AUSTIN, Texas — If you were a kid in the 1970s and watched the public broadcasting channel in your town, you may have come across a very different kind of kids show where the characters spoke both English and Spanish.
Welcome to "Carrscolendas," a village that existed only inside the large studios of what was then known as KLRN-TV, located along The Drag on the University of Texas campus.
From inside the foreboding-looking, multi-story, windowless studio, the always bright and cheerful "Carrascolendas" and its multicultural residents became the first-ever English-Spanish bilingual TV series for children, airing 220 episodes in all. The show was broadcast nationwide on the PBS network from 1970 to 1976.
"Carrascolendas" was the brainchild of Austin’s Aida Barrera, who started her public TV journey in 1962 when she hosted bilingual education shows that beamed across schools in Texas.
Barrera said that she wanted to create something more – an enjoyable, fast-paced television show that mixed Spanish and English songs and dialogue and that featured a cast of unforgettable characters.
“I actually went to the PBS network and met with the president of PBS and said, ‘You ought to carry this program,’” Barrera said in an interview with the Voces Oral History Center. “But it took some convincing because he was not convinced, but eventually, he did it.”
The rest is television history.
The lights at "Carrascolendas" were turned off permanently in 1976 when federal funding ended. Yet the old episodes continue to be popular, according to Austin’s PBS station KLRU-TV, which now broadcasts from new studios at the former Highland Mall in Austin. "Carrascolendas" episodes can be viewed on the station’s website.
Interestingly, there actually was a real place called Carrascolendas. It’s a version of the original name of the community now known as Rio Grande City, in Starr County, Texas.
It also happens to be the city where Aida Barrera lived as a child.