The Letter People

"Come and meet the Letter People. Come and visit the family. Words are made of Letter People A B C D, follow me!"

- The Letter People Theme Song

First produced in 1972, The Letter People was an Edutainment Show created by the St. Louis PBS station KETC and was based on a phonics program for children that featured a cast of anthropomorphic letters. Using primitive puppets and simplistic backdrops, interspersed with Non Sequitur animated sequences, each episode would either introduce a Letter Boy or Letter Girl, or explore a new phonetic principle, such as "silent e" or the "ing" sound. Every Letter Person had his or her own special sound, demonstrated by their outfits and Mad Libs Catch Phrases. Living alongside the Letter People were the other denizens of Letter People Land, ranging from the Purple Peekaboo Palooklas to Game Show Host Monty Swell, who hosted the Show Within a Show, "The Catching Game", in which contestants sounded out words and won prizes that relate to them.

Soon after its premiere, the show began to gain popularity and spread to other PBS stations via syndication. Its popularity largely grew from the fact that, despite being based on the rather mundane topic of phonics, all of the characters have rather distinct personalities (Large Ham: Mister G, Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Miss O, The Cape (trope): Mister S). Also, even with the show's simplistic nature, a number of the Letter People went through a good deal of Character Development and found themselves involved in a number of wacky hijinks. And according to The Other Wiki, the show has aired almost constantly since its premiere.

The majority of the series is now available on YouTube.

"Mister H: "You know, Miss O, I think you should sing tenor." Miss O: "Tenor?" Mister H: "Ten or twelve blocks away!""
 * Action Girl: Miss E
 * Alliteration: Most of the Letter People tend to use words that start with their sound.
 * Alien Abduction: Mister R and the Letter Girls are kidnapped by Empress Mung of the planet Snickers in order to make use of her Divided Catching Clue Box.
 * Alliterative Name: Charlie McChoo, and his engine, the Chewy Cherry Choo-Choo
 * The Thing
 * And lots of others
 * All Just a Dream: Miss U's experience with the Unforgettable Underground Uglies. Or Was It a Dream?
 * All Your Powers Combined: The Letter People combine their sounds to make words.
 * And Now for Something Completely Different: The two-part episode that introduced syllables centers around a new character, Chopper, and makes almost no mention of the actual Letter People.
 * The last episode (of 50) in the series barely featured the Letter People. It was about the characters playing a baseball game but focused entirely on the announcers in the booth.
 * Animated Actor: A variation. Puppets would be reused as different characters, each one wearing a different outfit.
 * Art Shift: Again, a variation. The initial few episodes had very simple sets with largely black backgrounds. Then, there was a very sudden change to the sets, which came to include buildings, street signs, roads, and landscapes.
 * Ascended Extra: A number of throwaway characters from the initial, introductory episodes reappeared later in the series in more story-focussed episodes.
 * Nardo, for instance.
 * Berserk Button: Do NOT add anything to Mister V's velvet vest, such as pointy patches, beautiful buttons, or zipping zippers.
 * Blessed with Suck: Mister N's nose goes crazy when he hears a word that starts with his sound.
 * In the Classroom version, poor Mister N's nose goes crazy anyhow and he couldn't always control it. There was even a sympathetic story about how insecure he was because of his Noisy Nose and how he felt like he didn't fit in with anyone.
 * Miss I has an invisible Fairy Companion, Itchy Itch, who tickles her when she hears a word that starts with her sound.
 * In the Classroom version, she still loves her companion anyway.
 * Mister X's letter makes whatever it's put on to go "all wrong." At least until he gets a sound.
 * Big Eater: Mister M
 * Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: All the Letter Girls are largely human in form, while most of the Letter Boys have much more bizarre forms.
 * Mister T is essentially an orange rectangle with an enormous mouth.
 * Mister F has gigantic feet.
 * Mister N has a multi-colored trunk that makes random noises.
 * Blithe Spirit: The Runaway Words. They don't want to follow the rules, but still want to recognized as words.
 * Examples: To, Are, Cold, World, Great, etc.
 * In later episodes, they would become a Running Gag.
 * Camp Straight: Mister B, Mister D
 * Catch Phrase
 * Mister B - "Boy oh boy!"
 * Mister H - "Hubba hubba! Hey, hey, hey!"
 * Mister S - "Darn my socks!"
 * Mister Z - "Zowey!"
 * Monty Swell - "Goodbye everyone, and kissy-kissy!"
 * The Cape (trope): Mister S
 * Coincidental Broadcast: "News flash! Dolly the Dancing Dragon disappeared yesterday..."
 * Lampshaded in a later episode where the radio actually responds to Mister J's questions.
 * Collector of the Strange: Mister J. He owns a junkyard.
 * Contrived Coincidence: Whenever the Letter People decide to play the Catching Game, the exact Letter People needed for the word they want to make are always present.
 * Circus of Fear: Not so much the circus, but the funhouse nearly scares Miss A, Miss U, and Mister W to death.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Mister H

""I am a supersonic streak in the sky!" Bah-DAH-dum-DUM, dum-DUM-dum-DUM!"
 * Demoted to Extra: Unfortunately, possibly due to budget from the TV show, not all off the Letter People got to be seen much and few such as Mister Z and Mister V were Put on a Bus. In the Classroom version, they appeared more and you were allowed to use a Letter Person or more into a story or lesson as much as you desired. The same happened with the Word Machine. In the TV Show, he only appeared in one episode and was invented by Professor Foghorn. In the classroom version, we don't really know where the Word Machine came from, but he appeared more then just one story and he needed the Letter People to help him make words rather then just simple letters like in the TV show. Plus, alot of the Letter People got involved in the Runaway words mishap then just Miss O.
 * Disney Acid Sequence: Frequently
 * Distracted By the Shiny: Mister T gets his toothache fixed while he's trying to listen for his sound.
 * Disco Dan: Frantic Freddie. When the series was first made (in the 1970s), he probably wasn't intended to be this, but he comes off this way to some modern viewers.
 * Everything Is Big in Texas: Mister T. He has huge teeth and a Texan accent.
 * Genius Bruiser: Miss E is super strong, writes songs, and is an excellent piano player.
 * Genius Ditz: Professor Foghorn, inventor of the Word Machine. He constantly forgets even the simplest things and his favorite food is bologna and jelly sandwiches.
 * Also Miss I in the classroom version, even though she was girly and silly, she was still intelligent, imaginative and creative.
 * Girlish Pigtails: Miss A, Miss E, Miss O in the Classroom version. Miss U in the TV Show version. Also Yolinda and Cindy.
 * Hair Decorations: The Letter Girls. Miss A wears clips/bands/bows for her hair. Same with Miss E. Miss I always wears a bow or headband on her head. Miss O wears bows/bands for her pigtails in the classroom version. Miss U wears a bow in the classroom version.
 * Hair of Gold: Miss U in the TV show version. Also Yolinda and Cindy.
 * Heavy Sleeper: Captain Zemo.
 * "I Am" Song: Each Letter Person has one.
 * Also the Word Machine and 'The Thing'(from the books)in the TV version.
 * The Igor: Mister Q's assistant, Bottomsly Ups-Down
 * Ill Girl: Miss A
 * Naturally, since her sound was the sound of "Achoo!" The low budget also meant her left hand was permanently stuck in the "hold your finger under your nose to block the sneeze" position even when she was feeling well.
 * Male version for Mr Q. Well, at least according to the classroom version, he was so sick, he couldn't speak and if he could, you couldn't hear him, without Miss U.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Miss O
 * Large Ham: Mister G, Mister H
 * Mad Libs Catchphrase: "I'm Mister/Miss [blank], and my sound is the same sound that starts [blankity blank]."
 * Mistaken for Subculture: The Letter People are mistaken for a rock band when they pitch the idea for "The Catching Game."
 * Non-Singing Voice: Even though a number of the Letter People's voice actors were shown to be capable of singing, the show opted to use the songs from the teaching program that it was based off of, for most of the Letter People's introduction songs.
 * Of particular note are Miss O's and Mister S's songs.
 * Miss O was, by profession, an opera singer, but her intro song used a voice that was very different from her speaking voice.
 * Mister S's voice actor, however, actually sang his intro song

"Mister H: "Psst, how do we find these guys?""
 * Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Mister Q, who can build a machine capable of producing objects and cured Miss O after she lost her voice.
 * One-Letter Name: Obviously
 * Our Ghosts Are Different: The Thing is, for all appearances, a ghost, but it's actually some ill-defined creature that haunts an old theater. It also has two sounds.
 * Parasol of Prettiness: This seems to fit Miss U cause she has her Umbrella and is pretty, graceful, feminine, polite and innocent.
 * Paper-Thin Disguise: Dolly the Dragon managed to disguise herself as a daisy and a dalmatian.
 * Parental Bonus: More than you'd expect. Mr. T sings Johnny Cash, and Miss I tells Detective Nardo "You know how to itch, don't you? You just spread your fingers apart and... scratch"
 * Power of Friendship: Solves a lot of problems.
 * Pragmatic Adaptation: Rather than introduce the letters in alphabetical order, the show introduced those that had the most potential to appear in single syllable words (M, T, F, N, H, B, A). They then introduced word building (The Catching Game) and built both of them up simultaneously.
 * That's how many kindergarden handbooks for teaching to read are constructed.
 * The classroom version started out like that too.
 * Private Detective: Detective Nardo
 * Quintessential British Gentleman: Mister V
 * Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Surprisingly Averted in a number of places, but played straight in others.
 * Rule of Three: Look carefully at the sets. Whenever there is three of something (trees, arches, etc.), those three things will probably be used as Clue Boxes for playing a Catching Game at some point in the episode.
 * Sassy Black Woman: Miss I. She has sass, but is much more mellow than most examples.
 * Say My Name: The Letter Girls' (the vowels) long sounds are their names.
 * Shout-Out: Whenever a Runaway Word shows up, it shouts, "Hiho Silver, away!" as it runs away.
 * Show Within a Show
 * The Catching Game
 * The game was played two ways. Contestants would sound out words and call out the corresponding Letter People to stand in the Clue Boxes (Starting, Catching, and Ending). Then, the Letter People would make their sounds "catch" to create the word.
 * Or, the letter people would already be in the Clue Boxes, and the contestants would have to figure out what word they were spelling by sounding it out.
 * Frantic Freddie's Rocking, Hopping, Dancing Party
 * Smurfette Principle: Only the vowels are girls, resulting in five Letter Girls and 21 Letter Boys.
 * Averted with most of the minor characters, as there seem to be roughly even numbers of both genders.
 * In the classroom version, this was they made only the girls vowels to show that they can't spell out most words without a Letter "Girl".
 * Talking Is a Free Action: No one ever interrupts the Letter People when they talk about their sounds and words that start with them.
 * Theme Music Power-Up: Most characters would sing a song about their sound or their characteristic in their first appearance. For instance, Mister S sang about his "Super Socks."
 * Title Theme Tune
 * The Voice: Tom Bargo, who is apparently the announcer to every TV show in Letter People Land
 * The Voiceless: Mister Q was this until Miss U stood next to him.
 * Weirdness Magnet: The Letter People seem prone to meeting unusual people.


 * Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Mister H is always scared of Squoosh Boxes. They're sharp and pointy!
 * In the classroom version, he's scared of all things sharp and pointy because they hurt and you can get cuts. And he thinks the same applies for his hair, which is why he never gets a haircut.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Alot of the Letter People had different colored hair...or skin..or whatever. Miss A and Mr. H for example had green hair.
 * Zeerust: The Word Machine, which makes words, was meant to be a rather advanced computer (It talks!), but it's covered in glowing windows and lights, while making a lot of boops and beeps.