pretty devoid of much genuine competition back in 1972.  Children's programs -- or those that were called children's programming, but were really just re-purposed adult programming, such as old movie-house cartoons like the black and white Max Fleischer versions of Popeye the Sailor Man, or Felix the Cat (both of which ran in early morning hours back in those days); Warner's ever-popular Looney Tunes ran for a slightly older audience in the afternoon; those were popular because they were in color, whereas many episodes of Popeye and Felix the Cat were not). Others included cartoons such as Total Television's battery of cartoons (including Underdog, Klondike Kat, Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, Go Go Gophers, Commander McBragg and others), as well as The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, Tom and Jerry, and the Walter Lantz Productions such as Woody Woodpecker, Terrytoons as well as MANY others from the Hannah-Barbera Productions which are now folded into Warner Brothers following the deaths of the two founders in the early 2000's.

Anyway, "The New Zoo Revue" was very successful back in the day.  It filled a need for educational/non-violent programming as new legislation required, and it also entertained children with its odd, giant animal characters.  They weren't quite the old puppets found on other children's series (think of Mister Rogers Neighborhood as one such example), but many of their characters were definitely child-like (Freddie, for example).

The hosts Doug and Emmy Jo served a role as the "adults" in the village, and they kept peace among the animal cast and taught viewers the lesson of the day.  Each show had songs and the cast of puppet-like animal characters to impart lessons on patience, manners, courtesy, dealing with others, and other topics that remain as relevant today as when originally broadcast. That said, I don't see re-runs of "The New Zoo Revue" on cable these days, possibly because on-demand has changed how kids are entertained. But for its time, "New Zoo Revue" filled an important role, and as an adult who grew up with the show, I look back at it rather fondly today.

For the record, although the series has left the broadcast airwaves years ago, in 2004 there was news (see archive on the old TVShowsonDVD.com) that Season 1 containing 59 episodes of the show was released on DVD. The company that released the set known as BCI Eclipse was closed down by its parent company, but there's always eBay and Amazon sellers, so you can probably still buy it, although it may cost you due to scarcity value. Another option: try visiting your local, public library which may have it to borrow (you have to bring it back, but really: do you want to OWN this?). Its unclear whether they have since migrated it to streaming platforms (although Laguna Productions has already published a fair number on the Vimeo platform), but one never knows!

See also:
http://dontparade.blogspot.com/2006/01/new-zoo-revue-goes-blue.html

http://mrcollinsgrindhousemovieblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-zoo-revue.html

http://www.retrospace.org/2008/12/ode-to-emmy-jo.html

http://www.retrospace.org/2008/11/new-zoo-revue-for-mature-audiences-only.html

Free to Be ... You and Me

It started with a book, or at least an idea for a book.  On March 11, 1974, on the ABC television network, a television special entitled "Free to Be ... You and Me" aired on U.S. broadcast television.  Produced by 1960's "That Girl" star Margaret Julia Thomas, better known as Marlo Thomas, (Marlo was the daughter of 1950's TV legend Danny Thomas, although her own TV show had gained her fame and popularity for being one of the first TV shows that featured a working woman who was not actively seeking out a husband, along with "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" which ran a few years later).  Incidentally, Marlo's brother Tony Thomas was co-owner of Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions, which is the company that produced such hit sitcoms as The Golden Girls (very recently, his partner Paul Junger Witt died of cancer, see https://usat.ly/2KnztsL for that news).

At the time, because Ms. Thomas was already a celebrity in her own right, she was able to assemble an all-star cast for this particular special, among them: Marlo Thomas herself, along with actors/actresses Alan Alda, Dustin Hoffman, Kris Kristofferson, Shirley Jones, Jack Cassidy, Carol Channing, talk show host Dick Cavett, comedy producer Carl Reiner, NFL football star Rosey Grier, singers Diana Ross, Rita Coolidge, Dionne Warwick, Harry Belafonte, singer/songwriter Roberta Flack and a very young Michael Jackson (then of the hit Motown singing group known as the Jackson 5).

The idea began with Ms. Thomas herself, who as noted, was already a star of the late 1960's TV sitcom "That Girl", and in 1971, she also became a new aunt.  (This was prior to Ms. Thomas marrying daytime television talk show host Phil Donahue in 1980, whom she remains married to as of 2018).  Ms. Thomas felt that her young niece's storybooks were the same old ones that she had read as a child, and she felt that the then-recent entries to the bedtime canon only reinforced the idea that boys were supposed to grow up to become pilots and doctors while girls were supposed to become lesser stewardesses (the feminine form of a term that has since been replaced with the gender-neutral term flight attendant) and nurses.

Marlo Thomas conceived a children's book that, instead of telling boys and girls who they should be, instead hopefully opened them to the possibilities of who they COULD be.  She gathered many of her talented friends and acquaintances from various worlds of the arts (TV, music and even professional sports) and the result was highly-regarded as a modern classic of children's literature.  Life-enhancing themes were imaginatively blended with music and humor to expand children's personal horizons, enabling them to invent their own futures without limitation, while dispelling some old constraints and worn-out conventions in the process.

Among her collaborators was Shel Silverstein and co-producer Carole Hart, and the project created a gold record album and a best-selling book.  Then, in 1972, it was then turned into an Emmy-and Peabody-winning TV special.  The effort was feminist and multicultural; an early childhood education in empathy; multimedia before anybody even used the word.  It was also promoted by Gloria Steinem's Ms. magazine (I touched on Ms. magazine in my Lynda Carter post at https://goo.gl/c25V1y) which was very big at the time.

Ms. Thomas admitted that her inspiration was that she had just became an aunt (her sister Terre recently had a daughter she named Dionne Gordon in 1969 -- the very same year I was born).  Thomas wrote in the prologue to the book 'When We Were Free to Be' edited by Lori Rotskoff and Laura L. Lovett:

"Honestly I was just trying to do something for one little girl." That it would grow to become a cultural phenomenon was never a part of the plan."

But the basic themes in the book, album and TV special were meant to inspire girls and boys to challenge gender and racial stereotypes, value cooperation, and respect diversity became very much part of the feminist movement of those days.  Remember, back in those days, there were only 3 broadcast television networks (plus government-sponsored PBS if you count that, along with some independent stations in select markets).  Cable TV was largely non-existent at the time, and VCR's, DVR's, videocassettes, DVD's and streaming video hadn't been invented yet.  That basically guaranteed a large audience for a TV special that aired just once.

Marlo Thomas' own YouTube channel (which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/user/marlothomas) and The Free To Be Foundation's YouTube channels (which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/user/ftbfoundation) both have clips from different segments of the original ABC special.  I've pieced them together in a playlist (which may or may not be in the original sequence) below, along with clips prior to and at the end of the "Free to Be ... You and Me" television special with commentary from Marlo Thomas and several of the other collaborators on the project.



Yet this particular TV special, the book and especially the soundtrack that was created for it, were fondly remembered by thousands of kids who tuned in to watch the show when it aired on TV.  Today, those kids now are in their late 40's or early 50's, and stepping into leadership roles in society.  The lessons taught in the special remained in the minds of many of those who watched.

The result of "Free to Be ... You and Me" effort created a very large population that largely wants to put racial issues, xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny behind it.

As one original review for the book 'When We Were Free to Be' eloquently observed:

"A moving reminder that the women's movement was and is ardently pro-child. These fascinating reminiscences and timely essays about what still needs doing to make our children truly 'free to be' will have you singing the songs again—or discovering the joy of learning them."

Some of the most popular tracks from the original soundtrack can be listened to at  The Free To Be Foundation's website at at http://www.freetobefoundation.com/.  I have included four of the main songs which are found on its website below.

Free To Be You And Me
http://www.freetobefoundation.com/audio/free_to_be.mp3



It's All Right To Cry
http://www.freetobefoundation.com/audio/its_all_right_to_cry.MP3



Sisters And Brothers
http://www.freetobefoundation.com/audio/sisters_and_bros.mp3



When We Grow Up
http://www.freetobefoundation.com/audio/when_we_grow_up.mp3



The book that inspired this blog "Whatever Happened To Pudding Pops?" has an entry about the "Free to Be ... You and Me" initiative which was as follows:


Free to Be ... You and Me

A BOY who loved his doll, a girl getting chomped by tigers, and a dog fixing a sink? Where do we sign up?

A record album, illustrated songbook, and 1974 TV special, triple-threat media powerhouse Free to Be ... You and Me was created when That Girl star Marlo Thomas wanted to teach her young niece that it was OK to break gender roles, in careers and life. And looking at today’s world, with its stay-at-home dads and doctor moms, there's little doubt that she helped make that happen.

Kids who got this book or album had probably never heard of women's lib except as a punch line on Maude. Many of the major points sailed over our heads; other parts seemed “no-DOY” obvious. No one likes housework. It's all right to cry. Boys can bake cakes, girls can bait hooks, and whatever gender you dreamy pencil sketches, snappy cartoons, and one story told in handwritten notes on torn notebook paper. Its most memorable song? "William Wants a Doll," sung by Alan "Hawkeye Pierce" Alda. Its best story? Shel Silverstein's hilarious “Ladies First,” in which a demanding little girl is eaten up by tigers. The book even addressed issues kids didn't know were issues, such as how you shouldn't dress your cat in an apron but should, if he so desires, let your dog be a plumber.  Heather Has Two Mommies gots nothing on this.

X-Tinction Rating: Revised and revived

Replaced By: A thirty-fifth anniversary addition of the book came out in 2008.  And in fall 2010, Target released a back-to-school ad prominently featuring the "Free to Be..." song.


The effort was not without criticism, even in the early 1970's.  As CNN reported, for every "Free to Be" class play, another school wouldn't acknowledge it. TV producers initially balked at a song that seemed to show Thomas and Belafonte as an interracial couple. At least one TV critic warned parents to keep kids away from the television when "Free to Be" was on.  James Dobson (who helped create several known anti-Semetic and anti-LGBT hate-groups, while avoiding anything that might imperil his own organization's tax-free status) Focus on the Family criticized it and advocated for rigid traditional gender roles in child-rearing. Even "Free to Be" supporters argued that some of the skits were classist, and noted that its bent toward traditional families with mommies, daddies and children were exclusionary to children in single-parent homes.

Still, with this kind of feminist-inspired teaching of children of that era, no one should be surprised that today, a majority of younger people are far less interested in reigniting old race or gender role tensions of the past (no matter what Donald Trump and his white supremacist supporters may believe, and a President who just barely won the electoral college while losing the popular vote by more than 3 million votes cannot presume he is guaranteed unwavering public support for his racial perspective).

Aside from the 2016 election results and the subsequent national embarrassment of white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, the country stands at a precipice right now.

Baby Boomer voters are finally outnumbered by the number registered voters, although voting patterns have enabled them to claim a majority for at least the 2016 election and possibly the next one or two elections, mathematically, their days are numbered.  Given the societal cues, the racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic views embodied by the Alt-Right (which is basically white supremacy re-branded with a new name), the very people who so fervently supported Mr. Trump will be increasingly difficult to maintain much beyond 2020.  Indeed, while he has solidified support among right-wing voters, polling shows that he has lost support among independent voters, and more generally, female voters overall.

On October 21, 2015, Marlo Thomas Tweeted this picture of herself,
her sister Terre and her niece Dionne (the little girl that inspired Free To Be)
who had both come to see her in the show Clever Little Lies.

While the original "Free to Be ... You and Me" television special had a very limited broadcast, The Free To Be Foundation was incorporated in 1973 to develop and market educational products that challenge stereotypes, fight discrimination, and encourage individuality and the freedom to pursue one's talents and dreams.  The foundation continues to maintain a website which can be visited at http://www.freetobefoundation.com/.  The Free To Be Foundation's website has links to where the 2008 thirty-fifth anniversary edition of the book (a link to the publisher is listed below) is still sold, along CD's with the soundtrack and even a DVD release of the original ABC television special.  In addition, a stage play with a script and accompanying music can be licensed from the foundation.

Several Links About the "Free to Be ... You and Me" initiative can be seen below:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/living/free-to-be-you-and-me-40-years/

https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469619057/when-we-were-free-to-be/

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/doublex/features/2012/free_to_be_you_and_me_40th_anniversary_how_did_a_kids_album_about_gender/free_to_be_you_and_me_40th_anniversary_how_did_a_kids_album_by_a_bunch_of.html

Digital Natives Are Now A Half-Century+ Old

I received my very first computer 45 years ago -- back in 1973.  Admittedly, it was merely a toy, but it was long before the iPhone's introduction more than thirty years later in 2007.  In fact, not a single Millennial was even alive in 1973 when I got my first computer.  I would argue that proves I've been a "digital native" a whole lot longer than they are.

I'm also a true "digital native" who will be age 50 next year.  (Catch a relevant article on Gen Xers turning age 50 at https://www.theepochtimes.com/gen-x-turns-50-were-doing-well-thanks-for-asking_1925959.html for more detail).

Millennials can only wait enviously behind Gen Xers on the distinction as "digital native", even if marketers or dumb employment recruiters think it means them.  Genuine digital natives precede Millennials by at least two decades, probably even more than that.  After all, it was Gen X kids like Matthew Broderick who saved the world from a computer-initiated nuclear armageddon a decade later in the 1983 movie "War Games," so Gen Xers have an indisputable claim that the kids who once camped out in front of Apple Stores are no more digital native than we are, because we've been natives longer than they have by decades.

Early mobile phones (which were the size, shape and weight of bricks ... and had power that only lasted for 30 minutes), for example, were portable, but were analog and could only make audio telephone calls.  Today, smartphones are pocket-sized computer devices that are perennially running out of power, memory capacity, and arguably don't work very well if you want to preserve your eyesight beyond age 35.

As one Gizmodo article (see HERE for detail) eloquently put it:

"You'd think that toy computers would have reached their height in the last decade. This Playskool Play and Learn Computer is from 1972 and is a spectacular reminder that a) everything is toyable and b) computers have always been our future."

My own experience with computers actually began around 1973 when I was around four years old with the very Playskool Play 'n Learn Computer depicted in the Gizmodo article above.  Note that in the early 1970's, Playskool was still an independent toy company based in Wisconsin (it wouldn't be acquired by toy-giant Hasbro until 1984).  From the company's earliest days in the 1930's or so, its niche was always making toys for preschool aged children centered around the idea that its products could help develop coordination and stimulate the minds of small children.   As a precocious child, I was always troubled (and a bit insulted) by the fact that in the company name, "school" was incorrectly spelled "skool".  I was too young to understand that corporate names could be completely made-up.

The absolute top of my gift list for 1973 was the Playskool Play 'n Learn Computer.  I really loved this toy, and it was all I talked about in anticipation of that holiday.  On Christmas morning that year, I literally asked which wrapped gift was the computer, but my parents forced me to calm down, so I zeroed in on the box that looked like it might be the same size and opened that one first.  My family bought me plenty of other things that year, including clothes which I don't think any child has ever really wanted for the holiday, but usually got anyway.  I don't recall what any of the other gifts I got that year were because that computer was the only thing I really wanted.

I wanted that toy more than anything until Atari 2600 (it was called the Atari Video Computer System or VCS at the time, and it wouldn't be renamed Atari 2600 until a few years later) came about a decade later.  Kids like me instantly recognized the potential of computers, and many would go on to make that a reality.  For example, Gen Xers are behind things we take for granted today, such as Google, Twitter, Facebook and even online banking.  Realize that in 1972, I was only three years old, but I still saw computers featured on television programs my parents watched, and even on TV shows including Captain Kangaroo.  At the time, those were all big mainframe computers, rather than personal computers (the ones I saw were of the sort featured on the popular 2016 film "Hidden Figures" which supposedly took place in the late 1960's, see below for more detail).

Most of the depictions of computers in those days were big, bulky things (with reel-to-reel storage tapes that stored many programs and most data) that was also the era where computers kind of f'd things up.  Computer screw-ups were frequently shown in late sixties and early seventies TV shows.  Whether it was turning someone's electricity off because the computer mistakenly credited their payment to another customer's account, or in the case of "War Games" mistakenly initiating Global Thermonuclear War with Russia because the computer mistakenly believes it's just another computer game, or when ATM's withdraw thousands of dollars from someone's account but only giving them a twenty dollar bill.  Occasionally, there were humorous takes on "computer dating" which began in the 1960's but was a recurring theme into the 1970's.  For example, I remember seeing a rerun of the TV show "Love, American Style" about the humorous results of computer dating gone wrong.  People submitted their vital stats to a computer dating service along with lengthy questionnaires (usually on a paper form where the respondent colored in a particular circle to answer a certain way not too dissimilar to the way SAT's used to be handled).

The New Yorker reports (see HERE for a Business Insider article with a link to that original article in New Yorker plus some relevant other information) that one early computer dating service made people answer some 1,400 multiple-choice questions, and then charged them $5.00 to have a computer find their match (which was equivalent of about $30.00 in 2018), though an advertisement from a rival in Look magazine also dated 1966 showed its price at $3.00.  In those days, computers were routinely depicted with suspicion and disruptive.  But they were mainly disruptive to older people who grew up in the days when computers were simply not around and they did not see much need for them.  Truth be told, computers did automate many processes that often took more human effort in the old analog world, and also rendered some jobs people used to do as obsolete.  It's a similar dialogue now going on about so-called AI (the acronym for artificial intelligence, see a ZDNet article HERE for more).

The Playskool Play 'n Learn Computer was designed to look like a mainframe computer, only it was a mechanical toy that used no batteries or external power source to compute if child had correctly found the right answer.  Instead, it had five double-sided cards included. Rhyming words, similar pictures, beginning sounds, telling time, colors, adding facts and related objects, identifying parts of a whole, matching words to objects, and a blank card for child to fill out.  As a toy, I eventually mastered the handful of questions, and the company failed by not selling any additional cards for this computer, so I eventually lost interest.  But for a brief time in the early seventies, I thought it was about the greatest toy a child could have.

Around the same time, Playskool also sold what could best be described as dolls and stuffed animals made from cotton fabric and polyester fiberfill (petroleum-sourced polyester was all the rage those days).  Perhaps the most famous of those "dolls" was known as "Dressy Bessy" and her male counterpart was "Dapper Dan", both of which aimed to help teach small children to learn how to dress themselves, with common parts of clothing including zippers, snaps, buckles, buttons, and shoelaces.  At the time, Playskool even licensed the product to the pattern company that sold Simplicity patterns which sold in fabric and sewing shops so homemakers could make these toys by themselves (presumably to give as gifts to children).  Whether they were any cheaper (if a pattern sold for $3.50 but the toy itself sold for $5.85 as it was priced in the Sears annual Wishbook in 1973 or so, one need not be a math genius to determine that the patterns plus the cost of fabric and time to make the Dressy Bessy meant it wasn't necessarily a great economy bargain).

Hasbro brought this particular toy back to market in 2001, but the market was less receptive at the time, perhaps due to a shortage of children of the right age to buy for and a glut of toys to choose from.  The toys were bright and colorful, although they were hardly fashionable even during the years preceding disco, polyester leisure suits, and platform shoes.  Indeed, some writers have jokingly stated: "Dapper?  Not so much."  Nevertheless, Bessy and Dan have remained a perpetually popular product line for Hasbro, even if not perennially available.

Using the same basic designs, the following year, the company expanded to offer what it called Hug-a-Book dolls, which featured the same garish colors (at least it did on the Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood toys) in all of the Hug-a-Book line.  By that time, I was about 4 and already starting to read (at least I knew the stories by heart, so the words on the page looked familiar enough).  The company took several favorite fairy tales and downsized the stories to fit on tiny, 12-page (made of silk-screened cotton) story books which were fastened to the stomach of these dolls.  Initially, it focused on just a few such stories, including Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs and The Three Bears.

At the time, I was a four year-old child who was already very familiar with those stories, and I wanted one a lot like Ralphie wanted a "Red Rider" for Christmas (that's a reference to the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story").  I received the Hug-a-Book Jack and the Beanstalk for Christmas, and in the following April for my birthday, I received The Three Bears.  Eventually, the cover to Jack and the Beanstalk tore off, but my mother was a sewer, and she was able to fix it for me.

I grew older in the years that followed, so I outgrew all of Playskool's offerings, and would be mesmerized by things like The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (having aluminum lunchboxes with Steve Austin's image on it), as well as standard fare like Hot Wheels, Matchbox and Tomy Pocket cars.

I would later get handheld electronic games including Mattel's Electronic Basketball and Football, and rival Parker Brother's Merlin (catch my post on that by visiting http://hgm.sstrumello.com/2012/09/preservation-and-resurrection-of.html for more).  By the end of the decade, Atari's Video Computer System as it was originally called (later renamed Atari 2600, catch my post on that at http://hgm.sstrumello.com/2012/07/atari-celebrates-40th-anniversary.html for more) and the endless pursuit of new home video games for that would capture my attention until my interest shifted to real, personal computers which in hindsight, were incredibly overpriced and underpowered, but were never Apple anything as the company nearly went bankrupt and was more famous for selling vaporware than good design or true technical expertise.

It was Lotus Development Corp. and a company known as WordPerfect that preceded even Microsoft as far as computer software that actually made computers run (Microsoft only for the operating system known as DOS or disk operating system).  As much as hipsters like to believe that Steve Jobs was the true computer visionary, he really wasn't, and his company got off to a very rocky start.

As a side-note, in 1978, Playskool itself would introduce a real (non-mechanical) computer toy called Alphie and a decade later in 1983, and pretend, musical mobile phone, but the original Playskool Play 'n Learn Computer will always remain as one of my all-time favorite holiday gifts.

But anyone under the age of 40 in 2018 who thinks they are a "digital native" is more of a liar than a "digital native".  Gen Xers gave the world Google and Twitter, and Baby Boomers like Bill Gates were pivotal in making those things happen.  But toys like Playskool Play-n-Learn Computer were the first introduction to the digital world for a generation of people who continue to define the term digital natives.  Sorry hipsters, you were about two decades late to the game.

See also:

https://www.commodorecomputerclub.com/1972-playskool-play-and-learn-computer/

https://katrina9799.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/playskool-dapper-dan-dressy-bessy-plush-dolls/

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/old-weird-tech-computer-dating-of-the-1960s/71217/

http://thecomputerboys.com/?p=654

The Magic Garden Continues

In 1972, the number of options for children on television were still limited. It's worth noting that this was definitely not the 1950's in which most Baby Boomers grew up; Howdy Doody, bobby socks, poodle skirts and greasers were assuredly not part of Generation X youth. Instead, 1972 was still in the crosshairs of the Vietnam war (which did not officially end until 1975), civil rights protests by Americans of African origin as well as LGBT Americans, women's liberation and much more all helped shape the environment in which Gen Xers were raised as children.

Hippy fashion was still very much in vogue at the time, including women's go go boots and bell bottom pants, often in autumn hues made from new synthetic fabrics like polyester. But it's also worth acknowledging that the seventies also ushered in an era of great social unrest caused by all of those seminal events. Politically, Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace following the Watergate break-in and his administration's subsequent attempt to cover up its involvement. When the burglars were caught and the conspiracy was discovered, Watergate was investigated by the United States Congress. But Richard Nixon's administration resisted its probes, which led to a constitutional crisis (not unlike the events going on in 2018 with the treasonous Trump Administration). Coinciding with all of that, U.S. imperialism along with its near-complete dependence on foreign oil would rear its ugly head with the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, which also introduced the U.S. to tremendous economic insecurity and economic stagflation which was unknown before that time.

Still, children were largely insulated from all of the chaos going on in the world outside, and broadcast television presented a picture of the world that looked different from reality. That was the lilly-white world that Donald Trump was referring to when he made the bogus promise to make America great again.

This was before cable television existed in a vast majority of American homes, and broadcast TV was limited to the three major American networks [ABC, CBS and NBC] plus PBS which was [at the time] still a quasi-government run television entity. Bigger markets may also have had one or two so-called "independent" broadcast stations that were best known for their local news coverage (often an hour earlier than their network peers), and filling the rest of their broadcast day with syndicated reruns (again, this was in the days before cable networks like TV Land or more recently, Antenna TV, Me-TV and Cozi TV came to dominate the market for reruns of old, network television programs).

In the New York City area, the nation's largest media market, there were three "independent" broadcast television stations, including WPIX (channel 11), WNET (channel 5, it would become a part of the Fox television network in 1986 becoming one of the then-new network's 5 flagship stations, although that particular station was actually part of the defunct DuMont television network from 1944-1956, and those years became part of what was known as the Metromedia era) and WNEW (Channel 9) which broadcast from Newark, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River.

In 1968, Congress passed into law called the Children's Television Act, which established an FCC requirement that a specific amount of programming had to be dedicated to children's content which was either educational and/or non-violent. To comply, all stations had to offer compliant programming; every station had to comply with the law, or risk having their broadcast license revoked.

Perhaps the biggest children's TV show at the time was "Captain Kangaroo" starring the legendary Bob Keeshan, which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1984. Another show which ran in syndication was known as the "New Zoo Revue" which ran from 1972 to 1977. I watched that show a great deal as a pre-school child. "New Zoo Review" is worthy of its own post, so I won't elaborate much further than to simply acknowledge it here.  Another syndicated show ran on rival WNEW called "Romper Room" but was actually produced by a station in Boston.  I personally disliked that show.

New York's WPIX-11, which was owned at the time by the city's favorite tabloid newspaper the New York Daily News, opted to produce its own, locally-made show, and a children's show called "The Magic Garden" was the result.  The Magic Garden, which was a highly-acclaimed and popular TV show ran on WPIX-TV (ch. 11) New York, starred Carole Demas and Paula Janis who helped create the show.

Carole Demas is perhaps best known for her critically acclaimed creation of the female lead, "Sandy", in the original Broadway blockbuster, Grease. Her colleague and co-star Paula Janis traveled widely as a musician and lead singer with a folk trio "The Wee'Uns", performing in Greenwich Village cafes, on TV and at Carnegie Hall. She holds an M.A. in Early Childhood Education from New York University. She would later became the director of Head Start programs in New York City.

As characterized by the New York Times, The Magic Garden "was a cheerful, low-budget, inadvertently psychedelic half-hour show in which Ms. Janis and Ms. Demas sat on giant toadstools, spoke to flowers, sang songs and told stories." The show was set in a colorful garden setting, where the duo brought stories, songs, games, lessons and laughter to viewers. The show also featured several puppet characters who were integral to the show, including a pink squirrel named Sherlock and a bird named Flapper. The co-stars were friends since they were students at a Brooklyn high school. During their years as teachers in the New York City School System, both Carole and Paula combined their teaching and performing talents.

The Magic Garden received citations from Action for Children's Television and Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop). Ratings for the show were equal to or exceeded those of Sesame Street and other shows of this genre (including Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Romper Room, Captain Kangaroo, etc.). Today, WPIX-11 is no longer owned by the same company that owns and operates New York Daily News (it's now operated by Tribune Media -- but it was a different time for the broadcast media in those days -- and the station remains home to archives of its past). Indeed, several years ago, the station revealed it had discovered a long-lost Christmas episode of The Magic Garden, and now reruns that episode on Christmas morning. See the post about the discovery of the lost episode in a basement room of the station at http://pix11.com/2013/12/23/lost-christmas-episode-of-the-magic-garden-found-in-secret-pix11-basement-room/ for background.

The stars Carole Demas and Paula Janis maintain their own website at http://caroleandpaula.com/ and occasionally still tour local NYC-area venues (see https://nyti.ms/2sWdYID for more) and sometimes appear on the original station when it reruns old episodes of The Magic Garden. For example, the station announced that two episodes of the show would air on Saturday, June 16, 2018 from 2:00 to 3:00 PM.

Their own website has information about the show, as well as merchandise (DVD's and CD's from the program). It also has photos, some music and even a video clip. I am including the musical track below, or you can find it on their website (see the bottom of the page) at http://caroleandpaula.com/Ordering/index.html.


For its part, WPIX television also has some relevant video clips from The Magic Garden which can be visited on their Facebook page, and at http://pix11.com/category/11-alive/magic-garden/.

A clip provides a good overview and description of the show which can be seen below, or by visiting https://youtu.be/j4U9XF-1rkU.