3-2-1 Contact
Categories: 1980s TV shows in the United States | 1990s TV shows in the United States | Children's television series | PBS network shows | Children's magazines | Sesame Workshop
Contents |
History
3-2-1 Contact was the brainchild of Samuel Y. Gibbon, Jr., who had produced The Electric Company for CTW in 1971-77. Gibbon left CTW before production began, though. The first season of 65 programs began airing January 14, 1980 on select PBS affiliates. Funds for a second season were not sufficient until 1982. By then, 3-2-1 Contact was reformatted. Ozzie Alfonso was its new director and Al Hyslop its executive producer. When production resumed for the second season (first aired October 17, 1983), the show entered a more reality-based feel. The new cast convened at a suburban basement (these segments were shot at Reeves Teletape, which also housed Sesame Street at the time). New episodes continued to be produced through 1988. For a time in the mid '80s, the program was coproduced with the French television network FR3 and featured several new French cast members in addition to the American cast.
Title Song
The lyrics of the 3-2-1 Contact theme, composed by Tom Anthony, are rarely listed correctly online:
- Three, two, one /
- Contact /
- Is the secret /
- Is the moment /
- When everything happens /
- Contact /
- Is the answer /
- Is the reason /
- Why everything happens /
- Contact /
- Let's make contact /
- Three, two, one, [four quick drum beats] contact!
The music group Vagenius has a song, "Educated Fool", that quotes the lyrics of the 3-2-1 Contact theme in a modified form ("But contact / Is the reason / Is the moment / When everything happens / Why do I break my back to make contact with you?").
Hosts
Hosts of 3-2-1 Contact usually spanned one to four years on the show:
- Liz Moses as Lisa (1980)
- Leon W. Grant as Marc (1980)
- Ginny Ortiz as Trini (1980)
- Liz Gorcey as Jackie (field segments, 1983)
- Kelly Pino as Kathy (1983-85)
- Frank Gomez as Miguel (1983-86)
- Benjamin H. Carlin as Paco (1983-86)
- Judy Leak as Robin (1983-86)
- Manny Mendiola as Diego (1985-86)
- Tannis Vallely as Mary (1985-86)
- Candida Romero as Monique (1986)
- Abigael Maryan as Chantal (1986)
- Ericka Pazcoguin as Maggie (1986-87)
And as themselves:
- Mary Lopez (1986)
- David Drach (1986-87)
- David Quinn (1986-88)
- Debra Allison Shapiro (1986-88)
- Todd A. Rolle (1986-88)
- Hopey Fitzpatrick (1987-88)
- Stephanie Yu (1987-88)
The Bloodhound Gang
One common segment at the end of each show was The Bloodhound Gang, a group of junior detectives who used science to solve crimes. Episodes of the series needed to be run in regular sequence for understandable viewing, as each "episode" of Bloodhound Gang would be regularly cut between 4 and 5 Contact episodes with very little explanation to the viewer as to what had previously happened (unlike the similar Mathnet segments on Square One TV, which featured recaps after the main character's "Monday, 9:43am" routine at the beginning of each installment).
The Magazine
The show spawned a print magazine of the same name that also focused on science. In the late 1980s, the magazine absorbed some of the content of sibling publication Enter, which included computer programs written in the BASIC computer language, submitted by readers. Later, it occasionally featured content from Square One television as well, another CTW production. Such content frequently took the form of a two-page comic strip, often parodying a popular show or movie of the time, with a math-related question at the end.
The Bloodhound Gang stories also made the leap to the magazine, but were subsequently replaced with a series of mostly self-contained stories entitled The Time Team (starting in September 1990). These stories found teenage characters Sean Nolan and Jenny Lopez travelling to different time periods (past and future). Their surroundings and personal encounters were described with great detail, educating readers as to the customs of various cultures throughout history.
The Time Team was replaced by a comic serial, Cosmic Crew, in 1996, focusing on the adventures of a group of teenagers (and their robot butler) in space. Their first story arc (which ran for more than a year) had them trying to figure out a series of riddles relating to places in the solar system, while fending off many villains, to claim a treasure (which turned out to be a scholarship fund). Another story arc had a delinquent who had been a villain in the first arc join them in order to chase down a gang of other delinquents. Despite being effectively replaced, a few The Time Team stories were run whenever there were gaps between installments of Cosmic Crew.
Many of the magazine's cover stories involved current events, such as 1990's oil fires in the Middle East (featured in October 1991). Also, there was a games section, in which most of the games were related to the stories inside the issue.
In 1996, CTW presumably concluded that faithful readers from the late 80s and early 90s had long since moved on, and the magazine began to reprint non-time-sensitive stories from years past. For example, a 1991 article on the geography of the Galápagos Islands -- an unchanging subject -- could very well re-appear in an identical format a half a decade later.
Under Sesame Workshop the magazine later became Contact Kids, removing the original reference to the television show. Production of the magazine was suspended indefinitely in 2001.
After Production
Though the show went off the air in 1992, it appeared in reruns from 1999 to 2003 on the cable television network Noggin, then a joint venture of CTW and Nickelodeon. Occasionally, shows were also rerun on Nickelodeon's "Cable in the Classroom" time period. For all these Nickelodeon and Noggin airings, the series was rated TV-Y7 (possibly due to the target audience).