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Do you remember the Seventies children's show ZOOM?
Move over, Gen Z — these are the original "ZOOMers".
Dubo yuboubu ubunduberstuband thubis?
If you grew up watching PBS in the Seventies, you just might. That's Ubbi Dubbi, a language from the hit 1972 kids' show ZOOM. You add an "ub" before vowel sounds in words, instantly making a secret code that's easy to grasp, but difficult to master.
While the show only ran for six seasons, it had an earnest appeal that earned it better Neilsen numbers than even that titan of children's television, Sesame Street. ZOOM was one of those rare educational shows for children that didn't make them feel preached at or talked down to, and the cast felt like genuine friends you may know from the neighborhood.
Part of that was because the producers of ZOOM took great care to make sure that these kids didn't turn into overnight celebrities — that wasn't what ZOOM was about. Seven to ten pre-teen cast members, only going by their first names, rotated out every six months or so. Sometimes they would keep a few cast members from the previous season around to guide the new cast, but nobody stuck around more than a few seasons, so kids could still go to school and have a normal childhood.
In fact, cast members on ZOOM had to sign a contract saying that they wouldn't appear in commercials for a few years after their time on ZOOM in an effort to keep kids — well, kids, and not celebrities.
The cast, referred to as ZOOMers, would play games, read plays, present recipes, do science experiments, riff on modern culture and more, all suggested by some of the roughly 10,000 letters sent in weekly from children watching at home. One notable story was sent in and read, written by a young writer in New York City about a dragon with multicolored eyes... and that writer would grow up to become New York Times bestseller and MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient, Jonathan Lethem.
The series was cancelled for lack of funding in 1978. A 1999 revival on PBS Kids ran for seven seasons, but didn't quite capture the magic that could only come from the Seventies golden era of children's TV.
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Trivia: her full first name is Mignella (pronounced--mee-NELL-uh). Last I heard of her, she was a performance artist living in/around Austin TX.
Also, years later, Lori (spring/fall 1973 cast member) and her husband appeared as contestants on THE NEWLYWED GAME and her husband mentioned her being on the show.
The funniest segment I remember was from the "Zoom Barrel" in which Zoomer Donna placed a pencil between her upper lip and her nose and was saying "Run, rabbit, rabbit, run!" I think the object of the game was to say that sentence about ten times without letting the pencil fall off your lip. *So* funny!
And I guess everybody forgot about "Fannee Doolee" ("F, A, double N, double E, D-double-O-L-double E [clap clap]"? It took me a long time to figure out she liked things that have *double letters!*
"Zoom" was great fun. Unfortunately, my Dad couldn't stand the show, and I remember he took a royal tantrum whenever it was on and roared at me and my sister to change the channel right away. (Well, that's okay - there were many shows my Dad liked that *I* couldn't stand, such as any Country music show on regular commercial television or sleep-
inducing war documentary on PBS. I had to get out of the house whenever he subjected us to those.)
I did see the 90's reboot of "Zoom." It wasn't bad, but somehow it didn't quite measure up to the fun and imagination of the original. I remember my nephew liked the new "Zoom," though. He had asked me to record a few episodes for him (VCR's were still common in the 90's) and he even got the wallpaper of the shows logo which he put on the home page of my sister and brother-in-law's computer.
I loved this show so much. I even wrote a letter to them (yes, I still remember the address; no, I'm not typing it) and got a card on how to do Ubbi-Dubbi back. They released an album and I got it. It was so much fun. Not only do I still have the album (complete with booklet) but I burned the album onto CD and put my favorite - "Always Friends" - onto MP3 and it's in my player.
The programming for kids on PBS in the seventies and eighties was orders of magnitude better than the stuff on now.
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Jay joined in fall 1972, with Bernadette joining in early 1973 (overlapping with Jay early on).
Hard to imagine the adults around kids on TV or in movies taking "great care to make sure that these kids didn't turn into overnight celebrities" these days, too much $$$$$ to be made. Sad.