Toast

Family man Jim Anderson copes with the everyday problems among his wife Margaret and their three children as they experience day-to-day changes.

The Electric Company is an educational American children's television series that was produced by the Children's Television Workshop for PBS in the United States. PBS broadcast 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971 to April 15, 1977. After it ceased production that year, the program continued in reruns from 1977 to 1985, the result of a decision made in 1975 to produce two final seasons for perpetual use. CTW produced the show at Teletape Studios Second Stage in Manhattan, the first home of Sesame Street. The Electric Company employed sketch comedy and other devices to provide an entertaining program to help elementary school children develop their grammar and reading skills. It was intended for children who had graduated from CTW's flagship program, Sesame Street. Appropriately, the humor was more mature than what was seen there.

Outgoing 13-year-old Sydney is on the fast track to growing up, despite the goodhearted efforts of her protective father, Max. As Sydney attempts to spread her wings and make more decisions for herself, Max does everything he can to rein her in and keep her his little girl. But in so doing, his mother, Judy, is reminded of his own antics at Sydney's age, and the parallels -- illustrated by comical flashback sequences starring a young Max -- are both amusing and enlightening.

A widower and aeronautical engineer named Steven Douglas raises three sons with the help of his father-in-law, and later the boys' great-uncle. An adopted son, a stepdaughter, wives, and another generation of sons join the loving family in later seasons.