Circle Square
| Circle Square | |
|---|---|
 Original Title Card | |
| Genre | Children |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 165 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | Syndicated |
| Picture format | Colour |
| Original release | April 15, 1974 – October 24, 1986 |
Circle Square was a Canadian children's television series that ran from 1974 to 1986. Crossroads Christian Communications produced the series in cooperation with the Circle Square network of summer camps for children of Christian parents. (Circle Square Ranches, founded by Crossroads, are Christian based non-profit camps welcoming children of any faith and race.)
Mixing human actors — both youth and adult counsellors — with puppets in a Sesame Street-like manner, the series was set at a Circle Square Library. Each episode taught a lesson in moral values and Christian faith.
The series was syndicated to Canada and the United States, and usually aired in a weekend slot on stations that also aired Crossroads' 100 Huntley Street.
1984–1986 reruns of Circle Square were shown Saturday mornings on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) until late 2005 or early 2006.
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.
Episodes of the original Circle Square program can be viewed on the Circle Square Ranch website.
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, grandfatherlike 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 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, 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 puppet characters, Gert and Egbert (a librarian and her assistant, respectively) help provide questions and thoughts (but mostly comic relief) for the segments at the library 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.
- Glen Rutledge