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The series' original run lasted from 1973 to 1985; it was later revived from 1993 to 1996.[2] Additional episodes were produced in 2009 for direct-to-video release. When a print workbook version fell through, McCall's company decided to produce their own animated versions of the songs, which they then sold to ABC (which already was McCall's company's biggest advertising account) based on a demo animation of the original "Three is a Magic Number" for its Saturday morning lineup. They pitched their idea to Michael Eisner, then vice-president of ABC's children's programming division. Eisner brought longtime Warner Bros. cartoonist/director Chuck Jones to the meeting to also listen to the presentation. Jones decided to use the animated song for the pilot episode of his children's series that also aired on ABC, Curiosity Shop, which premiered on September 2, 1971. The idea came to McCall when he noticed one of his sons, who was having trouble in school remembering the multiplication tables, knew the lyrics to many current rock songs.
'Schoolhouse Rock!': The Later Years
If you were an American kid around when I was (nineteen-seventy-cough), you probably have “Schoolhouse Rock” hard-wired into your brain too. The musical shorts, which began airing on ABC in 1973, taught Generation X multiplication, grammar, history and, eventually, nostalgia. On August 27, 2002, Walt Disney Home Entertainment released a 2-DVD set to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the show. The set features 52 of the 53 episodes that had been produced up to that point, including three of the lost "Computer Rock" segments, with the exception of "Introduction". "The Weather Show" and "Presidential Minute" are found on the bonus disc, the former in modified form with the problematic lyric removed, and the latter viewable only upon completing the "Earn Your Diploma" Trivia Game.
Schoolhouse Rock!
Nostalgia for “Schoolhouse Rock” is now itself old enough to be nostalgic for. In the 1990s, ABC produced more new episodes along with the last two of Grammar Rock. A follow-up production entitled Schoolhouse Rock Live, Too, written by the same team as Schoolhouse Rock Live!
Grammar Rock
In 2009, in response to the threat of climate change, a new series of shorts was released directly to DVD, with the title Schoolhouse Rock! In a first for the series, an additional 12th song, "The 3 R's," a reworked version of "Three Is a Magic Number" rethemed around the message "reduce, reuse, recycle," was included as a live action music video (starring singer Mitchel Musso) rather than as a new cartoon. Also unique to this iteration of the series was the inclusion of interstitial introductions featuring recurring animated characters created for the DVD, Jack, Bob, and Lou, a trio of Arctic polar bears. Is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films (and later, music videos) which aired during the Saturday morning children's programming block on the U.S. television network ABC. The themes covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics.
Music videos
No shows were produced featuring the number 1 explicitly, though several of them, including "Elementary, My Dear," do include this number. "My Hero, Zero" introduced the subject of how to use zero for multiplying by 10, 100, and 1,000. "Little Twelvetoes" introduced the subject of how math arranged on base 12 rather than on base 10 would work, as well as covering multiplication by 12. In the 1990s, the team reunited to produce Money Rock and two more Grammar Rock segments ("Busy Prepositions" and "The Tale of Mr. Morton").
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"Apparently [McCall] tried other songwriters but most of them wrote down to kids. When I met McCall, he said, 'Here's my idea. Give it a try. But don't write down to the kids.' When he said that, I got a chill. I have a high opinion of children." A magician shows how magic the multiplication of 3 really is, including a family of three and a football team whose uniforms are numbered in threes. In 1995, ABC teamed with Paramount Home Video and re-released four segments of Schoolhouse Rock!
"Schoolhouse Rock Live!" is in Birmingham, April 11-21—get your tickets now - Bham Now
"Schoolhouse Rock Live!" is in Birmingham, April 11-21—get your tickets now.
Posted: Tue, 02 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Earth Rock, Season 7 (
Debuted as a series in January 1973 with Multiplication Rock, a collection of animated music videos adapting the multiplication tables to songs written by Bob Dorough. Dorough also performed most of the songs, with Grady Tate performing two and Blossom Dearie performing one during this season. General Foods was the series' first sponsor; later sponsors of the Schoolhouse Rock! Segments also included Nabisco, Kenner Toys, Kellogg's, and McDonald's.[7] During the early 1970s, Schoolhouse Rock was one of several short-form animated educational shorts that aired on ABC's children's lineup; others included Time for Timer and The Bod Squad.
The History and Music of 'Schoolhouse Rock!'
On June 5, 2020, a majority of the shorts were made available for streaming on Disney+, with a disclaimer stating the shorts contain "outdated cultural depictions".
Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks
The series as a whole (after 27 years, shortly before the show's 30th anniversary) ceased airing on television in 2000, with newer episodes being released directly to home video. However, reruns occasionally aired on Toon Disney's Big Movie Show block in 2004, but were soon removed from the schedule. It was a young Eisner, as a vice president of children’s programming at ABC in the early ‘70s, who bought “Schoolhouse Rock” for the network after Yohe and Newall, also an advertising executive, had pitched it. As a child of the early '70s, I grew up on "Schoolhouse Rock!" I have probably said or written the phrase "Knowledge is power!" thousands of times between the Saturday mornings of my youth and now. But until I wrote this piece, I didn't realize how lucky I was to be exposed to something that assumed kids were smart instead of dumbing down the content. Besides chatting with 93-year-old Bob Dorough before he flew to London for a few jazz gigs, my favorite part of writing this piece was learning how important it was to the creators that children be treated with respect.
The first song recorded was "Three is a Magic Number", written by Bob Dorough. It tested well, so a children's record was compiled and released. Tom Yohe listened to the first song, and began to doodle pictures to go with the lyrics. Like the two newly-produced "America Rock" music video were released in 2002, none of the "Earth Rock" music videos were aired on television.
To coincide with the upcoming United States Bicentennial, a third season, America Rock, airing in 1975 and 1976, had music videos covering the structure of the United States government (such as "I'm Just a Bill") along with important moments in American history (examples include "The Preamble" and "Mother Necessity"). George Newall and Tom Yohe were the executive producers and creative directors of every episode, along with Bob Dorough as musical director. This first season was followed in short order by a second season, run from 1973 to 1975, entitled Grammar Rock, which included nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech (such as conjunctions, explained in "Conjunction Junction"). For this second season, the show added the services of Jack Sheldon, a member of The Merv Griffin Show house band, as well as Lynn Ahrens; both of them contributed to the series through the rest of its run. Blossom Dearie returned for a second episode, and Essra Mohawk joined the cast as a recurring singer.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment created "Schoolhouse Rock Earth" in advance of Earth Day in 2009. The 12-song DVD brought Dorough, Ahrens and Newall back together — plus new talent including singer/songwriter Jack Johnson — for songs focused on climate change, recycling, rainforests and carbon footprints. Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
Each "Schoolhouse Rock!" video is animated, three minutes or less, and full of catchy music and lyrics that will be stuck in your head for decades to come. The concept is themed in seasons — Multiplication Rock, Grammar Rock and more. It will run in the Saturday morning slot through the middle of 1985, then return for a few years in the mid-1990s. With a few changes here and there, the original creators, singers and songwriters will be there for the show's birth, death, resurrection, and the many tributes and celebrations in the decades that follow.
Episodes from the new series aired in rotation with the original segments from 1993 to 1996. It was the many squirrel-cheeked characters on “Schoolhouse Rock” who explained multiplication, grammar, American history and science to Generation X-ers when they were kids. Now the show has become a nostalgic focal point for them, their parents and older siblings who watched with them. Yohe’s daughter Lauren, then 6, can be heard as the voice of the little girl at the end of “Interjections! That’s the end.” Tom Yohe Jr., now also an advertising executive, designed “The Tale of Mr. Morton,” a 1993 segment on how to build sentences.
Jack Sheldon’s son John is the voice of the little boy in “I’m Just a Bill.” Dorough’s daughter and her friend sang on “Four-Legged Zoo” after giving him the idea for the song. Yohe’s attachment to the show reflects how for him, like its other creators, “Schoolhouse Rock” was transformed from a job into a family affair. Even though Yohe said ABC isn’t ordering any more segments beyond the 10 produced since 1992, he hopes its second life will be extended now that Walt Disney Co. has merged with Capital Cities/ABC, putting Walt Disney Co. The series’ popularity stems as much from its educational value as from its nostalgic hold on post-baby boomers, who recite lyrics to the catchy tunes like a password to a secret society. Copyright issues between Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey prevented The Greatest Show on Earth to be further aired on television. "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College" was produced for the 30th anniversary DVD collection.
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