Good morning everyone!
Today I decided to detour off my usual subject a little bit and feature some animation that frankly as a Retro Saturday Morning feature is way overdue. If you grew up in the 1970s like I did you were treated to cartoons between the cartoons in the form of Schoolhouse Rock. Schoolhouse Rock were three minute educational shorts that featured the vocals of legendary actor and jazz musician Jack Sheldon. The purpose behind these were to get kids interested in learning by using animation and catchy song lyrics. And it worked like a charm.
To this very day I can remember just about every word or both Conjunction Junction and I'm Just A Bill. I believe that long after I have received my heavenly reward I will still be singing "Conjunction Junction, what's your function?" right along with the hymns.
In this way Schoolhouse Rock my be eternal I suppose.
The effects that Schoolhouse Rock had on a generation is undeniable and it taught the basics of education better than most school curriculum. I bet you can't remember one thing your third grade teacher said, but you remember the Schoolhouse Rock lyrics.
Tell me I'm not right.
Here is the cartoon that changed the lives of 70s children forever:
Schoolhouse Rock! began as a commercial advertising venture by David McCall. 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. 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. He told McCall that the songs would make good animation.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 network's children's programming division had producers of its regular 30- and 60-minute programs cut three minutes out of each of their shows, and sold General Foods on the idea of sponsoring the segments. The series stayed on the air for 12 years. Later sponsors of the Schoolhouse Rock! segments included Nabisco, General Foods, Kenner Toys, Kellogg's, and McDonald's.The last of the original series were four segments about the then-novel personal computer technology. The shorts featured two characters by the name of Scooter Computer and Mister Chips, and so these were the only episodes in the series to feature any recurring characters.
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