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Tell-A-Tale Town TV Show

When I was in university I was somehow reminded of this show I watched in my childhood but I couldn't recall the name and none of my online searches turned up relevant results. All I could remember was that the intro was in the style of a caricature drawing or comic book with people on a bus and that the intro song kinda reminded me of Tone Loc's song Wild Thing, for whatever reason. I did searches for things like 'children show caricature bus city', 'Canada children's TV intro 1990s bus drawing' and 'children "tv" "bus stop" "bus" horn intro 1990s' to no avail so I was left wondering if I would ever figure out this mystery.

Every few years I would be reminded of this puzzle and would go on another binge of Google/YouTube searches but didn't have any better luck until around 2014. It was then that I told my roommate (who also worked in tech.) about this puzzle and he was so confident in his Google-fu that he bet me that he could find it before I could. That seemed super unlikely given that he was at a major disadvantage since he wouldn't be able to easily identify success even if he was staring right at it because I had only provided the limited information I described earlier (which was all that I could recall). That was the night the case was cracked… I don't even remember how I solved the mystery that night but some hours later I had done so: the show in question was Tell-A-Tale Town.

I didn't want others to have to wait solving the same mystery so this page will hopefully help others who are searching for keywords similar to ones I used. Below are some details about the show:

  • According to IMDB, the show was produced from 1992 to 1997 so my 1990s guess was correct. It was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
  • Here's a description from tvarchive.ca:

    Tell-A-Town was an educational series designed to model for young children the fun, pleasure, and excitement of storytelling, therefore fostering a positive feeling about language and literacy and a continuing interest. The series was aimed at children aged four to 10.

    On each show, teenagers from the Vancouver Youth Theatre presented well-rehearsed stories. Kids from local elementary schools provided snippets of stories. Each show opened with a professional contribution from an adult storyteller.

  • The town ice cream parlour, general store, and library were some of the settings used in episodes.
  • The show was broadcast on Canwest Global and YTV. Since I only had antenna TV as a child I suspect I received it from Global Toronto in Ontario.
  • The mayor on the show is also the creator, Lois Walker who founded Scripts for Schools.
  • Lois has posted many clips of the show on her YouTube channel.

Go on down to Tell-A-Tale Town!

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