Post by trulyuseless on Sept 27, 2023 23:07:16 GMT
Those of us growing up in the 1970s and 1980s likely remember watching local PBS stations and viewing hours of educational and instructional television programs.
TVOntario (now TVO) is a publicly funded English-language educational media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It aired commercial-free, educational, and instructional television programs, similar to what Americans saw on PBS. In fact, some of those TVO programs aired on PBS. "All About You". "Thinkabout". "Inside Out". 'Read All About It". "Yet Again John Robbins Draws Something* ". You can find these and scads more on YouTube. (Go on, check it out. I'll wait.)
Anyway --
I have a distant forty-plus-year-old memory of watching something on PBS, possibly TVO-produced, and having the shock of seeing something very familiar yet very wrong.
It was a backward Bert and Ernie. Fans of Sesame Street know its two popular and long-running characters are Bert (yellow, tall, thin) and Ernie (orange, short, round). Whatever I watched had an orange tall, thin character and a short, round, yellow character. In short, Bert was orange, and Ernie was yellow. They were not spot-on with the original characters, but they were close enough for you to recognize the source of their parody. I have no memory of what they were doing or discussing. I don't think this was a half-hour program but rather a shorter segment within a longer program.
About a decade or so ago, I found an online group discussing old TVO/PBS programs, and someone recalled the following:
A metric-themed program includes a segment called Centimeter Street (a rip-off of Sesame Street) with characters called Barney and Art and BigBug.
This (somewhat) validated my memory. Wikipedia shows "Measure Metric" (1977-84) as a one-time TVO program. I found an Indiana University archive of this program (collections.libraries.indiana.edu/IULMIA/exhibits/show/measure-metric), but all programs appear to be live-action (at least, what's archived here).
Thoughts?
* Not a real program but Robbins appeared on so many others.
TVOntario (now TVO) is a publicly funded English-language educational media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It aired commercial-free, educational, and instructional television programs, similar to what Americans saw on PBS. In fact, some of those TVO programs aired on PBS. "All About You". "Thinkabout". "Inside Out". 'Read All About It". "Yet Again John Robbins Draws Something* ". You can find these and scads more on YouTube. (Go on, check it out. I'll wait.)
Anyway --
I have a distant forty-plus-year-old memory of watching something on PBS, possibly TVO-produced, and having the shock of seeing something very familiar yet very wrong.
It was a backward Bert and Ernie. Fans of Sesame Street know its two popular and long-running characters are Bert (yellow, tall, thin) and Ernie (orange, short, round). Whatever I watched had an orange tall, thin character and a short, round, yellow character. In short, Bert was orange, and Ernie was yellow. They were not spot-on with the original characters, but they were close enough for you to recognize the source of their parody. I have no memory of what they were doing or discussing. I don't think this was a half-hour program but rather a shorter segment within a longer program.
About a decade or so ago, I found an online group discussing old TVO/PBS programs, and someone recalled the following:
A metric-themed program includes a segment called Centimeter Street (a rip-off of Sesame Street) with characters called Barney and Art and BigBug.
This (somewhat) validated my memory. Wikipedia shows "Measure Metric" (1977-84) as a one-time TVO program. I found an Indiana University archive of this program (collections.libraries.indiana.edu/IULMIA/exhibits/show/measure-metric), but all programs appear to be live-action (at least, what's archived here).
Thoughts?
* Not a real program but Robbins appeared on so many others.
