| Readalong | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Children’s reading television |
| Written by | Ken Sobol |
| Directed by | Jeremy Pollock |
| Voices of |
|
| Music by | Eric Robertson |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 90 |
| Production | |
| Producers | Jeremy Pollock Chris Homer Peter McLean |
| Production locations | Toronto, Ontario, Canada (filming) |
| Running time | 10 minutes |
| Production company | The Ontario Educational Communications Authority |
| Original release | |
| Release | 1975 (1975) – 1979 (1979) |
| Related | |
| Polka Dot Door | |
Readalong is an educationalCanadian television program for young children, first produced in 1975 forTVOntario. A total of 90 episodes were produced, each about 10 minutes in length. The first set of 30 shows were produced in 1975 and 1976, and focused on simple word recognition. The next 30 were produced in 1977, and began to incorporate more sophisticated reading skills. The final 30 episodes were produced in 1979, and had segments that focused on reading full sentences. The show was seen throughout Canada on various provincial educational networks, and throughout the United States on variousPBS affiliates. Episodes continued to air in some markets through the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
The program taught fundamentals ofreading with the help of live child actors (who changed frequently),puppets, and animated interstitial segments. The show was hosted by a cheerful talking boot named Boot, voiced byJack Duffy. Another puppet character included from the very beginning was a comically dressed and sometimes gently befuddled grandmother figure named Granny, voiced byMax Ferguson. Other puppets were gradually added to the mix, most notably a pink, self-confident female shoe named Miss Pretty, voiced by Julie Amato. Other puppet characters that appeared over the years included Mister Bones (a skeleton), the Explorer (a chipper old-fashioned British adventurer), House (an anthropomorphic house, always seen from the front; its two upper windows were its 'eyes', and its front door served as its 'mouth'), and the Thing (a furry, bucktoothed monster-ish creature that spoke only in grunts). All were voiced by Ferguson and Duffy. Amato also voiced a female auto racing boot named Dynamite Dinah.
The program was a marketing hit for TVOntario and had strong international sales lasting many years.
The Granny, Boot, and Pretty puppets are now housed at theCanadian Museum of History.Noreen Young, who designed the puppets, also created puppets for other programs, includingUnder the Umbrella Tree. The characters were developed by Ken Sobol, who also wrote all the scripts for the series. The show's music was composed byEric Robertson.
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
 | This article about a children's television show originating in Canada is astub. You can help Wikipedia byadding missing information. |
