Recurring Characters
- Blond-Haired Cartoon Man (Mel Brooks): Read words appearing on screen; however, they often showed up in the wrong order or made no sense.
- The Blue Beetle (Jim Boyd): Bumbling superhero, who often made matters worse instead of better when he tried to help; often challenged Spider-Man.
- Clayton: Claymation character, animated by Will Vinton, who commented on the previous skit or introduced a new concept
- The Corsican Twins (Skip Hinnant and Jim Boyd): Twin brothers who inflicted pain on each other while teaching phonics
- Dr. Doolots (Luis Avalos): Parody of Doctor Dolittle and Groucho Marx, who used words to cure his patients
- Easy Reader (Morgan Freeman): Smooth hipster who loved reading; associated with Valerie the Librarian (Hattie Winston) and Vi (Lee Chamberlin) in her diner
- Fargo North, Decoder (Skip Hinnant): Inspector Clouseau-type detective, who decoded scrambled word messages and phrases; his name was a pun based on Fargo, North Dakota.
- J. Arthur Crank (Jim Boyd): Plaid-wearing character, who interrupted sketches to complain when spellings or pronunciations confused him; named after British film mogul J. Arthur Rank
- Lorelei (Jim Boyd): Animated chicken appearing in live-action scenes
- Mel Mounds (Morgan Freeman): Disc jockey who introduced songs, usually by the Short Circus
- Millie the Helper (Rita Moreno): Eager-beaver trainee working at various jobs
- Otto the Director (Rita Moreno): Old-style Hollywood film director, who tried in vain to make her actors say a line correctly
- Pandora the Brat: Rita Moreno's bratty-but-lovable blonde girl who tried to outwit the adults around her
- Paul the Gorilla (Jim Boyd): Sidekick of Jennifer of the Jungle; named after head writer Paul Dooley
- Vincent the Vegetable Vampire: A send-up of Dracula, played by Morgan Freeman
The adult cast also had recurring roles as J.J. (Skip Hinnant), Carmela (Rita Moreno), Brenda (Lee Chamberlin), Mark (Morgan Freeman), Hank (Bill Cosby), Winnie (Judy Graubart), Andy (Jim Boyd), Roberto (Luis Avalos), and Sylvia (Hattie Winston).
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