Read All About It

I remember watching it in 8th grade; the year was 1989 and not in a reading class. My history class. We watched it because my teacher was just slack like that. But I really enjoyed the show.

Out of the blue a few weeks ago, I thought about "Read All About It". It's interesting in the 80s that a lot of the educational shows on American PBS were Canadian shows. But I have to admit, they were cool.

And there's this other sci-fi-type PBS show about reading that was American way. The main character is a librarian and something kind of catastrophe was about to happen, but a mysterious man puts her in some kind of deep sleep/suspended animation and then centuries later, she is awaken to a future Earth. It's kins like a strange mixture of "Escape from New York", "The Warriors" and a few other movies together. I can't think of the name of the show.

Man oh man, I can't believe I'm actually gonna comment of this! Welp, here it goes. I remember one summer day during 1979 that the first pilot aired for Read All about It! The original cast was much older with the exception of the boy and possibly the girl too who carried over into the eventual series itself. I recall a young teen being trapped in time, always on the run and not exactly sure of his whereabouts. This was where his friends would haplessly look through the monitor of him running for his life, trying to deduce where geographically and which era historically he was trapped in.

It was captivating! It had all the makings of a cool detective show and sure enough, the final product hit the airwaves a short time after. There must be a list of all the TV Ontario programming and cast lists to their incredible array of educational shows. All us Generation X'ers would be interested to read a possible 'Where are they now?' section just for fun. Too bad kids nowadays don't have half the quality shows we had back in the late 70's/early 80's. They're missing out on some of the most insightful educational shows in quite a while.

Hey:

This is the TV show that I'll credit for getting me into a career in journalism. I mean, growing up in a small Ontario town, it seemed obvious that being involved in a newspaper was a way to hang out with not one, but two (two!) brainy cute girls. Man, I had the biggest crushes on Lynne (whom I thought was short for Lyndsey for some reason -- it might come up in the show) and Sam. I mean, really, what more could a 10-year-old want other than two hot, brainy chicks with a penchant for gossip, a coach house, two robots and a desklamp that teleported you into another world full of psych-out flashing lights and an evil floating head -- and a damn creepy evil floating head at that? I mean, Cripes, there's enough imagery here to fill an entire album's worth of Meat Puppet songs.

For starters, I do remember very well that the first six episodes were produced/broadcast in 1979, and the remainder hit the air in 1980 -- *not* 1981. It should say so in the copyright information at the very end of each episode. I remember seeing the fifth or sixth episode as a small kid when it first aired. But then, circa 1984-85, I remember that I came across the listing for this show in some teacher's handguide and managed to twist the arm of my fourth Grade teacher into obtaining video tapes of the show from the Ministry of Education. We got to see an episode every second day, or something like that. Anyhow, needless to say, I briefly went from being a geek to a cool-ass kid in my class simply for making the recommendation.

There was, of course, a sequel. But we never got to see that. I think I'd given my teacher headaches from watching this weird little show.

I don't really remember a lot of this -- except that the girls were cute and that the adult cast had doppelgangers in the other universe (Trialveron or something like that). I'd personally give my left arm to see this again. I can only worry that this show was actually better in the day, and wouldn't hold up now. Even though I haven't really thought about this show in 15 years, I can say this: if anyone involved in the show ever reads this, know that you're responsible for at least one journalist. And one who writes wacky fiction on the side. Thanks a bundle. The cult may be small, but this show really needs a nostalgic Web site.

Yours, Zachary Houle

A horror TV series that's completely educational? Lol. Only in Canada! Read All About It (1979 – 1983) is a science-fiction fantasy television series for children. It is a 2 season series and is placed in the town of Herbertville. It is about a coach house where a young boy, Chris' uncle mysteriously disappears leaving behind not only the coach house but two artificial intelligence robots including Theta and Otto. Theta is a computer that can communicate through talking via an integrated monitor and Otto is a device that can communicate by having his thoughts outputted on paper. A teleportation device is also discovered that can transport Chris and his friends to the planet Trialveron. Chris and his friends set up a newspaper called The Herbertville Chronicle and use the coach house as headquarters while unearthing an alien plot to destroy earth.

Read All About it was produced by TV Ontario and is a Canadian Educational Film. Each episodes is about 13 minutes in length and the series focuses on the main theme of encouraging viewers to read and write and think for themselves. Cast includes Craig Collard, Lydia Zajc, Stacey Arnold and Sean Hewitt. Michael Dwyer came on crew for the second season. The series is scary, fun and highly educational. I've re-watched the entire series recently as an adult, and it's still just as delightful.

The show really sticks out in my memories. That creepy clown with the organ?! I hope somebody can remind me what she had to do with the show. I do remember one episode where someone was sucking all the words out of books and it was in some creepy cave. Duneedon's head floating above that table/desk thing, Theta's creepy voice.

I'm glad someone reminded me about Sam, because Lynn and the boy are all I remembered, I think there was another kid in the second season, too. I think he was black and he was in the episodes at Fort York where some time travelling was involved. Dont forget that crossword they had in the clubhouse, and at the end of each episode they would write in another word with a black magic marker. Where do you get crosswords that large, anyway