Allegra's Window - "When is Reed Coming Home?"

I'm pretty sure a lot of you don't remember Allegra's Window, but it was a good show. It centered around a little girl named Allegra who witnesses what goes on in the world around her in Hummingbird Alley. Now, with that out of the way, let's review one of my favorite episodes, "When is Reed Coming Home?" And no, that's not a question, that's the title of the episode.

The plot of the story is that Reed, played by Bob Stillman, has to go on a business trip, and Lindi isn't sure about when he'll be coming home, Reed assures her that he'll be back late tonight after she and her friends have gone asleep, followed by a nice song written by Jeff Kindley called "He Has to Go Away, He'll Be Back Soon." Meanwhile, Riff constantly listens to music, unaware of what's going on. When he stops at Reed's for some tuna tiddly-widdlies, he notices that Reed has already left, leaving him to believe that Reed had moved out of Hummingbird Alley. But his friends reassure him that Reed loves both him and Lindi, and after all, he is his number one alley cat.

The episode is pretty good, it's cute, and has a lot of good musical numbers. Especially the one with the birds singing about how their mother bird who had left them to find them worms, and even Riff himself had a good number that was written by theme song writer, Barry Harman, called "He's Gone!" where he laments about Reed leaving despite the fact that he would eventually return. Fun facts I should mention is that Martin P. Robinson, the voice of Riff, also served as Muppet coordinator for the show, and Emily Squires, a veteran Sesame Street director, directed this episode, heck even Dick Weiss, who was the lighting director for several Nickelodeon shows that were taped in Florida, also served as one of the many lighting directors for Sesame Street during the 80's. It's like Nick Jr.'s own version of Sesame Street if you ask me. Another factoid I should mention is that Jim Jinkins, the creator of Doug, served as one of the creators of the shows, Allegra's Window aired after Nickelodeon's version of Doug ended, so, it was possible for him to work on both shows.

So, bottom line, this was a cute show, too bad it never had a DVD release, mostly due the fact that Cartoon Pizza (formerly known as Jumbo Pictures) closed operations, it's also because of the fact that Disney acquired Jumbo Pictures, much to the execs at Nick's chagrin. So, there's no chance of there being a DVD release any time soon. And even if it did, it would be from Amazon's Creative Space Made on Demand stuff, and you know how much I had those kinds of DVDs, it's hard for you to play them on your computer. All I can say is go watch it on Kimcartoon or at least buy the first season on iTunes.

Well, that's all the time I have today, good night.