A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| Schoolhouse Rock! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Created by | David McCall |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 7 |
| No. of episodes | 65 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producers | George Newall Radford Stone |
| Running time | 3 minutes |
| Production companies | Scholastic Rock, Inc.[1] ABC |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC (1973-1985, 1992–2000) Direct-to-video (2009) |
| Release | January 6, 1973 – March 31, 2009 |
Schoolhouse Rock! 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. 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.
History
Development
The series was the idea of David McCall, an advertising executive of McCaffrey and McCall, who noticed his young son was struggling with learning multiplication tables, despite being able to memorize the lyrics of many Rolling Stones songs. McCall hired musician Bob Dorough to write a song that would teach multiplication, which became "Three Is a Magic Number".[3] Tom Yohe, an illustrator at McCaffrey and McCall, heard the song and created visuals to accompany it. Radford Stone, producer and writer at ABC, suggested they pitch it as a television series, which caught the attention of Michael Eisner, then the senior vice president in charge of programming and development at ABC, and cartoon director Chuck Jones.[4]
Original series
 | This section needs additional citations for verification. (March 2022) |
The first video of the series, "Three Is a Magic Number," originally debuted during the debut episode of Curiosity Shop on September 2, 1971.[5] The Curiosity Shop version is an extended cut which includes an additional scene/verse of 15 seconds in length that explains the pattern of each set of ten containing three multiples of three, animated in the form of a carnival shooting game.[6] This scene has never been rebroadcast on ABC, nor has it been included in any home media releases; the longer version is, however, available on the soundtrack album, as is an extended version of My Hero Zero.
Schoolhouse Rock! 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. Of the three, Schoolhouse Rock was the longest running.
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.
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").
A fourth series, titled "Science Rock," followed in 1978 and 1979, and included a broad range of science-related topics. The first video of this season, "A Victim of Gravity," parodied elements of the hit film Grease and featured a rare guest appearance from a pop band, with recently reunited doo-wop group The Tokens providing the vocals. In addition to episodes describing the human body's anatomical systems (the nervous, circulatory, skeletal and digestive systems each received a music video), episodes describing physical sciences such as astronomy, meteorology and electricity were also included, as was "The Energy Blues," an environmentalism-themed video.
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.
1990s
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. Episodes from the new series aired in rotation with the original segments from 1993 to 1996.
The Walt Disney Company acquired Schoolhouse Rock in 1996 along with its acquisition of ABC owner Capital Cities/ABC Inc.; Schoolhouse Rock was one of only two non-Disney children's shows (The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show being the other) to continue airing (albeit in reruns) after the transition to One Saturday Morning. 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.
21st century
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. For the new song, Tom Yohe Jr. took over as lead designer for his father, Tom Yohe Sr., who had died in 2000.[9] Another contemporary song, called "Presidential Minute," also written by George Newall which explained the process of electing the President of the United States in greater detail, was included on the 2008 DVD Schoolhouse Rock! Election Collection, which centered on songs relating to American history and government.
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! Earth.[10] Animations were created by members of the original production team, and 11 environmentally themed songs were written and performed by a combination of veterans of the original series (including Bob Dorough, Jack Sheldon, and Lynn Ahrens) and newcomers such as composer George Stiles and performers Tituss Burgess, Barrett Foa, and Shoshana Bean, all of whom were veterans of Broadway theatre. 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.
On January 6, 2013, George Newall and Bob Dorough appeared at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as part of their ongoing series of free concerts on the Millennium Stage. It was deemed the largest attendance to date of the venue. Dorough played five songs, accompanying himself on the piano: "Three Is a Magic Number," "Figure Eight," "Conjunction Junction," "Preamble," and "I'm Just a Bill". (Dorough had only performed lead vocals on the original version of "Three Is a Magic Number".) He also performed "Interjections!" accompanied by DC-area kids' band Rocknoceros. Rocknoceros also performed "Electricity, Electricity," "Unpack Your Adjectives," "Energy Blues," and "Fireworks".
On March 20, 2019, it was announced that Schoolhouse Rock!: The Box Set (1996) was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in its 2018 class.[11]
Music videos
Multiplication Rock
| Episode title | Subject | Music by | Lyrics by | Performed by | Animation & design | First aired |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Three Is a Magic Number" | Multiplication by 3 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Focus Design/Tom Yohe | January 6, 1973 |
| "My Hero, Zero" | Powers of 10 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Focus Design/Tom Yohe | January 13, 1973 |
| "Elementary, My Dear" | Multiplication by 2 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Jack Sidebotham | January 27, 1973 |
| "The Four-Legged Zoo" | Multiplication by 4 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough with kids chorus | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Bob Eggers & Bill Peckmann | February 10, 1973 |
| "Ready or Not, Here I Come" | Multiplication by 5 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | February 17, 1973 |
| "I Got Six" | Multiplication by 6 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Grady Tate | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | February 24, 1973 |
| "Lucky Seven Sampson" | Multiplication by 7 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Rowland B. Wilson | February 24, 1973 |
| "Figure Eight" | Multiplication by 8 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Blossom Dearie | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | February 24, 1973 |
| "Naughty Number Nine" | Multiplication by 9 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Grady Tate | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Phil Kimmelman & Bill Peckmann | March 17, 1973 |
| "The Good Eleven" | Multiplication by 11 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Focus Design/Jack Sidebotham | March 24, 1973 |
| "Little Twelvetoes" | Multiplication by 12, base 12 | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Rowland B. Wilson | March 31, 1973 |
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 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. This LP features both songs in their full, uncut forms. Also, the album version of "The Four-Legged Zoo" has a slightly shorter ending compared to the television version. Released with the album was a single (Capitol 3693) with the two Grady Tate–sung tracks ("Naughty Number Nine" b/w "I Got Six"). This album was re-released[12] on red/blue-colored vinyl on Record Store Day 2019.
Grammar Rock
| Episode title | Subject | Music by | Lyrics by | Performed by | Animation & design | First aired |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "A Noun Is a Person, Place, or Thing" | noun | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Jack Sidebotham | September 15, 1973 |
| "Verb: That's What's Happening" | verb | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Zachary Sanders | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe & Bill Peckmann | September 22, 1973 |
| "Conjunction Junction" | conjunction | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Jack Sheldon, Terry Morel, and Mary Sue Berry | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe & Bill Peckmann | November 17, 1973 |
| "Interjections!" | interjection | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Essra Mohawk | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | February 23, 1974 |
| "Unpack Your Adjectives" | adjective | George R. Newall | George R. Newall | Blossom Dearie feat. Bob Dorough | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | March 2, 1974 |
| "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here" | adverb | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Jack Sidebotham | April 13, 1974 |
| "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla" | pronoun | Bob Dorough | Kathy Mandry | Jack Sheldon | Kim and Gifford Productions/Paul Kim & Lew Gifford | April 27, 1976 |
| "Busy Prepositions" | preposition | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Jack Sheldon and Bob Dorough | J. J. Sedelmaier Prod./Bill Peckmann | September 11, 1993 |
| "The Tale of Mr. Morton" | subject and predicate | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Jack Sheldon | J. J. Sedelmaier Prod./Tom Yohe Jr. | September 11, 1993 |
This segment introduces Jack Sheldon and Lynn Ahrens as series regulars. "Conjunction Junction" and "A Noun Is a Person, Place, or Thing" were Sheldon and Ahrens' debuts on Schoolhouse Rock! respectively.
"Busy Prepositions" (a.k.a. "Busy P's") and "The Tale of Mr. Morton" were produced for Schoolhouse Rock!'s return to ABC in 1993 with J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc. producing the animation.
America Rock
| Episode title | Subject | Music by | Lyrics by | Performed by | Animation & design | First aired |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "No More Kings" | American Independence | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens & Bob Dorough | Kim and Gifford Productions/Paul Kim & Lew Gifford | September 20, 1975 |
| "The Shot Heard Round the World" | American Revolutionary War | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Kim and Gifford Productions/Jack Sidebotham | October 11, 1975 |
| "The Preamble" | United States Constitution | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | George Cannata/Tom Yohe & George Cannata | October 25, 1975 |
| "Sufferin' 'til Suffrage" | Women's suffrage | Bob Dorough | Tom Yohe | Essra Mohawk | Kim and Gifford Productions/Paul Kim & Lew Gifford | February 21, 1976 |
| "I'm Just a Bill" | Legislative process | Dave Frishberg | Dave Frishberg | Jack Sheldon | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | March 13, 1976 |
| "The Great American Melting Pot" | Immigration in America | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Lori Lieberman | Kim and Gifford Productions/Tom Yohe | April 17, 1976 |
| "Elbow Room" | Territorial evolution of the United States | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Sue Manchester | Kim and Gifford Productions/Paul Kim & Lew Gifford | May 8, 1976 |
| "Fireworks" | Declaration of Independence | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Grady Tate | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | July 3, 1976 |
| "Mother Necessity" | Invention, American Industrial Revolution | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough, Blossom Dearie, Essra Mohawk, and Jack Sheldon | Kim and Gifford Productions/Jack Sidebotham | July 10, 1976 |
| "Three-Ring Government" | Branches of government | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Arnold Roth | March 6, 1979 |
| "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College" | Electoral College | George R. Newall | George R. Newall | Jack Sheldon, Bob Dorough, Lisa Clark, Vicki McClure, and Sue Raney | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe Jr. | August 27, 2002 |
| "Presidential Minute (The Campaign Trail)" | Voting for the President | Bob Dorough | Bob Dorough | Jack Sheldon | August 27, 2002 |
"I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College" and "Presidential Minute" were produced for DVD. "Three Ring Government" had its airdate pushed back due to ABC fearing that the Federal Communications Commission, the U.S. Government, and Congress would object to having their functions and responsibilities being compared to a circus and threaten the network's broadcast license renewal.
Science Rock
| Episode title | Subject | Music by | Lyrics by | Performed by | Animation & design | First aired |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "A Victim of Gravity" | Gravity | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | The Tokens | Kim and Gifford Productions/Tom Yohe | September 16, 1978 |
| "Interplanet Janet" | The Solar System | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Kim and Gifford Productions/Jack Sidebotham | November 18, 1978 |
| "The Body Machine" | Nutrition and digestion | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Bob Dorough and Jack Sheldon | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | January 6, 1979 |
| "Do the Circulation" | Circulatory system | Lynn Ahrens | Lynn Ahrens | Joshie Armstead, Mary Sue Berry, and Maeretha Stewart | Phil Kimmelman & Associates/Tom Yohe | March 10, 1979 |
| "The Energy Blues" | Energy conservation | George Newall | George Newall | Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Three_Is_a_Magic_Number