Jump to content

Zoom (1972 TV series)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 67.62.36.37 (talk) at 23:45, 26 January 2007 (→Second Generation Version). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Zoom
File:Zoom logo.PNG
Created byChristopher Sarson (1972-1974)
Kate Taylor (1999-2005)
Starringsee cast below
Country of origin United States
No. of episodesunavailable
Production
Running time30 Minutes
Original release
NetworkPBS
ReleaseJanuary 3, 1972 –
1978;
January 4, 1999 –2005
File:Originalzoom.jpg
Opening from the original Zoom.

This article is about the children's educational TV show. For other uses, see Zoom.

ZOOM was an American educational television show, created almost entirely by children, which aired on PBS from January of 1972 to February of 1978. A new version of the show, also on PBS, premiered in 1999 and ended production in 2005. Both versions were produced by WGBH-TV in Boston. Christopher Sarson was ZOOM's creator and original producer (1972-1974).

ZOOM encouraged children to "turn off the TV and do it!" On the show, a rotating cast of seven kids (known as ZOOMers) performed various activities such as games, plays, poems, recipes, jokes, and science experiments, all suggested by viewer contributions. The performers in the original series were known for wearing striped rugby shirts, and for performing the show barefoot. 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!". There was also a language game on the show called Ubbi-Dubbi and another called Fannee Doolee.

ZOOM was a new kind of series when it premiered on January 3, 1972. Unlike other children's fare at the time, it was for the most part unscripted. Far from seeking to capitalize by making stars of the child actors, the contracts prohibited them from making any television appearances or doing commercials for three years after they left the show.

ZOOM was intended to inspire children to be active investigators, creators, and problem-solvers as well as introduce them to the principles of ethnic correctness. The show's ZOOMSci segment, for example, featured on the later incarnation, encouraged viewers to try the activities shown on ZOOM and to send in their results.

When ZOOM made a comeback in 1999, parents who had grown up watching the show could now share it with their own children, and found that it was very much the same as it had been in the 1970s. The theme song was similar, there was still Ubbi-Dubbi, and the ZOOMers continued to play games and perform skits suggested by other children. However, with the advent of the Internet, the "0-2-1-3-4" jingle was rarely sung, supplanted by one that emphasized "PBSKids, dot org!" Also, when reading aloud the names of contributors, the later version provided only first names and abbreviated surnames (e.g., "Paul T."), presumably as a compromise between crediting the children and meeting modern privacy expectations for child safety.

The show was last filmed during the summer of 2004, many episodes taking place off of the ZOOM set. The decision to cancel the show was largely due to falling ratings, with the last season's ratings down almost a fifth from the previous year. There is currently talk of putting ZOOM on either PBS Kids Sprout or a soon-to-be 24-hour digital PBS Kids Go! Channel.

The first ZOOM series lasted six seasons (1972–1978) and featured 49 ZOOMers. The second ZOOM series lasted seven seasons (1999–2005) and featured 32 ZOOMers. At the end of every season of the second series, cast members who had grown too old were replaced by new cast members.

Cast members

First Series (1972–1978)

(Source: IMDB)

  • First Season (Early 1972):
    • Joe, Jon, Nina, Tommy, Kenny, Nancy, Tracy
  • Second Season (1972-1973):
    • Cast 1: Kenny, Nancy, Tracy, Ann, David, Jay, Maura
    • Cast 2: Ann, David, Jay, Maura, Bernadette, Leon, Luiz
    • Cast 3: Bernadette, Leon, Luiz, Danny, Edith, Lori, Neal
  • Third Season (1973-1974):
    • Cast 1: Danny, Edith, Lori, Neal, Donna, Mike, Timmy
    • Cast 2: Donna, Mike, Timmy, Danny (II), Hector, Rose, Shawn
  • Fourth Season (1974-1975):
    • Andrae, Carmen, Cate, David (II), Harvey, Norman, Red, Tishy, Tommy (II), Tracey
      • (This was the only season that featured more than seven ZOOMers at one time)
  • Fifth Season (Late 1976):
    • Arcadio, Chris, Jennifer, Karen, Levell, Nell, Ron
  • Sixth Season (1977-1978):
    • Amy, Carolyn, Chee, John, Nicholas, Shona, Susan

Originally funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Ford Foundation and McDonald's, ZOOM lost its funding in 1975, after the end of the fourth season. It was off the air from the summer of 1975 until January of 1976, when it was brought back in reruns.

Some PBS stations continued to broadcast reruns of the series as late as early 1980.

Who They Exactly Are

Leon Mobley, from the 1972-1973 season of ZOOM

During the 1970s version of the series, WGBH never disclosed the ZOOMers' last names, which was likely part of the producers' policy of just using ordinary kids who would be likely to stay ordinary kids; this policy also included a contract, in which the ZOOMers would not appear on television for five years after leaving the show.

Listed below are some cast members' full names which have come to light in later years.

  • David Alberico (1972-73)
  • Nicholas Butterworth (1977-1978)
  • Mike Dean (1973-1974)
  • John Lathan (1977-1978)
  • Danny McGrath (1973-1974)
  • Leon Mobley (1972-1973)
  • Edith Mooers (1973-1974)
  • Maura Mullaney (1972-1973)
  • Harvey Reed (1974-1975)
  • Jon Reuning (1972)
  • Jay Schertzer (1972-1973)
  • Joe Schrand (1972)
  • Nancy Tates (1972)
  • Tommy White (1972)
  • Bernadette Yao (1972-1973)

Second Series (1999–2005)

File:Cookzoom.jpg
Claudio Cook, from ZOOM

Season 1 (1999): Lynese Browder, Keiko Yoshida, David Toropov, Zoe Costello, Pablo Velez, Jared Nathan, Alisa Besher.

Season 2 (2000): Caroline Botelho, Kenny Yates, Alisa Besher, Claudio Chris Creighton Cook, Jessie Ogungbadero, Ray McMoore, Zoe Costello.

Season 3 (2001): Kaleigh Cronin, Eric Rollins, Rachel Redd, Kenny Yates, Kevin "Buzz" Barrette, Caroline Botelho, Frances Domond

Season 4 (2002): Garrett DiBona, Estuardo Mazzu, Aline Ramirez, Caroline Botelho, Matt Runyon, Rachel Redd, Kaleigh Cronin.

Season 5 (2003): Garrett DiBona, Mike Hansen, Elena "Shing Ying" Shieh, Estuardo Mazzu, Kortney El-Savio, Aline Ramirez, Caroline Botelho.

Season 6 (2004): Kyle Larrow, Mike Hansen, Francesco Tena, Maya Morales, Elena "Shing Ying" Shieh, Kortney El-Savio, Cara Harvey.

Season 7 (2005): Kyle Larrow, Nick Henry, Taylor Garron, Francesco Tena, Noreen Raja, Emily Marshall, Elena "Shing Ying" Shieh.


Where are they now?

Theme song

1970s Version

(spoken)Cha cha cha, ZOOM!
Come on and zoom, zoom, zoom-a zoom!
We're gonna zoom-a, zoom-a, zoom-a zoom!
Everybody's movin' it, everybody's doin' it,
Everybody's writing the show, yeah!
So would you zoom, zoom, zoom-a zoom?
Come on and zoom-a zoom-a zoom-a zoom!
I'm (name of ZOOMer)!, etc.
Each introduction in the roll call is followed by a few quick slides of that particular ZOOMer in various poses (often in a silly fashion).
Who are you?
What do you do?
How are you?
Let's hear from you...
We need you!
We're gonna zoom, zoom zoom-a zoom!
Come on and zoom-a zoom-a zoom-a zoom!
Come on, give it a try,
We're gonna show you just why,
We're gonna teach you to fly high!
Come on and zoom!
Come on and zoom, zoom!
These last two lines were repeated until fading out. In the early seasons, after the kids left the stage in the closing credits, it was often replaced after a few times with an instrumental version.

Second Generation Version

Come on and Zoom, Come on and Zoom,
Come on and Zoom, Come on and Zoom,
Come on and Zoom, Zoom, Zoom-a, ZOOM!
ZOOM! ZOOM! ZOOM!
Come on and Zoom, You call the tune,
Come on and Zoom, We're starting soon,
Come and Zoom-a, Zoom-a, Zoom-a, ZOOM!
ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM,
I'm (Zoomer's name)
We're all plugged into one world now
So let's talk, we want to hear from you
Come on give it a try!
And if you like what you see, turn off your TV,
AND DO IT!
ZOOM (x5)
Come on and Zoom, Come on and Zoom,
Come on and Zoom, Zoom, Zoom-a, Zoom
Come on and Zoom, Come on and Zoom
Come on and Zoom-a, Zoom-a, Zoom-a, Zoom!
ZOOM!

The seventh season had a totally different format for the song and opening credits.

Trivia

File:ZAPWizards.png
A shot from the music video for π.
  • In the Hard 'n Phirm music video for their song π, they parody ZOOM in a program called ZAP. The kids are named Dabir, Jessica, Steve, Susan, and twins Hector & Diego. The show is produced by "WHNP" (whose logo is a clear take-off on WGBH's famous "outline" logo) and is "funded by a grant from the Windsor Pneumatics Foundation". In the video, two unidentified wizards watch the kids do increasingly more bizarre activities, including spinning around on a mop and pretending to kill each other. A phony-looking robot appears, which leaves them enraptured. Near the end of the video, the kids and the robot confront the wizards, who vaporize Steve, Hector, and Diego with laser beams. Jessica reflects one of their lasers back with a mirror, and the robot destroys the other wizard. The three remaining kids are shrunken, and they jump into a portal in the wizard's book.
  • In a rare (for the time) cross-PBS parody, The Electric Company had a sketch called "BOOM", featuring the Electric Company cast in striped turtlenecks on a mockup of the ZOOM set. "BOOM" was intentionally less polished than most Electric Company sketches, to poke fun at ZOOMs unscripted format.
  • Similarly, SCTV had a regular segment called "Pre-Teen World" which featured the SCTV cast pretending to be preteens who were improvising a television program they wrote and produced themselves. Often, the 'unscripted' segments would turn into disasters as real life turned out to be less cheerful than the kids implied. This was largely a parody of ZOOM (including a parody of the 0-2-1-3-4 jingle) and similar local programs.
  • Taylor is the only ZOOMer to also be on ZOOM's "successor show" FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman.
  • ZOOM produced two specials about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. One is called ZOOM: America's Kids Respond; the second was called ZOOM: America's Kids Remember.
  • Frances is the daughter of old time ZOOMer Leon Mobley.
  • Frances and Rachel are step-sisters.
  • ZOOMers are paid $15,000 a season.
  • On the first season of the second series of ZOOM, Aaron Carter appears as a ZOOM guest.
  • In 1974, A&M Records released an album of songs from the show entitled ZOOM. The master number for the album was SP-3402.
  • There were also at least two books published for children that were based on the 1970s ZOOM series -- the first book, The ZOOM Catalog (published by Random House in 1972), featured the best stories and activities from the show; the second book, Do a ZOOMdo (published by Little Brown in 1975) featured activities from the show. As always, all material in these books were submitted by the viewers.
  • In the 1990s version, Caroline Botelho was in 4 seasons (2-5), the longest any Zoomer of either version has been on the show. Second is Shing Ying from seasons 5-7.
  • Second Series Season one cast member Jared Nathan, was killed in a car crash in late December of 2006. He was 21. (see above)

ARTICLES

MEDIA

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Zoom_(1972_TV_series)&oldid=103494318"