ZOOM (1972)

***Zoom*** is a American children's educational television series produced by WGBH Boston and PBS which ran from 4 January 1972 until 11 March 1978, with repeats shown until 14 October 1979. It was created by Julie Aigner-Clark and Christopher Clark and was aimed at elementary children. Each programme followed a broad theme and consisted of songs, stories and activities with the Zoomers in the studio, along with a short film.

The programme spawned numerous spin-offs in various countries and involved a large number of Zoomers and musicians during its run. Despite a revamp in 1975 *Zoom* maintained the same basic formula throughout its 7-year history, but changes to PBS' children's output led to the programme's cancellation in 1978, when it was replaced by *3-2-1 Contact*.

## History

*Zoom* originally appeared on weekdays at 11 am on PBS and receiving Holiday runs on PBS in Summer 1973 and 1974 later acquiring a mid-afternoon PBS repeat as the opening programme of PBS' teatime children's schedule. The morning showing was transferred to PBS in September 1975 when PBS Schools programming transferred to PBS. It remained in that slot even after daytime television was launched in October 1976 and continued to be broadcast at that time until it was superseded in October 1978 by *3-2-1 Contact*.

When PBS scrapped the afternoon edition of *Zoom* in April 1976, to make way for a variety of children's programmes in the afternoon, a Sunday morning compilation was launched called *Come on and Zoom*.

There were several opening sequences for *Zoom* during its run, the first being "Come on and Zoom Zoom Zooma Zoom, come on and Zooma Zooma Zooma Zoom" later in 1976 "Come on and Zoom there's room for all, we're gonna sing and dance and have a ball)

Unlike earlier PBS programmes aimed at children, *Zoom* featured real presenters who spoke directly to their audience.

## Contents

*Zoom* encouraged children to "turn off the TV and do it!" On the show, a cast of seven kids (ten in Season 4) known as Zoomers presented various activities such as games, plays, poems, recipes, jokes, songs, movies, science experiments, and informal chats on subjects such as hospitals, prejudice, etc., all suggested by viewer contributions. These activities were introduced by such titles as Zoomovie, Zoom Play of the Week, Zoomrap (later Zoomchat), Zoomgame, Zoomdo, Zoomgoody, Zoomphenomenon, etc.

The mail-in request became a pop culture reference for its musical exhortation to "Write *Zoom*, Z-double-O-M, Box 3-5-0, Boston, Mass 0-2-1-3-4: send it to *Zoom*!". The lines were mostly spoken, but the ZIP code was sung.

The program featured its own language, Ubbi-Dubbi, where the syllable "ub" was added before each vowel sound in each syllable of each word ("H-ub-i, fr-ub-iends," etc.). For the first two seasons, a word game called "Fannee Doolee" was featured, in which a series of statements about the titular character were presented to the audience without further explanation (e.g., "Fannee Doolee likes sweets, but hates candy"). It was eventually revealed that Fannee Doolee loved all words with double letters and hated all words without them.

Each show had one or two Zoomguest sequences, short film documentaries about children with special talents (singing, tap-dancing, instrument-making, etc.) or interesting hobbies or jobs. The premiere episode featured a boy who built a boat by making a ring of sticks and twigs and covering them with a tarpaulin.

In the show's first two seasons, Tracy hosted a "Tracy Asks..." sequence in which she asked a question, e.g., "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" or "What is the world's longest word?", and local children were filmed giving their answers. The first season had "quickie" comedy routines modeled after *Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.*

The performers in the original series were known for wearing striped rugby shirts and jeans.

The first *Zoom* series lasted six seasons (1972–1978) and featured 49 Zoomers. During the first three seasons, cast members were transitioned with a catchy production number that introduced the new cast members to the continuing cast members. The same song was used for each transition ("How do ya do do-dee-do, how do ya do-dee-do-dee-do, how's your sister, how's your brother, how are you?"). In the last three seasons, entirely new casts were used.

Several episodes were available with captions for the hearing-impaired.

One episode from Season 4 featured the cast of fellow PBS show, *The Electric Company*. Jim Boyd, Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman, Luis Avalos, and Skip Hinnant all made appearances. Moreno was nominated for an Emmy Award for a guest appearance in this episode.

In a similar episode, Mr. Rogers guest starred.

## Reboots and Adaptations

*Zoom* was acquired by Kate Taylor of WGBH in the late 1990s, and was then followed by local production. The newer version has been produced since 1999. Similarly there was a version airing from 1988 to 1989.

Other countries including Israel (2007), Korea (2014-2015), and Spain were provided with scripts and film segments so they could produce their own versions.

## Zoomers

* Joe Shrand
* Nina Lillie
* Kenny Pires
* Tracy Tannebring
* Tommy White
* Nancy Tates
* Jon Reuning
* Maura Mullaney
* Ann Messer
* David Alberico
* Jay Schertzer
* Luiz Gonzales
* Bernadette Yao
* Leon Mobley
* Edith Mooers
* Lori Boskin
* Danny McGrath
* Neal Johnson
* Mike Dean
* Donna Moore
* Timmy Pruce
* Lori Boskin
* Rose Clarkow
* Hector Dorta
* Donna Moore
* Timmy Pruce
* Shawna "Shawn" Miranda
* Danny Malloy
* Harvey Reed
* Tishy Flaherty
* David "Red" O'Brien
* Cate Wadsworth
* Norman Christian
* Tracey Dunlap
* Tommy Schultz
* Carmen Hernandez
* David Azzoto
* Andrae Neilsan
* Chris Blackwell
* Jennifer Gold
* Ron Richmond
* Arcadio Gonzales
* Karen Wing
* Levell Gethers
* Nell Cox
* Amy Clark
* John Lathan
* Carolyn Malcolm
* Nicholas Butterworth
* Shona de Nile
* Chee Kim
* Susan Wolf

In many cases five programmes would be produced in the space of two days, with one day of rehearsal and one day of recording.