Sunday, April 28, 2024

Schoolhouse Rock!

school house rock

A variety of bands working with Rhino Records were furnished with newly minted Schoolhouse Rock! The licensing rights were expanded to include other manufacturers in 1996. After leaving the airwaves in 1985, the original team reunited to produce two more Grammar Rock segments ("Busy Prepositions" and "The Tale of Mr. Morton") for television in 1993 with J. J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc.[8] This was followed in 1995 by a new series, "Money Rock," which discussed themes related to money management on both the personal and governmental scale.

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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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A fifth follow-up series, titled "Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips," featuring the titular characters (the only music videos in the series to feature any recurring characters), premiered in the early 1980s and comprised just four segments about home computer technology, then just emerging onto the scene. As the references and depictions became quickly outdated, due to the rapid advance of technology, these segments stopped airing after 1985 and were not released on home video until the 30th anniversary DVD in 2002. On August 26, 2002 Buena Vista Home Video released a 2-disc DVD featuring 51 of the 52 episodes (the only one missing being the presumed-lost Computer Rock segment) as well as many special features. An abbreviated VHS, featuring the "top 25" episodes plus "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College," was released at the same time. On September 23, 2008, the "Schoolhouse Rock-Election Collection" was released, including 14 songs about the history and the government and a "new to DVD" song.[6] On March 31, 2009, Buena Vista Home Video released "Schoolhouse Rock Earth" on DVD, which includes 10 newly written and animated songs.

Home video

Before the idea grew into an animated short series, McCall's original concept was an album called "Multiplication Rock," so that became the theme of the show's inaugural season. The first four songs to air were "My Hero, Zero," "Elementary, My Dear," "The Four-Legged Zoo" and "Three Is a Magic Number," all written and performed by Dorough. Starting in 2002, the team once again reunited to produce a new song "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College," written by George Newall and performed by Bob Dorough and Jack Sheldon for the 30th Anniversary VHS and DVD releases. Election Collection, which centered on songs relating to American history and government. In 1973, Capitol Records released a soundtrack album of Multiplication Rock (SJA-11174), featuring all 11 songs. Two tracks, "My Hero, Zero" and "Three Is a Magic Number", had been edited for TV to keep each video within three minutes.

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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.

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 Live! Jr. - St. Augustine

Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr..

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Long before there was a way to record the program, government and lobbyists groups requested cassettes of "I'm Just a Bill" to train staff members. Medical schools did the same for "Telegraph Line" to help students understand the complicated inner workings of the nervous system. Winona Ryder and company crooned “Conjunction Junction” and “I’m Just a Bill” in the 1994 generational-statement film “Reality Bites.” De La Soul borrowed “Three Is a Magic Number” as the backbone for their buoyant self-introduction, “The Magic Number,” in 1989.

school house rock

Computer Rock, Season 5 (1982–

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.

Schoolhouse Rock!

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.

That combination of the short, attention-grabbing visuals plus popular music set the stage for fun lyrics that packed a deceptively powerful punch. Through them, the eyes and minds of children were wide open for weighty topics like immigration ("The Great American Melting Pot"), global warming ("Report from the North Pole") and women's rights ("Sufferin' 'til Suffrage). Remember, "Schoolhouse Rock!" was created by advertising executives. In the beginning, they'd leave their day jobs and design storyboards on their kitchen tables at night. And just like that, a bunch of ad agency execs and a jazz musician were headed straight into Saturday morning television. "I don't know how I lucked out," Dorough told us when we spoke to him in 2017 when he was 93.

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!

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.

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