'THE BEST OF THE ELECTRIC COMPANY'

(SHOUT! FACTORY)

Public television took a bold leap in the fall of 1971 with the debut of "The Electric Company." Like "Sesame Street," it combined learning with entertainment, sketches with animation, but the pace of this half-hour show took a slightly different track, packaging reading lessons in comedy shtick and Motown grooves.

"The Electric Company" was produced through 1977, although reruns continued to air on PBS until 1985. The cast included veteran actress Rita Moreno, Bill Cosby (for one season) and a then-unknown actor named Morgan Freeman, best known for his hip character Easy Reader. Irene Cara, several years before she found "Fame" and "Flashdance (What a Feelin')," sang for a season in the Short Circus, the show's tween rock band. Mel Brooks lent his voice to an animated curmudgeon who let fly one of the show's signature quips: "Who's the dummy writing this show?" Another cartoon, "The Adventures of Letterman" featured original "Producers" Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel voicing the titular hero and his nemesis the Spell Binder, respectively; Joan Rivers handled narration. With musical satirist Tom Lehrer penning songs like "Silent E," the show couldn't miss.

This four-disc set compiles 20 complete shows, including the premiere episode. Although the sets look relatively primitive and the swirling graphics of the early episodes are extremely low tech, the cast and the often satirical slant of the writing still holds up. Granted, this is a kids' show that pushes reading skills, but when Fargo North, Decoder (Skip Hinnant) shows up and swaps lines with a Groucho Marx-style character named Dr. Doolats (Luis Avalos), it's clear the material never condescended to the audience. Several episodes feature the famous segments where two silhouetted faces phonetically pronounce words. Also present is the recurring "2001: A Space Odyssey" homage, in which the space monolith crumbles to reveal a sound cluster (like "oo") while "Also Sprach Zarathustra" blares away. Only the live-action Spider-Man sequences seem to have lost their bite.

As bonus features, Moreno and June Angela, the only Short Circus mainstay through the show's run, offer some insight into the show's creation. Joan Ganz Cooney, co-founder of the Children's Television Workshop and a show creator, appears in one bonus segment that is as slow as the show is fast; a couple of the show's writers also give rambling recollections. Better is a quick outtakes segment that illuminates Moreno's story about the cast's tendency to get a bit off-color when the kiddies weren't around.

New this week:

"Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" ( ): The duo from the animated shorts make the leap to a feature film in this tale about a mysterious marauder that wreaks havoc as a giant veggie competition nears. In the age of computer animation, stop-action claymation could come across as archaic and low-tech. But in the hands, literally, of animator and co-director Nick Park, the technique brings great character to the characters.

"Elizabethtown" ( ): Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst star in this Cameron Crowe film about an unexpected romance that develops against the backdrop of a Kentucky patriarch's hilariously elaborate memorial. "Elizabethtown" is a lovely, music-soaked road trip that is a valentine to America, although it gets lost in the middle.

"Zathura" ( ): Chris Van Allsburg ("The Polar Express") wrote the book that inspired this movie about two brothers propelled into space while playing a mysterious game. Unless they finish the game and reach the planet Zathura, they'll be trapped in outer space forever. In the hands of director Jon Favreau, it's a serviceable family film but not a particularly memorable one.

"Doom" ( ): Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Karl Urban star in this sci-fi adventure, about research on Mars that has unleashed nightmarish creatures, inspired by the popular video game "Doom 3." In the end, it's all about the body count. Characters are picked off one by one, and some even get to die more than once.

"Just Like Heaven" ( ): Mark Ruffalo rents a quaint San Francisco apartment and discovers the previous resident, played by Reese Witherspoon, won't vacate the premises. He's convinced she's a ghost, while she believes she's still alive. It's a sweetly romantic dromedy for tweens and teens -- the proverbial "date flick," if ever there were one -- with at least a ghost of a chance of entertaining crotchety adults, as well.

"MirrorMask" ( ): A 15-year-old girl who works for her family's circus but who wishes she could run away and join normal life finds herself in the Dark Lands, searching for the object that will allow her to return home. This phantasmagorically creative, sophisticated mummer's tale is not to be missed by the adventurous.

"Waiting ..." ( ): Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Justin Long star in this comedy about young employees battling boredom at a generic chain restaurant. It will make you lose your appetite for food, and maybe even movies.

Kids: "Bambi II," direct-to-DVD sequel.

Special: "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (Anniversary Edition); "13 Going on 30" (Fun & Flirty Edition); "The French Connection" (Collector's Edition); The Richard Pryor Collection.

TV on DVD: "The Batman," season 1; "Blue Collar TV," season 1; "Emergency!," season 2; "Grounded for Life," season 1; "Growing Pains," season 1; "Moonlighting," season 3; "Poltergeist: The Legacy," season 1; "Sex and the City Essentials"; "The Simpsons: Kiss and Tell -- The Story of Their Love"; "Survivor: Pearl Islands Panama"; "Teen Titans," season 1; "Touched by an Angel," season 3.

Star ratings are based on the Post-Gazette reviews during theatrical release.