Schoolhouse Rock!

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Schoolhouse Rock! is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films (and later, videos) that aired during the Saturday morning children's programming on the U.S. television network ABC. The topics covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics. The series' original run lasted from 1973 to 1985; it was later revived with both old and new episodes airing from 1993 to 1999. Additional episodes were produced in 2009 for direct-to-video release.

Video Schoolhouse Rock!

History

Original series

Schoolhouse Rock! began as a commercial advertising venture by David McCall, half of the Madison Avenue advertising agency McCaffrey & McCall. The idea came to McCall when he noticed one of his sons, who was having trouble in school remembering the multiplication tables, knew all the lyrics to then-current rock songs. McCall called upon copywriter George R. Newall, also a jazz pianist, to see if he knew of anyone who was up to the task. They eventually enlisted composer and jazz bebop legend Bob Dorough who solely composed all the "Multiplication Rock" tunes. Soon Dave Frishberg, Lynn Ahrens and others came on board to create the various Schoolhouse Rock! numbers. Performers included not only Dorough and Ahrens, but also included the distinctive voices of such jazz singers as Jack Sheldon, Blossom Dearie, and Grady Tate, pop singer Essra Mohawk, the doo-wop group The Tokens, and others.

The first song recorded was "Three Is a Magic Number", written by Dorough, and 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 was already the advertising company's biggest account) based on a demo animation of the original "Three Is A Magic Number" for its Saturday morning lineup. Newall and Yohe, along with agency account executive Radford Stone 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.

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 also included Nabisco, Kenner Toys, Kellogg's, and McDonald's. 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.

The original lineup, consisting of thirty-seven episodes, was recorded and produced between 1972 and 1979. George Newall and Tom Yohe were the executive producers and creative directors of every episode, along with Bob Dorough as musical director. The first season of Schoolhouse Rock, "Multiplication Rock", debuted in 1973 and included all of the multiplication tables from two through twelve, with one episode devoted to powers of 10 (My Hero Zero) instead of multiples of ten. This original series was followed in short order by a new series, ran from 1973 to 1975, entitled "Grammar Rock", which included nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech (such as conjunctions, explained in "Conjunction Junction").

To coincide with the upcoming United States bicentennial, a third series, titled "America Rock", airing in 1975 and 1976, had episodes 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 such as Do the Circulation and The Body Machine (a play on The Body Electric), The Energy Blues, Electricity, E-Lec-Tri-City, Interplanet Janet (which is about the solar system).

A fifth follow-up series, titled "Computer Rock", featuring the characters Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips (the only episodes 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 have not seen reruns in the 1990s revival.

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. of White Plains, NY. This was followed in 1995 by a new series, "Money Rock", which discussed topics related to money management on both the personal and governmental scale. The first cartoon (also a J. J. Sedelmaier Production, Inc. production) was "Dollars & Sense". Episodes from the new series aired in rotation with the original segments from 1994 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 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, the series occasionally was seen airing reruns on Toon Disney's Big Movie Show block in 2004, but soon got removed from the schedule sometime later. As a result, the series officially came to an end on television and has not seen anymore reruns since.

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 release of the 30th Anniversary DVD. For the new song, Tom Yohe Jr. took over as lead designer for his father, Tom Yohe Sr., who had died in 2000. Another contemporary song, called "Presidential Minute", 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.

As the theory of climate change was put forth, a new series entitled "Earth Rock" was created by the original production team, premiered in 2009, and featured eleven environmentally-themed songs.

On Sunday, 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".

Maps Schoolhouse Rock!

Episodes

Multiplication Rock

No shows were produced featuring the numbers 1 or 10 explicitly, though "My Hero Zero" and "The Good Eleven" do include those numbers. "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 an ending slightly different from the television version. Released in conjunction with the album was a single (Capitol 3693) with the two Grady Tate-sung tracks ("Naughty Number Nine" b/w "I Got Six").

Grammar Rock

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" (aka "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

"I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College" and "Presidential Minute" were produced for DVD.

Science Rock

Sometime after its initial airing, The Greatest Show on Earth, also known as The Weather Show, was pulled from broadcast rotation because the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus objected to its use of their trademark slogan (which was in the questioned title) and filed a lawsuit against the network for copyright infringement. As a result, the 1995 VHS of the program (and subsequent VHS reissues) deleted the song. However, it was included in the 1987 Schoolhouse Rock VHS release, and in 2002 it was included on the bonus disk of the 30th Anniversary DVD (see below).

Money Rock

Earth Rock

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30th anniversary

To coincide with the 30th anniversary, Walt Disney released a VHS in 2002 featuring the Top 25 songs of the series. The countdown, which was succeeded by "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College", ran as follows, in reverse order:

School House Rock: 3rd & 4th Grade Essentials (1997) - Playable ...

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Tie-ins

Several tie-ins were released in 1996:

Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks, a tribute album featuring covers of Schoolhouse Rocks songs performed by alternative rock acts
Schoolhouse Rock! The Official Guide (ISBN 0-7868-8170-4), written by Tom Yohe and George Newall, and including synopses, lyrics, and production notes about each of the shorts created to date, except "The Weather Show," which was the subject of pending litigation and so could not be included. "The Weather Show" was shown with all the other Science Rock episodes in 1979.
The Schoolhouse Rock Songbook (Cherry Lane Music), containing sheet music for ten songs.
Schoolhouse Rock! Soundtrack The 4 CD release with bonus tracks on each CD was released on June 18, 1996 by Rhino Records.

In addition to the above, Rhino Records also released Schoolhouse Rocks the Vote!: A Benefit for Rock the Vote, a tribute album containing covers and original songs in the style of Schoolhouse Rock, all with an electoral theme. It was released on August 18, 1998.

Video releases

A 1987 production of the series for VHS tape featured Cloris Leachman opening the collection and some songs with child dancers and singers. Three songs (namely "Three Ring Government," "The Good Eleven," and "Little Twelve Toes") were not included on the videos.

In 1995, ABC Video and Image Entertainment released two volumes of Schoolhouse Rock on LaserDisc, "Schoolhouse Rock Volume 1: America Rock and Grammar Rock" (ID3245CC), and "Schoolhouse Rock Volume 2: Multiplication Rock and Science Rock" (ID3383CC). For both volumes the first side was in the CLV Extended Play format and the second was in the frame-accessible CAV format, and both contained CX-encoded analog and digital audio soundtracks. The "Grammar Rock" volume included the 1993 shorts "Busy Prepositions" and "The Tale of Mr. Morton."

In 1994, ABC/King Features sold exclusive licensing rights for apparel to Coastal Concepts, Inc. of Vista California, the first company to produce School House Rock Apparel. Tom Yohe worked with contemporary artist Skya Nelson to create over 50 new designs and update the School House Rock image for a new market which sold $1.1 million in its first year and exploded selling over $12 million the next year. A variety of bands working with Rhino Records were furnished with newly minted School House Rock T-shirts for the music videos youth market. The licensing rights were expanded to include other manufacturers in 1996.

In 1995, ABC teamed with Paramount Home Video and re-released four segments of Schoolhouse Rock! on VHS with alternative covers and opening.

In 1997-1998 for the show's 25th anniversary, Walt Disney Home Video released five segments on VHS, along with "Money Rock" being released on 1998.

On August 27, 2002 Walt Disney Home Entertainment released a 2-disc DVD set to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the show. The set features 52 of the 64 episodes, including the lost "Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips" 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. An abbreviated VHS, featuring the "top 46" episodes plus "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College," was released at the same time (see above).

In 2008, DVDs of individual Schoolhouse Rock series were released for classroom use.

On September 23, 2008, the "Schoolhouse Rock-Election Collection" was released, including 14 songs about American history and the government and a "new to DVD" song.

On March 31, 2009, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released "Schoolhouse Rock-Earth", including 11 newly written and animated songs as well as "Energy Blues".

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