The Electric Company - Closing Credits

Closing Credits

Each show ended with one of the cast members announcing, "The Electric Company gets its power from the Children's Television Workshop." After the copyright notice, the list of corporate sponsors would be flashed on the screen. Starting in 1973, and changing with each new season, an instrumental version of the show's theme played beneath the narration; prior to this, a specific musical score played during the corporate credits.

The corporate sponsors, which included such entities as the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, were flashed one, two, or often three at a time during seasons one through five and scrolled during season six.

Corporate credits for all seasons:

• "Production funding for The Electric Company is provided by the Bureau of Libraries and Educational Technology, the National Center for Educational Technology, the United States Office of Education, Mobil Oil Corporation, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, PBS-Affiliated Stations (or Public Television Stations), unrestricted general program grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Ford Foundation, and by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York."

The donors in the above list would vary by season.

As with most PBS children's-related programming produced by Children's Television Workshop, The Electric Company featured closing credits along with a full-length version of the same music that played over the corporate credits list on Friday episodes. The corporate credits, however, appeared daily.

The video that played beneath the scrolling list of credits changed from season to season and were as follows:

• Season One: Skip Hinnant in his Love of Chair character, sitting completely still or doing some other action (such as sleeping). Beginning circa Episode 40, the music changed from a full-length instrumental specific to the corporate credits to an upbeat, marching band-type instrumental version of the show's theme. The second theme ended with crashing sound effects, momentarily startling the boy from his sleep.
• Season Two: Cast members entering the room one-by-one. The Short Circus, dressed in marching-band uniforms, entered the room first, followed by dual versions of the adults (each actor in dual roles), who entered as him/herself along with the character he/she is most noted for playing (Morgan Freeman entering both as himself and Easy Reader). At the end of this sequence, the last one in the room would close the door, and the picture would break up in pieces and crash down. Other times, a hammer would appear in the bottom right of the screen and hit it, causing the same type of breakage. The same instrumental theme from the later Season One episodes was used.
• Season Three: Begins with the Short Circus playing its musical instruments over a chroma key, then walking off as they dance to the beat of the music. About midway through came a montage of clips from various skits, capped with a clip of Paul the Gorilla dancing across the screen. The theme was rescored, with more of a rock feel thanks to a prominently-heard electric guitar. The corporate credits theme was a hybrid of the Friday credits theme (the first part) and a slower-tempo instrumental version of the opening theme (for the second half).
• Season Four: Not featured on any of the episodes that aired on Noggin or either of the DVD sets but can be seen at the end of Episode 475 (available at the iTunes Store). Spider-Man’s hand opens a special Spidey Super Stories comic book in which the show’s logo is seen on the first open page. The hand turns the page, which reveals four panes that contain montages of several clips from the show. In the upper right panel, animation from the song "Silent E" is interspersed with the message Reading can be fun. The hand turns the page again, and a collage of the people involved in the production is revealed that looks like comic-book art. Four panels are seen, and the camera moves in a clockwise motion so that all of the frames can be seen in close-up. Finally, Spider-Man's hand closes the comic book. This closure was also used as a 30-second promo for PBS stations with Jim Boyd (as J. Arthur Crank) doing the voice-over. A rescore of the theme was made, changing the genre from rock to uptempo jazz music.
• Season Five: Filmed clips of the Short Circus along with focus-group clips from an elementary school and behind-the-scenes action from the Teletape production studio. Another rescore of the theme could be heard, another jazz-style arrangement, somewhat louder than the 1974-75 version; it was played at a slower tempo for the corporate credits. This sequence was used as the opening of a 1975 documentary on the success of the series in schools that was included in The Best of The Electric Company Volume 2 DVD boxed set; however, the music from the show's opening was used for the documentary.
• Season Six: Clips from classic skits, sometimes tied together (such as sneezing, people coping with high wind gusts, water, using the telephone, etc.). Once again, the theme was rescored, this time using a prominently heard Moog synthesizer leading the acoustic instruments, and the rhythm cut to half-time.