All Episodes

Tom has a question: Whouldn't it be fun to have a live lion cub in the house? Linda warns what live animals do: they grow, move around, and eat. But living things are interesting.

A boy visits Tom and Linda with a couple of puppies. He learns every age has its good side, as illustrated in a story about growing. Tom shows his egg collection.

Linda is surprised looking at her stamps. One of them is apparently from ""Varietyville."" This segues into the story Alice in Varietyville. In it, Alice discovers that different animals have noses, tails, eyes and feet adapted specifically for them.

Robbie and Gary walk into the patio to look for a turtle called Timothy. Tom shows the turtle is camouflaged. It leads him to tell a Barney and Pete story. Pete bumps into all sorts of camouflaged animals on an island, but Barney knows better.

Tom has a mechanism designed to take a book off the shelves. Each part relies on the other for the gadget to work. It's the beginning of a long succession of examples in nature on living things depending on other living things.

A story of silly people who tries to evict animals from their town, is not the only example of how people depend on plants and animals. Linda relates her adventure as a grocery store cashier. She tells one customer that everything he buys, comes from plants and/or animals.

Linda tells a story about the Three Princes of Serendip (later Sri Lanka). Asked if they had seen a lost camel, they reveal the signs they had witnessed. The signs told the three brothers that the camel had a gap in his teeth, one lame leg, and was blind in one eye. Then Linda sheds light on fossils.

What's the matter with Tom? While Linda is trying to clean up a room, asking what things are, Tom answers ""matter"" each time. Tom shares a Barney and Pete story, in which Pete gets a lesson about three of the states of matter.

Tom has a surprise in a box. Instead of three guesses, he gives Linda ""Four S's."" That leads to a fairy tale about a troll and a girl who wants a box. To earn that box, the girl must guess the four properties of matter, all beginning with S. But that's only solids. Liquids, the troll hints, have two S's and a P.

Tom accidentally tips a box of tiles intended for a table top. He and Linda decide to arrange the tiles by shape to make things easier. But objects can be classified in different ways.

Tom asks Linda for ""a handful of raisins"" to add to his bread mix. It tells both how important it is to measure accurately with standard units of measure.

Bored Tom and Linda decide they need change. They envision a ""Change Shop,"" detailing physical and chemical changes that may or may not be changed back.

While straining to move a telephone booth, Linda takes a strange call. She dreams of Alice in Pushpullville. In the story, Alice is surrounded by ""push me"" and ""pull me"" signs. She learns that matter cannot move by itself, only when it is pushed or pulled.

The song Six Simple Machines introduces this program and the next two. In this episode, another Barney and Pete story details the lever and the inclined plane. This time Barney gives Pete advice on how to lift a treasure chest out of sand.

Linda tells Tom all he needs to build a house is a tree and a few wedges. Then she hints to how important the screw is.

Tom and Linda have been moving furniture, exhausting themselves to some extent. Next time, they agreed, they'll make use if wheels and axles. This is much better than the ""roller"" idea of centuries gone by. Twice Tom and Linda think of a little girl trying to move a hippopotamus. Pulleys are introduced in the last of these hippo stories.

Tom proposes another planet with a room just like theirs, inhabited with two strange creatures looking down on the Earth. These creatures plan to note human life processes.

Linda and Tom are back on the telescope, imagining the two space creatures trying to research human life on Earth. Now the Space Captain wants a human. She implores the Space Lieutenant, who has never seen a human, to get a human for her.

Bored Chris and Robbie begin to fantasize with Tom about how different people look. Theirs is a detective adventure centering around an agency called The Detective Den. Robbie and Chris search for a cuddly grandmother.

Tom and Linda, along with two friends, are rehearsing a variety show on the systems of the body. They discuss the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems. They rummage through a set of props to assemble their make-up, depending on what systens they play.

Kathy is upset on her birthday. Linda suggests she talk to a Spirit of Birthdays (Tom), who tells Kathy how fun each stage of human life is.

Tom shows Linda photos of his great-grandfather. He was a man who knew a great deal about good health, and he even jad a word for it: creft. That was an acronym for cleanlinesss, rest, exercise, food, and teeth.

Linda introduces another Terrible Troll story. In it, the Troll enslaves a little girl. The only way she can escape is if she can tell the Troll within three days what materials make up the Earth.

""From the mountains to the plateaus,"" Tom sings. Although the line may be wrong, it does lead Tom to another Barney and Pete story. In it, Barney and Pete have lost their pirate ship and must ride a magic carpet to find it.

Tom emerges with a trunkful of books and diaries belonging to his great-grandfather. He had gone to all parts of the earth noting how the earth undergoes natural changes via water, wind, and ice.

Tom and Linda discover more of Gramps' notes about changes on the Earth's surface. Gramps is superimposed over film of a volcanic eruption and geysers. He also documents the destructive effects of an earthquake that ravaged Alaska in 1964.

Chris has his reservations about a hot day. Tom hints to how important the sun is with a story of a boy who wished the sun would not rise again, and apparently saw his wish realized. After the story, Tom plays a cassette tape of a song dictating facts on the sun and (to a lesser extent) the planets.

Tom brings in a compost barrel to complete the community that is the Dragons, Wagons & Wax set. Until now, he and Linda had producers and consumers, but not the decomposers. The compost set-up filled the breach.

Going through the mail, Linda thinks she has an envelope from an ""Alice in Communityville."" This time, Alice's cat comes to life, telling her that plants and animals are suited to their specific environments.

The Change Shop returns, as Tom and Linda fantasize natural changes. Communities can be changed in natural ways, such as fire, water, drought, or wind.

A revisionist Rip Van Winkle story tells of how humans reshape the physical environment, not always for the better.

What is a ""walking catfish""? It's a warning to humankind about mishandling the Earth and disaffecting life biologically.