Oh, I forgot about “My Hero, Zero”.
“That’s why with only ten digits, including zero, you can count as high as you could ever go, forever, towards infinity. No-one ever gets there, but you could try.”
“Good good good gooooooooood good eleven
Never gives me any trouble 'til after nine”
Verb and Lucky 7… both had that 70’s Urban Vibe and great music.
A shout out to 4 legged zoo too. That Creepy cage always facinated me.
I’ve always liked “Verb: That’s whats Happening” and “Sufferin till Suffrage” my kids love em too. I also got extra credit by writing out the preamble on a history test, and Fireworks helped me remember that Thomas Payne book.
I never see this one mentioned, but perhaps my favorite is the wonderful Victim of Gravity sung by The Tokens (The Lion Sleeps Tonight). Great music and humor. Other faves:
Math: 3 is a Magic Number
Grammar: Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla (pronouns)
History: I’m Just a Bill
Favorite performer: Blossom Dearie (Figure 8, Unpack Your Adjectives)
Conjunction Junction
Lolly, Lolly, Lolly get your adverbs here.
and I thought I would be the first to mention Little Twelvetoes. I liked it but I never understood it.
I like all the history ones, but I’m particularly partial to Sufferin’ Till Suffrage.
I also like No More Kings, The Shot Heard Round the World, and of course The Preamble.
Oh, and The Great American Melting Pot is a good one, too.
Only problem with Schoolhouse rock was that it’s history lessons messed up my childhood. Mainly because it was an American perspective which didn’t jibe with my school lessons. You know coming from a family who remained in a colony of Britain until 1946 we weren’t as down on Royalty or the British as you guys were.
Obligatory Wikipedia: Schoolhouse Rock! link.
I always loved “Unpack your Adjectives.”
tdn (and incidentally everyone): Please do not quote entire song lyrics. I’ve deleted down to a couple of lines. Generally, best approach is to quote a line and then provide a link to some site that has copyright permission.
If you’re in doubt, please see Forum Rules and note post #2 … and Rules for Posting on the Straight Dope Message Boards and note post #3.
“Conjunction Junction,” “I’m Just a Bill,” and “Naughty Number 9”
and though I really don’t like the original, the Skee-lo version of “Mr. Morton” works - “Mr. Morton is the subject of our sentence,
and what the predicate says he does.”
BILL: I’m just a bill
Yes, I’m only a bill
And if they vote for me on Capitol Hill
Well, then I’m off to the White House
Where I’ll wait in a line
With a lot of other bills
For the president to sign
And if he signs me, then I’ll be a law.
How I hope and pray that he will,
But today I am still just a bill.
CONGESSMAN: He signed you, Bill! Now you’re a law!
BILL: Oh yes!!!
Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla and Mr. Morton. Jack Sheldon’s voice is terrific, although I believe he considered himself more a trumpet player.
Methinks that if Schoolhouse Rock had been written in 2007, they would have used an entirely different set of interjections.
Since other people are posting multiples:
Interjection
Sufferin’ Till Sufferage
Conjunction Junction
A Noun Is A Person, Place Or Thing
A Victim Of Gravity
Mother Necessity
I’m Just a Bill
We got the DVD a while ago, and I discovered that there were quite a few I had never seen. I’m quite fond of Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla (I like the perky piano music).
Our 2.5-year-old will do the interjections. She sits there and yells “Hooray! Aww! Eeek! Rats! Wow! Hey!” with the chorus.
Watching “Number Nine” and “Little Twelve-Toes” prompted me to go figure out why the digits in any product of nine will add up to nine, and how it works in other bases.
They used the original Schoolhouse Rock recording as one of the songs in The Squid and the Whale. It was weird to see a movie montage set to a song using multiplication drills.
Hm. Now that I think about it, quite a few hip-hop artists have used school house rock. Queen Latifah used “I am a Bill”, Method Man of Wu Tang used Verb, I got my thang in action! And Wu Tang used Figure 8 also.
My favorites weren’t quite Schoolhouse Rock, but they also ran on ABC in the 1970’s. One featured '50s style greasers singing a song about chewing tough foods in order to strengthen your teeth. It opened “They’re doing pushups in Peoria, they’re jogging in LA”. Another featured the line “Popcorn, you’re my favorite movie star”. Were these part of a series, and where can I find them?