The Big Blue Marble

What happened to this kind of programming? I loved this show as a child! If you happened to be a kid, stuck at home with a cold, and all the cartoons went off about 9am (pre-cable, pre-cartoon network) you could always flip to PBS and find shows like this one. The Big Blue Marble was an excellent educational program filled with stories about children all over the world. There was also the occasional serial that was so interesting that you hoped to be able to stay home the next day to see how it turned out (pre-vcr). It would be so delightful if PBS could run some of these old programs. Good entertainment and learning is never outdated. I'm sure that children could get as much from this show today as we did years ago.

The early shows was a bit faster paced then the shows that was made later in the 1970s. The first shows had up to 5 segments with short animated clips to intro the segments. in between the segments there was short comedy clips that showed kids at play. The skits didn't needed to be translated into other languages, unlike the main segments. A few of the clips i seen in the early shows (1974-78) stood out over the years. Some of the clips showed the kids reaction to what is happening around them, Such as one clip which showed a gumball machine blowing a bubble after a girl put her coin into the machine. Another clip showed a boy at the foul line about to bowl at the beginning of the skit and at the end of the skit looking like he was about to enter into the bowling pinsetter after he gets pulled over the foul line by his ball for a strike (this was the skit i always imagined myself being the kid in as a boy If anyone remember that skit, did the pin-sweep ever drop down behind the boy when the skit ended, or was it something i always imagine happening after the skit ended?). There was dozens of other skits that aired in the early shows including "if Kids Ruled the World."

I loved Episode #038, entitled "Witch's Sister," as a child. It was just the right blend of hokey and scary. Very well executed. Halloween was always my favorite holiday, and that movie would always set just the right mood. I especially loved the dream sequence in black and white where Judith is dancing through a graveyard amongst the tombstones. I was about the same age as the main character, Lynn, and I wished that I could have creepy adventures like the ones she and her best friend, Mouse, had. The spooky old house. The eerie neighbor woman. The mysterious and very attractive young man who's been coaxed out of his watery grave. What more could a budding young girl with an overactive imagination ask for? I, too, wish that these selections would be brought back so that they can be enjoyed again, even if by no one else other than myself.

May sound incredibly 'hokey', but who cares. Seriously though.....my memories of this show are fairly scattered. For the mid-70's, the cinematography and ground effects were amazing. They took you to all corners of the universe--similar to todays HISTORY and DISCOVERY channels. Only this show WAS universal for its time. You never knew one week to the next if you'd visit Singapore, Bangladesh, Albania, etc. And that was just the beginning. There were several mini-series' and other specials aired....'The Witch's Sister', most profoundly. For 1979, it is probably the most remembered. And Witch's Sister became so popular BBM actually re-aired it a few more times. The ending (and beginning) tags really highlighted the post-racial overtones of brother/sisterhood, reminding us that we all live under the same sky, same God.

Peanut