In each 15-minute installment, the Letter People (relatively primitive puppets) undertake various adventures in Letter People Land, a dark, featureless place populated by strange people and creatures. Episodes usually focus on introducing new Letter People or new sounds formed by combining two Letter People together (such as /CH/ or /OU/). Other episodes take the Letter People to more exotic (though still featureless) locales such as outer space (eventually, the show would include more standard scenery, like cityscapes, meadows, Miss O's opera house, etc.), while a few highlight the characters' conflicts over various sounds (such as Mr. C fighting Mr. K and Mr. S for his sound). Another common feature of the show is "the Catching Game", a game show hosted by Monty Swell (a character based on Monty Hall) where the Letter People must form words by positioning themselves correctly side-by-side. The show has aired almost continuously since 1972. A little dog is minding his own business when various figures (including a female figure carrying a bunch of helium balloons) enter the gates of "Letter People Land" as the song plays:  In 1990, Abrams & Co. Publishers Inc. of Austin, Texas, bought the rights to "The Letter People" from the previous owner, Norwalk, Connecticut-based New Dimensions in Education, Inc. The company gave the program a major update, revising it considerably. They changed the look of the characters and the associated materials. Lowercase letters were added to the back of each Letter Person (previously they had been placed on each character somewhat randomly). In 1996 the Abrams Company also made sweeping changes to over half of the Letter People themselves, most obviously equalizing the proportion of male to female characters (vowels are now distinguished by their ability to light up via "LetterLights," which appear as yellow suns on their right shoulders). The male characters' names changed from "Mister" to "Mr.", and the female characters' names changed from "Miss" to "Ms.". All references to "junk food" were swapped for non-food-related characteristics (Mr. D's "delicious donuts" were exchanged for "dazzling dance", for example). Any Letter People that Abrams deemed as expressing negative images were changed to be more positive (Mr. H's horrible hair became happy hair instead, Mr. R's Ripping Rubberbands became Rainbow Ribbons, and Mr. X was no longer all wrong and became different).