For those of you who don’t remember The Electric Company, it was an educational show that ran on PBS from the mid 1970′s through the early 1980′s. The show was designed to teach elementary school children about reading comprehension, which it accomplished through a series of sketches, cartoons, and musical numbers.
This particular clip was designed to teach us two things:
- The word “can” is found in both “candy” and “candles.”
- Birthday cake candles are actually composed of delicious candy, made by tiny dancing elves in orange polyester suits.
Okay, so maybe tiny dancing elves in orange polyester suits don’t make birthday cake candles, and maybe candles aren’t made of delicious candy, but so what? There are people dancing on a cake! Singing about candy! Atop a clown tablecloth! Singing a song that includes a background chorus of mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm, and lyrics like: “Most candles aren’t for eating, they’re only wax and wick, but you can eat our candles, ’cause candy is a stick, oh!”
Oh, Electric Company, how you are missed. Your inCANdescent light may have been shut off, but your legacy lives on, in this, the greatest musical number of all time.
