Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman isn’t a fan of every project he has been cast in, including the one that made him a household figure in the 1970s.
In his first major gig, he played a number of characters on the Children’s Television Workshop’s literacy series “The Electric Company.” Freeman is best remembered for his portrayal of Easy Reader, a far-out disc jockey decked out in psychedelic fringe and paisley print who rocked a picked out afro.
The show used the same production team behind “Sesame Street” and catered to elementary students who needed help learning how to read, a much older audience than Big Bird and friends entertained with practical exposure to counting and the alphabet.
Freeman worked on the show throughout its five-year run on public television stations across the country. When it debuted in 1971, it also starred the likes of Bill Cosby and “West Side Story” actress Rita Moreno. In a resurfaced interview, the actor earnestly reflected on his stint on the early learners program as a double-edged sword.
“I enjoyed the first two years, thinking that I’d move on after that. But it became basic prostitution, I guess,” Freeman told journalist Alex Simon in a 1998 interview for Venice Magazine.
“Get a job, get security, get working steady for a couple years, go into debt in a couple areas…move up into a nicer apartment. Kids were in private schools. ‘The time has come to leave this job now.’ ‘Well, they really want you back.’ ‘I don’t want to come back.’ ‘They’re offering you more money.’ Hmm,” he further explained about the cycle of wanting more for his career.
My childhood memories of Morgan Freeman on The Electric Company. Those were the days. pic.twitter.com/zi8lQOrAX0
— GC4* (@GodzChild4eva) October 25, 2021
Freeman added that he “kept getting angrier and angrier at myself for not having the courage to walk away. Then they canceled the show in 1976, and what a letdown! No more job. But at the same time, I was happy.
“Otherwise, I would’ve been Fred Rogers [star of PBS ‘Mister Roger’s Neighborhood’]! I would’ve been Captain Kangaroo! You ever see ‘Sesame Street,’ there’s friends of mine who’ve been on that show nearly 30 years. I had this discussion with myself the other night about ‘what will be will be.’ People say ‘It’s the Lord’s will.’ Well, the Lord’s will is what? (laughs) It’s ‘what will be will be.’”
From that point on, Freeman was consistently booked. He secured leading roles in 1989’s “Lean On Me,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” and “Glory.” It wasn’t until 2005 that he won his first Oscar as a Best Supporting Actor in “Million Dollar Baby.”
Yet, as recently as this year, fans were still raving about the impact of seeing Freeman on their televisions during their childhood. “OMG! I remember the Electric Company! Maybe that’s why I like Morgan Freeman so much. He probably taught me to read,” read a tweet posted in May.
The nostalgia of it all even prompted a fan to write, “That’s where I first saw Mr. Freeman. Whenever I see him, it instantly takes me back to my childhood.”
And a third person jokingly quipped, “Can’t get over how hard it is to wrap my head around Morgan Freeman was once young. lol.”
When Freeman was first cast on the show he was 34 years old. Culturally, the long-running joke is that no one has ever seen the actor when he was young, poking fun at his much more mature appearance throughout his career.
