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THE LETTER PEOPLE: MR. H


Mister H has horrible hair. This is from the 1970's version of "The Letter People". When the show was updated in the 1990's, "horrible hair" was changed to the more P.C. "happy hair".

Elayne Reiss-Weimann and Rita Friedman created The Letter People in 1972. They sold their idea to educational publisher AlphaTime (later AlphaOne), and illustrator Elizabeth Callen was hired to design the look of the series and its characters.

The program's basic concept was simple: Each letter of the English alphabet was represented by a unique character with traits derived from its letter. The consonants were male, and the vowels were female (the "Letter Girls"). Reiss-Weimann, Friedman and Callen also wrote two series of books about the characters, Fables from the Letter People and Read-to-Me. Each Letter Person also had an accompanying song (available on 8-track cartridge and vinyl record), and inflatable vinyl effigies in two sizes (12-14 inches or 30-inch "life-size") known as a "Huggables". Other merchandise included filmstrips and flash cards. Educators who adopted the program were trained in its implementation, and The Letter People was soon picked up by hundreds of schools across the United States.

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