Above: ZOOM cast members Pablo Velez Jr and Dorchester native Lynese Browder,
The celebrated revival of “Zoom,” the successful 1972 PBS children’s show, first aired in 1999, and ran for seven seasons out of WGBH (now ‘GBH), Boston’s PBS outlet. Created by Christopher Sarson and developed by WGBH, each episode featured a cast of seven kids performing skits, playing games, completing science experiments, cooking recipes, and asking their young viewers to send in ideas.
Last month, a few of the young “Zoomers” were back together, at an event hosted by The Record Co. on Morrissey Boulevard.
“It was so lovely,” said season one star Pablo Velez Jr. about the gathering. “To be surrounded by support and all this love and being able to reminisce and share these stories with everyone and hear what they thought, it was all positive, great stuff. It was so nice to kind of relive that moment.”
The event was more than a reunion for Velez, the director of development at The Record Co.; it was an opportunity for him to introduce his new podcast, After School Rewind. In each episode, the now 41-year-old Velez sits down with a former Zoom kid and asks them about their life before, during, and after the show.
Velez said he was inspired to start the podcast after the idea received positive feedback on social media. He turned to TikTok and Instagram in search of community and connection.
1999 ZOOM cast members Pablo Velez Jr and Dorchester native Lynese Browder stand between senior producer Jonathan Meath (left) and original 1970s ZOOM cast member Bernadette Yao (right).
Patrick Breton photo
“I had never really put myself on social media in a way to connect with the people who grew up watching the show,” he said. “I have social media accounts, but never really kind of leaned into it in a way where it’s like, ‘I’m here, do you remember me? Let’s talk.’”
Last August, Velez finally leaned in, and the response was bigger and better than he had imagined it would be. When he made a video reintroducing himself, it gathered more than over 58,500 views. But it was his second video, in which he returned to the TV studio where the show was shot, that really took off.
The short clip has nearly 98,000 views, 12,500 likes, and hundreds of comments asking for a reunion.
“They were sharing, unprompted, how impactful the show was, how they would run home after school to watch the show,” Velez said in an interview with The Reporter, “how we felt like friends, how seeing someone who looked like them was really meaningful.
“I was getting so much positivity and love, which is honestly what I needed at the time and was not expecting. It was really beautiful.”
Among the comments, one stood out in varying forms: Where’s everyone else? How is everyone else? What are they doing? Do you keep in touch?
“I realized I was just as curious as everyone else,” said Velez. “We shared one of the defining experiences of our childhoods, but after the show ended, life happened. We went to high school, college, started careers, raised families, and more than 25 years have passed. We had never really talked about what that experience meant to us as adults.”
That’s when the notion of the podcast was born.
In 1999, Bernadette Yao (left) from the 1970s Zoom series visited the show’s set to meet the next generation of Zoomers, including Pablo Velez (third from left) and Lynese Browder (second from right). Photo supplied by Bernadette Yao
The first episode, which was released on June 28, features Zoomer and Dorchester native Lynese Browder, now 40 and a Rhode Island resident who is a high school learning specialist.
“We started communicating little by little,” said Browder, who received a message from Velez on social media.
“Once he asked me to do the interview, it was like, ‘ Oh yes, I’m there, let’s do it. Let’s take a walk down memory lane because I think we need to. We need to talk about our experiences because once it was done, it was done, and we kind of all went back to our normal lives.”
For Browder, that “normal” life was lived near Codman Square. “Growing up in Dorchester, there are sounds, there’s food, family, culture. I loved every moment of it,” she said. “I lived with lots of family, I had two grandmothers who actually lived close to each other so I would either be with one set of family at one grandmother’s house who was Jamaican eating and drinking all our culture in one area, and then I would be at another grandparent’s home who was from down South. Still a lot of food, a lot of family, a lot of laughs.
“Growing up in Dorchester was just everything I needed. It’s who I am, and it’s shaped the woman I am today. It was beautiful.”
Browder took a break from Codman Square during the summer when she was 12 – she spent much of that time at the WGBH studios in Allston.
In episode one of the podcast, Browder revealed that after participating in the Rogers Middle School’s production of “Into the Woods,” her music teacher encouraged her to audition for “Zoom.”
When she got the role, she was happy but she didn’t realize how big a deal it was. “It was fun, it was new, it was something that I hadn’t experienced before. There were others who looked like me, who didn’t look like me, who came and taught me so many different things about cultures and families that I didn’t know about,” she said. “I enjoyed that moment.”
Some of her favorite segments were Zoom Cafe, where she made recipes submitted by fans, and Zoom Playhouse, where she performed short skits also submitted by viewers.
Browder clarified that the show was unscripted and relied on the kids’ spontaneity. When it came down to it, it was really just about having fun. She has distinct memories of having “laughing fits” with Velez in the Zoom Zone, the area where the kids hung out when they weren’t on camera.
But the summer came and went quickly, she recalled. “As a child, I was like, that’s okay because I can get back to my friends and my cousins and playing and doing all the fun things.”
Today, she said, “I wish I had a little more time, even if it wasn’t on the show, just around these beautiful humans I just spent an entire summer with and jumped off logs with, and did a cold plunge with, and learned so much about. I wished that it had continued.”
Still, when she walked into The Record Co. last month and saw Velez for the first time, it was as if no time had passed. “It felt like seeing him again as a child. From the first time I saw Pablo, I was like I feel comfortable with that kid.”
When the two got to talking, they were back in the Zoom Zone, laughing and speaking in the show’s secret “ubbi dubbi” language. They got to connect with some other Zoomers, too.
Also in attendance with Browder were Jonathan Meath, the senior producer in 1999 and 2000, and Bernadette Yao, an original 1972 “Zoom”cast member.
Velez said the intention of the night and of the podcast in general is to take a second to pause. “It’s a way for people to come back to a place where they experienced something good and remind them that there is still so much good.”
He said that the event and podcast wouldn’t be possible without the support of The Record Co., which, at its core, keeps the arts alive and well in Boston.
Specifically, Velez hopes everyone at the event and all those who listen to the podcast are inspired to “go connect with someone, go reminisce, go catch up. We need that. That’s what I believe Zoom did, and continues to do, and what I’m hoping that this podcast will support in that mission.”
After School Rewind is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are available.
