The Electric Company lights up the Internet and inspires a Web-savvy generation
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“When he came in for his audition he asked if he could play his own piano,” Fowler says. “So he played this song and the piano player said, ‘Hey, where’d you learn to play that?’ And he said, ‘I learned to play it off YouTube.’ So he’s the quintessential child of this generation where the Web is really a tool for learning.”
Smith, with all his Internet savvy, was a fitting addition to The Electric Company of the new millennium.
Like The Electric Company of the ‘70s, the new series also aims to combat the literacy crisis facing America's second graders and reduce the literacy gap between low- and middle-income families by advancing the idea that ‘reading is cool.’
One Step Further
But its approach is groundbreaking.
Fowler developed it not only as a TV show, but a multimedia and outreach project that would create a complete experience for viewers. Sesame Workshop has always extended its educational content beyond television. But, as Fowler explains, The Electric Company — a storyline with act breaks of curricular clusters of music videos, sketch comedy, animation, short film and celebrity cameos — aims to take that one step further.
“What we’ve tried to do with The Electric Company,” she says, “is break all the boundaries and separation between curriculum, production, outreach and broadband, and bring it all together under one creative banner to make this revolutionary brand for 6- to 9-year-olds.”
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The site — which is hugely popular, with almost three million visits during the five months since its launch — streams full episodes that have aired the day before on TV. Since January, a whopping nearly 10 million videos have been streamed. The games portion of the site is also a smash hit.
“The show only comes on once a week, and in that small amount of time, kids are coming, and they’re coming back,” says Erica Branch-Ridley, supervising producer of Broadband. “And they’re definitely playing and watching, because our traffic has been so high.”
Exclusive Web Content
In addition to games and streaming video, the site also features Web-exclusive behind-the-scenes segments, cast interviews, outtakes, bloopers, and celebrity clips. And soon kids will be able to make their own videos using actual footage from the show.
“[One] great thing about the broadband site is that there’s a whole outreach kit that allows after-school providers to learn how to extend the experience with kids,” says Fowler. “We show you a ‘silent e’ music video and then you make your own! So kids are singing about their own sounds, whether they are mashing up the one we made or creating their own version, so it’s not this passive experience. You can be part of it.”
Fowler says The Electric Company brand aims to inspire kids to redefine the concept of cool.
“This show was not conceived as a show,” she explains. “It was conceived as a revolution in the playgrounds of America ... where it’s cool to be smart. Why not? Why can’t you sing about, ‘I have every possibility on the planet. I can be anything I wanna be?’ As Wyclef sings in our show, ‘You can be a doctor, a singer, a lawyer, a rapper, or the president of the United States.’
“The opportunity to redevelop this beloved brand has been an honor and a labor of love,” she adds. “You can’t make a revolution in one day, but we’re on the way. It’s a beginning.”
And what a beginning it is.
