Schoolhouse Rock! - Origins and History

Origins and History

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 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 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. 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.

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.

Thirty-seven episodes were recorded and produced between 1972 and 1980. The first season of Schoolhouse Rock, "Multiplication Rock," debuted in 1973 and discussed 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 which ran from 1973 to 1975, entitled "Grammar Rock," which discussed nouns, verbs and adjectives along with one of the most well-known titles of the series, "Conjunction Junction."

To coincide with the upcoming United States bicentennial, a third series, entitled "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 entitled "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, to the most well-known of the series, Interplanet Janet (which is about the solar system).

A fifth follow-up series, entitled "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 personal computer technology, then just emerging onto the scene. As the references and depictions became quickly outdated, due to the rapid advance of technology, the series was never rerun after 1984.

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. This was followed in 1995 by a brand new series, "Money Rock," which discussed topics related to money management on both the personal and governmental scale. 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 Communications; 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 ceased airing on television in 2000 with newer episodes released directly to home video. Starting in 2002, the team once again reunited to produce a new song, "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote To College" 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.

A new series entitled "Schoolhouse Rock!: Earth" was created by the original production team, premiered in 2009, and featured eleven environmentally-themed songs.