''Circle Square'' is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

children's television series that ran from 1974 to 1986.

Crossroads Christian Communications Crossroads Christian Communications is a Canadian non-profit charitable corporation located in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. '' 100 Huntley Street'', the flagship television program of Crossroads was founded by David Mainse and is the longest run ...

produced the series in cooperation with its Circle Square Ranch network of

summer camp A summer camp, also known as a sleepaway camp or residential camp, is a supervised overnight program for children conducted during the summer vacation from school in many countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer residential camps ...

s for children.Fred B. Rainsberry, ''A History of Children's Television in English Canada, 1952–1986''. Scarecrow Press, 1988. . p. 113. Circle Square Ranches, founded by Crossroads, are

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

-based non-profit camps.

Overview

Mixing human actors—both youth and adult counsellors—with puppets in a ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...

''-like manner,"Camp ministry produces new generation". ''

Kingston Gleaner ''The Gleaner'' is an English-language, morning daily newspaper founded by two brothers, Jacob and Joshua de Cordova on 13 September 1834 in Kingston, Jamaica. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the Western Hemisphere. Original ...

'', October 21, 2006. the series was set at a Circle Square Ranch library. Each episode taught a lesson in moral values.

Characters

These were the main ongoing characters in the series; the children featured on the show tended to rotate through too quickly to establish an ongoing presences on the show. *Durk (Reynold Rutledge): a kindly, grandfather-like figure. He is the library's maintenance man, and in every episode, the kids come to him with problems. Durk answers these problems with a story, which often features the real kid facing a similar problem. *Vince (actor unknown): a furry white dog-like

puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in anci ...

character with a straight, rounded nose and a little work hat. He is Durk's assistant and companion, and is frequently seen with him. Vince mostly speaks

gibberish Gibberish, also known as jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is (or appears to be) nonsense: ranging across speech sounds that are not actual words, pseudowords, language games and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsid ...

, but he can say short little words like "uh-oh" and "uh-huh". His predecessor was a parrot named Polly. *Gert and Egbert (Blair Stewart and Sabrina Paul): the main

characters, Gert and Egbert (a librarian and her assistant, respectively) help provide questions and thoughts (but mostly

comic relief Comic Relief is a British charity, founded in 1986 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Sir Lenny Henry in response to the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. The concept of Comic Relief was to get British comedians to make t ...

) for the segments at the

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

with the kids. Gert is the scatter-brained, overly-worried, patronizing of the pair, while Egbert is childish, goofy, and dumb. Gert and Egbert's puppets had exaggerated features and silly looks during the show's starting season. But as Gert and Egbert started to mature (only a little bit), their puppets were replaced with new figures whose appearances were less silly and more basic. The old Gert puppet disappeared into oblivion, but the old Egbert puppet managed to spend the rest of his days as a puppet character for the stories.

Broadcast and syndication

The series was syndicated to television stations in Canada, the United States and

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

, often airing in a weekend slot on stations that also aired Crossroads' ''100 Huntley Street''. Reruns of 1984-1986 episodes of ''Circle Square'' were shown Saturday mornings on the

Trinity Broadcasting Network The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN; legally Trinity Broadcasting of Texas, Inc.) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN solicits donations on its Web site, a ...

(TBN) until late 2005 or early 2006, and episodes of the original ''Circle Square'' program can be viewed on the ''Circle Square Ranch'' website.

Proposed revival

In 2003, a pilot for a new version of ''Circle Square'' called ''Circle Square Network'' (CSN) was produced by Crossroads, but was never picked up.

References

External links

Crossroads Christian Communications
* {{IMDb title, id=tt0201526, title=Circle Square Yes TV original programming First-run syndicated television shows in Canada Christian children's television series 1974 Canadian television series debuts 1986 Canadian television series endings Canadian television shows featuring puppetry 1970s Canadian children's television series 1980s Canadian children's television series Canadian religious television series Television series about children