Segments
Between the Lions often makes wild parodies of (usually children's) programming. The title is a play on words of the phrase "read between the lines" and that many historic library buildings have two lions posted at the main entrance. Thus, one must go "between the lions" to enter the library. Examples of recurring segments (animation and live-action):
The Monkey Pop-Up Theater: A monkey with blonde hair (monkeys are often featured as background characters or library patrons in this series) opens a pop-up book which presents a zany musical performance by monkeys who sing in operatic voices.
The Vowelles: Three colored lips with satin gloves and wigs perform vowel songs for an audience. In the early seasons, a grey hand would pick up the letters of a word from the book and transition them to their segment to establish the vowel and word family of the episode. The Vowelles are usually accompanied by Johnny Consananti and Martha Reader. In the first season, the stage backdrop is not lit, leaving viewers to see only lips, usually satin gloves and feather boas, and hair. In seasons 2–4, the dark stage background is replaced with a colorful silver background obviously revealing that The Vowelles are only three pairs of lips surrounded by wigs, and usually accompanied by satin gloves and feather boas, and the unidentified puppets in the audience are replaced with monkeys and Johnny Consananti is the announcer. Martha Reader and The Vowelles is a parody of Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, a popular Motown group from the 1960s.
The Word Doctor with Dr. Ruth Wordheimer: Dr. Ruth Westheimer portrays "Dr. Ruth Wordheimer", a friendly therapist. Her two types of clients are:
Monkeys who need help reading or understanding long or difficult words (they are having a "Long Word Freakout").
Words that are dissatisfied with their current meaning. (By replacing certain well-chosen letters, Dr. Wordheimer can give the word a new meaning and a new lease on life.)
Little Wendy Tales: In a spoof of Sailor Moon (and other anime tropes), an Asian girl with black hair tied in pigtails reads the misadventures found in Little Wendy Tales when sitting next to her white cat, Cuddly Kitty, on her bed. When something goes wrong in the story, the dark-haired girl and Cuddly Kitty transform themselves into The Punctuator and Emoticon the Cat and save Wendy using switching around the punctuation, altering the scene in the process. She then rereads the altered adventures after correcting the sentences.
Fun with Chicken Jane: A parody of the well-known Dick and Jane books for children. In this, two naive children, Scot and Dot, place themselves in pain's way. An intelligent chicken named Chicken Jane spells out an obvious solution to the problem. At the last moment, the children get out of the way, and Chicken Jane gets hurt instead. The theme song is a parody of the Alka-Seltzer jingle. When the skit starts, Scot, Dot, and Chicken Jane come skipping down a dirt road to the jingle that goes "Look, look, see, see, coming down the lane. Here comes Scot, here comes Dot, here comes Chicken Jane!" When the skit is over, Scot and Dot head back up the road (Chicken Jane limping along behind with an injured wing) to "Look, look, see, see, going up the lane. There goes Scot, there goes Dot, there goes Chicken Jane!". In the Episode, "Stop That Chicken", Chicken Jane once fell out of one of the books and ended up in many other books, which are "Colonial America", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Cook A Lot Like Me" by Molly Stewpot (a reference to the famous chef Martha Stewart). The very demanding chef Molly sees Chicken Jane and wants to use her in one of her recipes while ignoring what Chicken Jane is saying. The book is then swatted at in an attempt for Chicken Jane to come to life while jelly is spilled onto Molly in defeat, and Leona succeeds in getting Chicken Jane back in her book.
The Adventures of Cliff Hanger: This common animated segment centers around Cliff Hanger, a lantern-jawed outdoorsman who is usually stranded hundreds of feet above the ground, holding onto a tree branch on the side of a cliff (hence the skit's title). Each episode presents Cliff with a preposterous situation of some kind, which he attempts to use to his advantage by reaching into his backpack, pulling out what he calls his "trusty survival manual", and following the instructions provided there. The instructions, though often highly unconventional, usually prove successful, and Cliff briefly escapes from the cliff. But, inevitably, another highly unlikely incident sends Cliff back to where he started, hanging onto his branch once again. The animated segment then ends when the branch starts cracking as Cliff says his baleful catchphrase: "Can't... hold... on... much... longer!" and the sun sets as a cliffhanger. This scene occurs at the beginning of the animated segment as well. Similar to cartoons such as Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, these animated segments follow the same storyline; although Cliff never gives up on trying to get off the cliff, he never succeeds. Each segment begins and usually ends with a theme song sung off-screen by a formally dressed group of singers (flying by in a helicopter), singing "Cliff Hanger, hanging from a cliff! And that's why he's called Cliff Hanger!" Cliff attempts to attract their attention to his predicament by calling out "Excuse me! Excuse me!", but to no avail. In one episode, he succeeds at drawing their attention, and they rescue him, but it turns out he is simply dreaming. He once got off the cliff when he jumped on a whale's blowhole and washed up on a beach in "The Last Cliff Hanger" Lionel is upset about the last book, but eventually missed his cliff and, through a series of bizarre events (thanks to the writer, Livingston Dangerously), got himself back onto it. His name is a play on the media term "cliffhanger" which is often shown on non-BTL episodes as "to be continued". In three episodes: Cliff Hanger and the Solid Oil Lamp, Cliff Hanger Meets the Sleeping Gypsy, and Cliff Hanger and the Sheep on a Ship, Cliff Hanger imagines he is in a restaurant eating steak, he is in a bathtub and a starstrucked door. In another episode "Five, Six, and Thistle Sticks", Lionel's best friend Lenny, a lizard, introduces a similarly styled series of books called Justin Time, about a stereotypical explorer named Justin Time who relaxes in a hammock until an absurd scenario like those of Cliff Hanger occurs, forcing him to intervene to restore the calm, boasting, "Couldn't be more comfortable.", as opposed to Cliff Hanger's catchphrase "Can't hold on much longer!" He too used a version of the Survival Manual, called a Safety Manual, which is from his Survival Kit, a version of Cliff Hanger's backpack and the same formally dressed four-piece chorus, riding in the back of a Pickup truck introduces him at the beginning of the story, singing "Justin Time, he's always saved just in time! And that is why he is called Justin Time!" Then Justin rudely tells the singers "Go away!" just like how Cliff Hanger always gets their attention to his predicament. Ironically, Lionel disliked this book. One Justin Time segment was shown as it only appeared in one episode. In the series, the character Lionel is a fan of Cliff Hanger's books, which his sister Leona thinks are pointless. But, even in episodes where she expresses hatred, she shows respect for it, such as when she decides to help Lionel get Livingston Dangerously to write more books.
Gawain's Word: A Wayne's World spoof hosted by a knight with an Golden State surfer accent, featuring two jousting knights charging at each other, each touting a speech balloon with half of a word which then became their respective names, then demonstrating the word. For example, one skit featured "Sir Sh" dressed in silver armor and "Sir Ark" dressed in gold armor. Then Gawain says, "Blend on, dudes!" when it is time to put the halves together. When Sir Sh bumps into Sir Ark, their speech balloons meld together to form the word "shark." Then they react to the word by running away from a hovering shark. Though the title of the segment is a parody of the Saturday Night Live skit, the two knights in the segment speak more characteristically like Bill and Ted from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure than Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World.
Tiger Words: A pun of golfer Tiger Woods. Tiger is always seen participating in a spelling competition (modeled off a golf tournament), where he always misspells a word. While the crowd and announcer are surprised and dismayed at his error, Tiger corrects his mistake by using another tool in his pencil bag (using an eraser to fix mistakes in pencil or paint to fix mistakes in pen, for example). Tiger correctly spells the word and wins the championship.
The Trampolini Brothers: The ringmaster introduces three acrobatic brothers, Arturo, Lorenzo, and Felix perform superlative adjectives under the carnival's big top (For example, Arturo is good. Lorenzo is better. Felix is the best.).
Synonym Sam's Lab: A Black girl named Synonym Sam and her dog, Rufus, gain knowledge about synonyms by using Sam's Super Synonym Machine.
Sam Spud: Par-Boiled Potato Detective: A spoof of the Sam Spade detective stories, this segment portrays a par-boiled potato (voiced by Michael K. Frith) who types out the voice-over narration typical of film noir on a late night, making and correcting typographical errors that demonstrate word sounds. This segment makes heavy use of sight gags based on wordplay (such as the narrator referring to the entrance of a "tomato"—1930s slang for an attractive woman—who is revealed to be a real tomato wearing a costume; or a neon sign that blinks the words "Flicker Flicker" or "On" and "Off"). In most cases, the segments would end with a live-action child watching Sam Spud on television and calling out to his or her mother that "there's a talking potato with a hat on and no mouth!" (or some variation), and the mother calling from offscreen telling her child not to worry and that it's educational television, so it must be good for him/her. On one occasion, it ends with the mother saying that it is mean to say "dumb" after a child was describing a pickle with a zipper.
The Un-People: A Mo Willems-styled cartoon segment aimed at teaching kids their prefixes. The main character is "young" Monica Maxwell, a bespectacled Black girl about 8 years old who seems to have an inordinate amount of trouble with a group of rambunctious rhinos or other misfortunes. The segment always begins with the rhinos running amok (or other non-rhino-related situations, such as when Monica marches down a street in a parade), usually in Monica's house. The clever, resourceful girl somehow manages to subdue or round up the rhinos, for example, putting them in a zippered bag (not all these segments have a relationship with rhinos). And, suddenly, the evil Un-People come along and "un-zip" the bag, causing the rhinos to run free again and resume their rampage of destruction (or other misfortune not caused by the animals.) But when the crime-fighting Re-People appear, they "re-zip" the bag, and the destruction of the charging rhinos stops, or other misfortune-quelling results. This segment is a parody of common superhero-themed cartoons such as the Justice League. There are at least two skits that did not feature rhinos—the "undressed"/"redressed" skit where a marching band is seen without clothes, only to get redressed in their outfits, and the "unbuttoned"/"rebuttoned" skit where Monica is seen in the cold winter day while struggling to button her parka, with her parka becoming unbuttoned and then finally rebuttoned.
Silent E: A sly criminal, Silent E, can make the vowel sounds say their names and changes the words without a silent e into words with a silent e, for example: he changes a cub (which resembles Leona) into a cube, a tub into a tube, a twin into twine and a can into a cane. In each segment, Silent E is carted off to jail by a policeman. Silent E then writes a note to the policeman, which usually reads something like, "Sure do like that pin/cap you're wearing! I would love to get a closer look!" The policeman then remarks, "Well, sure! I don't see any harm in that!" The policeman hands the object to Silent E, who then easily escapes by using either the policeman's pin and turning it into a pine to climb out the window or the policeman's cap and turning it into a cape to fly out the window. Either way, after that, the policeman shouts, "Well, Silent E, you may have slipped out of my grasp this time, but mark my words: I'll get you YET!!!!"
Dr. Nitwhite: This sketch usually begins with Dr. Nitwhite ordering in his assistant, Watson (the character most guilty of calling him "Dr. Nitwit"), for Nitwhite claims he has discovered "the only word in the entire English language!" with a particular letter combination in it, showing extreme pride in his achievement. Unfortunately for Nitwhite, Watson casually utters an expression or sentence containing another word with that same combination (for example, in one sketch, Nitwhite proudly presents what he claims to be the only two-letter word with the short 'I' sound: in. An impressed Watson remarks, "Dr. Nitwhite! This time, I think you have really done it!"). After Nitwhite realizes this, he breaks down and advises Watson to leave, which the latter does, calling him "Dr. Nitwit" once more.
Vowel Boot Camp: In this segment, the soldiers, who are lowercase vowels (except the drill sergeant, who is an exclamation point and is revealed to be aptly named Sergeant Mark in one sketch), practice making their sounds and then go out to make words. The famous catchphrase is "This isn't 'Camp [name]', this is Vowel Boot Camp!" In three skits, the lowercase "I" soldier is seen missing a dot before being corrected by the drill instructor, the "U" soldier is seen upside down, looking like a lowercase "N" before being corrected by the drill sergeant to set his head to the proper position and the "O" soldier has a pillow from his footlocker in his mouth before the sergeant (who had told him this on several prior occasions) tells him to spit it out, which he does. Portions of this segment deal with the silent "E" and letters containing two vowels. For example, the "I" soldier is accompanied by two letters, "R" and "P", to form "rip" until the "E" is added at the end of the word to turn the word into "ripe". The drill sergeant then asks the soldiers about the rule, prompting the soldiers to sing the tune "When "E" on the end plays a no-talking game, the vowel before it says its name." The tune would later be the basis for the following examples. Another example is when the "A" soldier is placed between two lowercase consonants "M" and "N" to form the word "man". However, the "I" soldier comes into the word to change it into "main". The drill sergeant then asks the other vowels regarding the rule, prompting them to sing the tune "When two vowels stand side by side, the first one says its name with pride." The sergeant always ends up getting trampled by the vowels as they leave. On one occasion, he misses them, but they end up shutting the door on him, locking him in, causing him to bang on the door.
The Lone Rearranger Rewrites Again: A spoof of The Lone Ranger, this animated segment features an intelligent, banana nose cowboy named The Lone Rerranger, (or Lone for short), with his horse Hiho, and his sidekick whose name is Russell-Upsome Grub, and a sentence which needs to be rearranged. For example, "Horses must ride cowboys into the corral" needs to be rearranged to say "Cowboys must ride horses into the corral". After Lone fixes the sentence with his whip, he, Hiho, and Russell leave, and the people who did what the original sign said for them to do never get a chance to thank him or Russell, or something loosely related to the subject. Afterward, the segment would end with Lone on top of Hiho yelling, "Hi-yo, Hiho! Away!", and then the camera would pan to Russell, who was seen covering his ears and then saying, "Why you must you always yell in that poor horsey's ears?"
Moby Duck: A spoof of Moby-Dick, this takes place in a pea pod (a spoof of Pequod) where there are two captains. The first is Captain Starbuck, and the second is Captain Ahab. Starbuck looks through a telescope and sees a white animal and yells, "Wait, Cap'n! Thar she quacks! Moby, the great white duck!" Captain Ahab takes a closer look and gives the tagline "Nay, Mr. Starbuck! That not be Moby, the great white duck! Argh!", and explains the differences and sounds out syllables, showing, for example, Daisy, the entertaining white snail. The two admit defeat before continuing their search. A running gag is the fact that they never look behind them, which is exactly where Moby is. Another running gag would feature an onscreen assistant throwing water into the face of Ahab, humiliating him. The author is said to be "Melvin Hermille", a spoof of Moby Dick author Herman Melville.
Polly and the Pirate: An animated segment focuses on locative words (such as over, under, next to, and around). A parrot and a blonde-haired pirate (both named Polly) sail the ocean looking for treasure, whatever it may be.
Blending Bowl: A kind of "bowl game" in which NFL players blend sounds to make words. It stars former NFL superstar quarterback turned Fox Sports co-host Terry Bradshaw as a commentator. It is similar to Gawain's Word and Blend Mart but with a football setting.
Opposite Bunny: A superhero bunny who saves the day by turning bad things happening in the neighborhood back into good things. The segment ends with the neighbors reviewing the opposites. For example, one episode has the neighbors saying, "First it was raw; now it is cooked. How does that bunny do it?!"
Arty Smartypants:
A farcical and somewhat discombobulated bunraku puppet man with large overalls (which he refers to as his "smarty pants"). He is the start of a few multiple segments:
"Magic Time With The Great Smartini": Arty puts two, three, or four words in his pants and says a magic word like ebracadebra, or oobracadoobra, then dances to his song - "Ooh ahh, dance in smarty pants ooh agh" - until he has made a compound word and demonstrating it by showing/interacting with the meaning of the word. His assistant/mother is Marmy Smartypants. Due to the popularity of his dance, a short music video was made that featured Arty and various characters from the show (or from other PBS shows) wearing their own "smarty pants" and dancing to the song.
In some segments, he reads "four words without any assistance whatsoever". Four words appear in each corner of the screen, and he points to them first with his hands, then with his feet. After realizing he is floating in the air, he comically comes crashing down.
"Not as Smart as a Puck": In this segment, Arty hosts a game show where the contestant wins if they can prove they are not as smart as a hockey puck.
"Polka King and his Polka Marmy": Arty sings their vowel, plays on his accordion, along with Marmy. The segment is a companion piece to "The Great Smartini".
In later seasons, the segments were replaced with new ones:
"Short Stories": Arty reads a small board book.
"Play with Words": Arty changes words into completely different ones.
Swami Marmy: This segment features Smarmy Marmy as a fortune teller who tells monkeys their future. In one segment, she tells a monkey that his sister will drop in for a visit, after which she literally drops in from above. In another segment, she simply tells a monkey, "Oops!" after which Marmy knocks her crystal ball off the table, and it rolls off and breaks.
Fred Says: Fred Newman portraying himself appears onscreen, sounding out a word syllable by syllable, after which he acts it or demonstrates it in his normal humor by attaching sounds to each syllable. On many occasions, Fred would appear doing his segment twice in the first season.
What's Cooking? with Theo and Cleo: A cooking segment starring Theo and Cleo Lion as chefs. In each segment, they have a recipe and all the things they need (and a few they do not need) in front of them with their names on them (For example, "Slammed and Rammed Ham with No Yam or Clam"). They read the recipe step-by-step, which usually involves getting rid of the extra ingredient and doing something (rather literally) to the main item before placing it in something. When they reach the last step, which involves cooking the food for a certain amount of time, they just say "Nah" and eat it raw. Sometimes, the camera zooms in on the refrigerator and segues into a Sam Spud segment.
The Joy Learno Show: Female parody of the former late-night host Jay Leno talks to several guests about words and their meanings.
Marmy's Poetry Corner: This segment features Marmy with guest stars.
Replacing Letter Songs: Each song for the vowels, such as "a" and "e", etc. This is sung in different words, such as "Ben" and "hen". In the end, a letter is replaced such as "t" and changes a letter to "ten". Heath the Thesaurus would sometimes introduce the segment by saying, "And now, a little poem in which letters change, and make something very interesting happen."
