The Target commercial using the title song reminded me of my (and everybody else I knew) favorite album as a child, Free To Be…You And Me. I bought the mp3 album on Emusic, and it’s amazing how much of it I remember. Of course, I probably listened to it a million times between the ages of 4 and 6. Holds up pretty well, and it must have been effective, as well, because I am indeed a pinko lefty.
Shirley I’m not the only one who loved this album?
I still listen to it!
I kinda knew the song, but I don’t remember the album too much.
I freakin’ loved it and don’t call me, surely.
I didn’t have the album, but in school we saw the film strip. I still know all the words to “William’s Doll”.
ETA: Saw the film strip a LOT. Damn. City schools gave us more film strips than math lessons, and to this day I don’t know my basic math facts.
Math doesn’t fit into the Communist ideology!
Pretty awesome that there’s a story about how women don’t have to get married on there.
Augh, I’m having flashbacks to third grade and our music teacher who LOVED that album and made us sing songs from it. Over and over.
When I was in 6th grade, I was a library helper and I knew how to run the projector. I must’ve seen the film of “Free to Be You and Me” about 20 times in 6th grade. I still enjoy it and bought it for my kids but it was lost in Katrina.
I call sneak-bragging.
/ I never got picked to help with the projector. Still bitter.
Love love love the album! What’s this about the theme song being in a COMMERCIAL?!
I do not reacll giving permission for anyone to exploit my childhood in this manner. :mad:
And boys liking dolls! And crying being okay! Oh how far we’ve come… right?
I have it on DVD, so I know it’s available.
I have the soundtrack on my Zune and the sprog loves it. I’ve been known to sing along.
Had the album, it was one of my faves, until I discovered Lady Gaga.
What?
My wife and I are huge nerds for this. She had the album when she was a kid and played it until it was in pieces, I saw it in grade school several times (as I recall) a year between kindergarten and 5th grade.
We bought the DVD of it for our daughter a few years ago and she really loved it then. We’re going to have to find that thing and play it for the boy, too.
There was a film of it, too? I only ever knew the songs.
Still have my original vinyl album. Bought it on cassette several years ago. Must get the digital form!
I also have the songbook with sheet music and play the ones I like best now and then. (“Helping,” “When We Grow Up”)
Oh, and my dog is a plumber. 
You can watch the spot on Youtube.
It’s actually kind of a cute, if you can get past the corporate sponsorship. The song can be whatever it wants to be ( … for a price. I’m not sure that was on the album, but it must have been in there.)
I looked this up after hearing the commercial and didn’t know that it was the New Seekers, not Marlo Thomas singing the theme. I think I never paid attention to it as a kid.
I really loved the album but somewhat amusingly I had the distinct impression as a child that it was ‘something for girls’ (I’m a boy).
I listened to it as a kid, and loved it.
I read an article awhile ago written by a woman who’d grown up listening to it and located a copy for her own young daughter. Her daughter was disinterested and when the woman eventually came to the realization that the message of FTBYAM is now pretty much a part of popular culture, and while it was important to an earlier generation, is no longer really relevant.
Not really sure how if that’s true or not.
Well, durrr, that’s what “Schoolhouse Rocks!” was for!
I was definitely into this big-time. Why, just a quick refrain of “Glad to Have a Friend Like You” can take me back to Kansas, where I lived till I was 5 and attended a pre-school for the children of hippy-dippy professors and college students.
Bill told Jill, that it was lots of fun to cook
Jill told Bill, that she could bait a real fish hook
So they made ooey gooey chocolate cake, sticky-licky sugar topped
And they gobbled it and giggled
And they sat by the river and they fished in the water
And they talked as the squirmy wormies wiggled
