Puttnam's Prairie Emporium (partially found Canadian children's television series; 1988-1990)
Title card.
Status: Partially Found
Puttnam's Prairie Emporium is a half-hour Canadian children's television series created and produced by Bruce Edwards. It originally debuted in Canada on CTV for two seasons from 1988 to 1990, with 52 episodes made, but it also aired in the United States on syndication.[1] The plot involves when the daughter Ellen (Coral Crum) and grandchildren Katy (Brandie Mickleborough) and Mark (Jeremy Drummond) have moved into a long-standing general store run by eccentric owner Mr. Puttnam (George Alexander).
The other cast of the show are Ivan (Billy Morton), a scientist who developed a Time Closet in the confines of the store, Caldicott C. Cat (voiced by John Wilson), a saxophone-playing cat who lived in a basket on the store's counter and Benjamin (voiced by Rosco Bell), a talking beefalo head hanging on the wall behind the counter.
Availability
There have been rumors that master tapes were to have been accidentally burned in the parking lot fire after cancellation, and no other evidence could confirm it and possibly be a misunderstanding {despite the show having reruns in some later years}.
The show was not released on any home media, officially released online, or any streaming service. As of 2024, there have been ten episodes, and a few minutes from one other are known to have resurfaced online.
John Wilson's daughter, Maezzi, claims that they have all 52 episodes on tape, but there was no intention of making them public it verified in March 2020 that their warehouse unexpectedly burned to the ground and John Wilson himself reported to have the 52 episodes in a not so serious kind of way.[2]
There was no mention of the 52 Episodes in the news articles or the fundraiser itself rather mentioning a different show among the casualties.[3]
There’s no proof given on whether they even had the episodes at some time and whether they were kept in a safe environment or preserved in any way if at least made any backup and transferred to an archive {despite having the interest in transferring to digital at some point Whether they had the opportunity and followed through with it}.
It remains unclear about the fate of the episodes, whether anything like that has yet the hope to resurface, and whether CTV/YTV will have interest in releasing the entire series to the public in their best quality format.
A lot of claims to Its status are largely unverified and rarely talked about, Specifically for a well-loved children's TV Show and even the people involved with the production, Not to mention that the show won Multiple Awards, so it wouldn’t make any absolute sense why anyone would ever allow the show go lost or unpreserved especially during 80s/90s when people already knew better, IT was also at a time when TV Recordings were Easily Accessible even Frequent and when Digital Transferred shouldn't have been a problem.
The same goes for the Wilson Family, who would have no problem preserving the 52 tapes going back to their claim as far back as 2014.[4]
Episodes
| Episode # | Title | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Origins" (1 | 2) | Ivan works with a fellow scientist. | Found |
| 2 | "Beefalo's Lament" | Benjamin the Beefalo Head bemoans his future on the wall. | Lost |
| 3 | "The Time Closet" | Ivan's Time Closet accidentally sends Mark to 1905. | Lost |
| 4 | "Young Puttnam" | Ivan's time closet turns Puttnam into a 13-year-old. | Lost |
| 5 | "The Reunion" | Ellen prepares for the arrival of the children's grandparents. | Lost |
| 6 | "Behind the Scenes" | Alistair Pinch reveals how the series is made. | Lost |
| 7 | "Nothing But the Truth" | A time closet experiment forces everyone to tell the truth. | Lost |
| 8 | "Practical Jokes" | Mark gets carried away with his practical jokes. | Lost |
| 9 | "He's a Wonderful Cat" | Caldicott meets his guardian angel. | Lost |
| 10 | "No Time Like the Present" | Adult Mark visits from the future via the Time Closet. | Lost |
| 11 | "The Christmas Visitor" (1 | 2 | 3) | Ellen plans an old-fashioned Christmas. | Found |
| 12 | "The Election" | Mark runs for office at school. | Lost |
| 13 | "Bloopers" (1 | 2 | 3) | Dick Carp and Ed McMud present Emporium bloopers. | Found |
| 14 | "Luther" | Ivan's overachieving brother visits. | Lost |
| 15 | "Changes" (1 | 2) | Ellen and her children come to live at the Emporium. | Found |
| 16 | "The Chain Letter" | Ivan tears up a chain letter. | Lost |
| 17 | Unknown | Unknown | Lost |
| 18 | Unknown | Unknown | Lost |
| 19/20 | "The Time Blip" (Part 1/2) (1 | 2) | Ivan tries to bring Katy back from the time blip. | Found |
| 21 | Unknown | Unknown | Lost |
| 22 | "Dinosaur Time" | Caldicott concocts a dinosaur-raising scheme. | Lost |
| 23 | "Origins" | Ivan and the professor time travel to discover the origins of common things. | Lost |
| 24 | "Asking Questions" (1 | 2 | 3) | Ivan decides to become a philosopher. | Found |
| 25 | "The Dating Game" | Katy and Mark think Ellen has been spending too much time with a new beau. | Lost |
| 26 | "Bumps in the Night" | Katy fears thunder and lightning. | Lost |
| 27 | "Sparky" (1 | 2 | 3) | Katy and Mark find an unusual pet. | Found |
| 28 | "Remember When" | Ivan's time camera reviews the past. | Lost |
| 29 | Unknown | Unknown | Lost |
| 30 | "The Promise" | Special episode concerns child abuse. | Lost |
| 31 | "Cycles" | Ivan's experiment produces an instructive tree. | Lost |
| 32 | "Illusions" | Ivan shows how the senses can play tricks on you. | Lost |
| 33 | "Never Say Goodbye" | Katy's friend prepares to move to Edmonton. | Lost |
| 34 | "King for a Very Long Day" | Mr. Puttnam leaves Mark in charge. | Lost |
| 35 | "If You Could Be in My Shoes" | A magic spell causes everyone to switch bodies. | Found |
| 36 | Unknown | Unknown | Lost |
| 37 | "Peace Talks" (1 | 2 | 3) | A new store prompts a discussion about fights. | Found |
| 38 | "The Trunk" | Mark and a friend rummage through an old trunk. | Lost |
| 39 | "Dollars and Sense" | Caldicott receives a credit card in the mail. | Lost |
| 40 | "Black and White and Read Me All Over" | Katy is bored at the thought of reading. | Lost |
| 41 | "The UFO" | Ellen thinks she saw a UFO. | Lost |
| 42 | "Changes Again" | Ellen accepts a new job, and everyone prepares to move to Toronto. | Lost |
| 43 | "That's the Way Life Goes" | The children's father arrives with disturbing news. | Lost |
| 44 | "Trouble With Katy" | A genie grants Mark three wishes. | Lost |
| 45 | "Everybody Makes Mistakes" | The Time Closet breaks down. | Lost |
| 46 | "The Clown" | An alienated circus clown responds to the Help Wanted sign. | Lost |
| 47 | Unknown | Unknown | Lost |
| 48 | "Mark's Big Brother" | Mark joins Big Brothers Association. | Lost |
| 49 | Unknown | Unknown | Lost |
| 50 | "Call of the Wild" | Poachers kill Benjamin's friend. | Lost |
| 51 | "Heroes" | A down-on-his-luck superhero visits. | Partially Found |
| 52 | "Career Moves" | The children ponder their futures. | Lost |