Schoolhouse Rock

'''Schoolhouse Rock!''' is a series of interstitial programs (airing in-between shows, such as commercial breaks) on the [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] network in the United States, from 1973 to 2000.  The shorts were typically three minutes or less in length, and taught about mathematics, grammar, spelling, science, and the environment.  While not strictly anthropomorphic in its focus, it nonetheless had many shorts that used, or even starred, anthropomorphised characters, such as "Bill" in "I'm Just a Bill" (the short that explained how proposals become law in the United States Congress.

The most famous shorts that used animals and anthropormoprhised characters were "The Four-Legged Zoo", "Naughty Number Nine", "I'm Just a Bill", and "Report from the North Pole" among others.

The main composers of the lyrics and music were Bob Dorough (who also sang in numerous shorts), Dave Frishberg and Lynn Ahrens, with jazz singers Jack Sheldon, Blossom Dearie and Grady Tate, with pop singer Essra Mohawk and doo-wop group The Tokens rounding out the cast.

The series was inspired by advertising agent David McCall (of McCaffrey & McCall), when he saw that his son knew the lyrics to most songs by The Rolling Stones, yet was struggling with his multiplication tables.  The show was initially considered as a print worksheet but that idea fell through fairly quickly.  McCall would hire Bob Dorough to write "Three is a Magic Number" (which would serve as the series pilot short episode) as a prototype idea for Schoolhouse Rock! as a musical album for children.  Television producer Tom Yohe listened in and began drawling little doodles as the song played, and came up with the idea of reworking Schoolhouse Rock! as a series of animated shorts.  The idea was pitched to ABC as a commercial idea (which was easy, since McCaffrey & McCall was the network's largest advertising customer at the time), and was an instant hit.

There was a brief spin-off of Schoolhouse Rock! on competing network [[National Broadcasting Company|NBC]] in the late 1970s, titled "The Metric Marvels", made by the same cast with the intention on explaing the metric system to the American public (with the expectation that the United States would follow Canada and the rest of the world in converting to the metric system), though it was ultimately unsuccessful.

<!-- I know it's not really relevant to the fandom, but it did help cement Schoolhouse Rock! in American Culture: The song "Three is a Magic Number" from the 1973 short of the same name regarding math, was a minor hit in 1993 by American rock group Blind Melon.-->

While Schoolhouse Rock! has not been broadcast since the start of the new millennium, it remains a lasting cultural icon, with parodies in television shows like ''The Simpsons'' and ''Family Guy'', and is fondly remembered by those that grew up watching it.  New made-for-DVD shorts were released in 2003 and 2009.

== External links ==
* [http://abc.go.com/shows/schoolhouse-rock Official website]
* [[wikipedia:Schoolhouse Rock!]]
[[Category:Animated series]]
[[Category:Animation]]
[[Category:1973 births]]<!--First broadcast-->
[[Category:2000 deaths]]<!--Last broadcast-->
[[Category:2009 deaths]]<!--Last time new episodes were made for DVD-->