Country of origin United States | No. of episodes 31 | |
Composer(s) Jimmie HaskellDick ElliotHenry Mancini ("The Groon") |
Curiosity Shop is an American children's educational television program produced by ABC-TV in 1971, capitalizing on the success of Sesame Street.
Contents
Sponsored by the Kellogg's cereal company, Curiosity Shop was broadcast Saturday mornings from September 11, 1971, to January 6, 1973. The program featured three inquisitive children (two boys and a girl) who each week visited a shop populated with various puppets and gadgets, discovering interesting things about science, nature and history. Each hour-long show covered a specific theme: clothing, music, dance, weather, the five senses, space, time, rules, flight, dolls, etc.
Talent
The executive producer was legendary animator Chuck Jones, who contributed two new animated characters to the show:
Noted screenwriter Irving Phillips provided some scripts and animation art for the show, including an animation of his long-running syndicated comic strip "The Strange World of Mr. Mum." Animations of Mell Lazarus's comic strip Miss Peach, Johnny Hart's comic strip The Wizard Of Id, Virgil Partch's cartoon Big George! and Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace were also presented on the show. Abraham "Abe" Levitow, late of Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Local 839, animated most of these short segments. Ray Bradbury is also credited as a writer for the show.
Henry Mancini composed the theme music of the program and its animated title sequence. Dean Elliott wrote other music for the show.
Actors
John Levin and Kerry McLane played Gerard and Ralph, the two boys. Alternating in the girl's role were Pamelyn Ferdin as Pam and Jerelyn Fields as Cindy.
Barbara Minkus made a regular appearance as Gittle, a witch who magically appeared whenever someone said a phrase that included "which."
Darwin, a chimpanzee, made his home in a treehouse on the show.
Eunice, a seal who lived in a waterbed — literally a water tank shaped like a bed.
Puppet characters
Created by Bob Baker (co-founder of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater in Los Angeles), the show's puppets included:
Inanimate characters
Voice-overs
Mel Blanc, June Foray, Bob Holt, Don Messick and Les Tremayne provided some of the character voices.
Guests
Guests on the program included:
Shirley Jones appeared on the show's pilot, "The Curiosity Shop Special," which featured all four children. It was on this pilot that the first song from Multiplication Rock, "Three Is a Magic Number," would make its debut.