''Circle Square'' was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

children's television series that ran from 1974 to 1986.

Crossroads Christian Communications Crossroads Christian Communications is a Canadian non-profit charitable corporation located in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. ''100 Huntley Street'', the flagship television program of Crossroads was founded by Rev. David Mainse and is the longes ...

produced the series in cooperation with its Circle Square Ranch network of

summer camp A summer camp or sleepaway camp is a supervised program for children conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as ''campers''. Summer school is usually a part of the academ ...

s for children. Circle Square Ranches, founded by Crossroads, are Christian-based non-profit camps. The first ranch was based at Severn Bridge, Ontario.

Overview

Mixing human actors—both youth and adult counsellors—with puppets in a ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...

''-like manner,"Camp ministry produces new generation". '' Kingston Gleaner'', October 21, 2006. the series was set at a Circle Square Ranch library. Each episode taught a lesson in moral values.

Characters

These were the main ongoing characters in the series; the children featured on the show tended to rotate through too quickly to establish an ongoing presences on the show. *Durk ( Reynold Rutledge): a kindly, grandfatherlike figure. He is the library's maintenance man, and in every episode, the kids come to him with problems. Durk answers these problems with a story, which often features the real kid facing a similar problem. *Vince (actor unknown): a furry white dog-like puppet character with a straight, rounded nose and a little work hat. He is Durk's assistant and companion, and is frequently seen with him. Vince mostly speaks gibberish, but he can say short little words like "uh-oh" and "uh-huh". His predecessor was a parrot named Polly. *Gert and Egbert ( Blair Stewart and Sabrina Paul): the main puppet characters, Gert and Egbert (a librarian and her assistant, respectively) help provide questions and thoughts (but mostly

comic relief Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Definition Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic epis ...

) for the segments at the

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

with the kids. Gert is the scatter-brained, overly-worried, patronizing of the pair, while Egbert is childish, goofy, and dumb. Gert and Egbert's puppets had exaggerated features and silly looks during the show's starting season. But as Gert and Egbert started to mature (only a little bit), their puppets were replaced with new figures whose appearances were less silly and more basic. The old Gert puppet disappeared into oblivion, but the old Egbert puppet managed to spend the rest of his days as a puppet character for the stories.

Broadcast and syndication

The series was syndicated to television stations in Canada, the United States and

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, often airing in a weekend slot on stations that also aired Crossroads' ''100 Huntley Street''. Reruns of 1984-1986 episodes of ''Circle Square'' were shown Saturday mornings on the

Trinity Broadcasting Network The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN was headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, until March 3, 2017, when it sold its ...

(TBN) until late 2005 or early 2006, and episodes of the original ''Circle Square'' program can be viewed on the ''Circle Square Ranch'' website.

Proposed revival

In 2003, a pilot for a new version of ''Circle Square'' called ''Circle Square Network'' (CSN) was produced by Crossroads, but was never picked up.

References

External links

Crossroads Christian Communications
* {{IMDb title, id=tt0201526, title=Circle Square Yes TV original programming First-run syndicated television shows in Canada Christian children's television series 1974 Canadian television series debuts 1986 Canadian television series endings Canadian television shows featuring puppetry 1970s Canadian children's television series 1980s Canadian children's television series Canadian religious television series Television series about children