Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine
| Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Children's television series |
| Created by | Charles Grinker, Mert Koplin and Sanford Fisher |
| Starring | Laurie Faso |
| Voices of | Mert Koplin (Machine) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Sanford Fisher |
| Producer(s) | Charles Grinker |
| Running time | 60 min. (1977) 30 min. (1978 - 1980) |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS (WFSB) |
| Original release | 1977 – 1980 |
Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine was a children's television show originating from WFSB-TV in Hartford. The storyline involved Marlo Higgins (Laurie Faso) who is a mustachioed and frizzy-haired computer programming genius working for the L. Dullo computer company. He was banished to the "sub-sub-basement" by his boss, Leo Dullo. By day Marlo works for L. Dullo. At night he builds, programs, and interacts with his Magic Movie Machine (Mert Koplin, voice) built using L. Dullo hardware. The waveform from a real-time audio oscilloscope was displayed on the Magic Movie Machine's screen whenever it talked and it played short clips. The two (man and computer) traded tips and quips.
Marlo sat at a console with a slight resemblance to master control consoles of the time. He would call up the various film clips featured on the show by entering codes using a numeric keypad with round, yellow number buttons and pressing an orange rectangular Start button to start the selected film. In earlier episodes, a split-flap display mounted on the console showed the code entered on the keypad. In later episodes, this was changed to an LED display, and the buttons were made to sound like the DTMF tones made by a touch-tone telephone as Marlo pressed them. Most of the time, Marlo used a small keypad consisting of two columns of buttons flanking a CRT, located in front of him when he was sitting at the console of the Magic Movie Machine. However, a similar but larger keypad located on the wall was sometimes used (see below).
Regularly featured segments, conceived and written by Producer/Story Editor Charles Grinker, included:
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