''Vegetable Soup'' is an American educational

children's television Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early evenin ...

program produced by the New York State Education Department that originally ran on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

from September 22, 1975 to December 14, 1978.

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

concurrently broadcast the series on Sunday mornings, with at least some affiliates showing it along with NBC's regular Saturday morning cartoon lineup; this was a rare instance of a television program seen on both commercial and public television at the same time. All 78 episodes of ''Vegetable Soup'' were digitized by the

New York State Archives The New York State Archives is a unit of the Office of Cultural Education within the New York State Education Department, with its main facility located in the Cultural Education Center on Madison Avenue in Albany, New York, United States. The Ne ...

and made available online in the

American Archive of Public Broadcasting The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH Educational Foundation, founded through the efforts of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The AAPB is a national effort to digital ...

. Episodes are made up of a mix of live action, cartoon, puppetry, and mixed-media segments.

Concept

The purpose of the program was to be a television series for children to help counter the negative, destructive effects of racial prejudice and racial isolation and to reinforce and dramatize the positive, life-enhancing value of human diversity in entertaining and affective presentations that children could understand and relate to. ''Vegetable Soup'' used an interdisciplinary approach to entertain and educate elementary age children in the value of human diversity. The show combined music, animation, puppetry and live action film, on the subject of economic, racial and ethnic diversity.

Regular segments

*The Big Game Hunt - hosted by Gary Goodrow *The Big Job Hunt - hosted by Susan Taylor (Season Two only) *Children's Questions *How Do You Find Yourself? *Know Yourself *Long Ago *Luther *Make A New Friend *Mr. Emeritus *Nigel *Outerscope 1 (Called Outerscope II in season two) *Real People *Storytelling Time *Superlative Horse *What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? *What Would You Do? *Woody the Spoon Recipes *Words Have Stories

Characters

*Long John Spoilsport (

James Earl Jones James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances in film, television, and theater, and "one of the greatest actors in America ...

) - regularly appeared on "The Big Game Hunt" and "The Big Job Hunt" segments *Larry Hama - hosted various segments *Kingman Hui - child actor who starred on the "Long Ago" segment *Martin Harris (Martin Brayboy) - regularly appeared in the "Nigel" segment *Eddie (Edward M. Beckford, Jr.) - regularly appeared in the "Nigel" segment, sang the opening theme song *Scot Richardson (Scot Smith) - regularly appeared in the "Nigel" segment *Bob ( Daniel Stern) and Robin (Judy Noble) - regularly appeared in the "Outerscope" segment *Woody the Spoon ( Bette Midler) - regularly appeared in the "Woody the Spoon Recipes" segment

Animations

Animated segments on the show were created by Jim Simon's Wantu Studios, the musical opening plus 13 '' Woody the Spoon'' cooking spots for which Bette Midler did all the voice tracks, and also 48 thirty-second breaks. Beginning in the show's second season, many animated segments were also produced by

Colossal Pictures Colossal Pictures (also styled as (Colossal) Pictures or (C)P) was an entertainment company that developed and produced television programming, advertising, network branding, and visual effects. Colossal's work has won every major industry award, ...

, of which ''Vegetable Soup'' was one of its first assignments. Animators Drew Takahashi and Gary Gutierrez worked on ''Vegetable Soup'' during its first season, prior to Colossal Pictures' founding.

References

External links

TV.com: Vegetable Soup TV Show
* {{IMDb title, id=0166063
Vegetable Soup: Parent-Teacher Guide

Flexitoons: Olga Felgemacher Biography

Michael Sporn Animation: Jim Simon Biography

''Vegetable Soup'' Collection
in the