Any Schoolhouse Rock reviews? (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

Ok folks,
time to tell us your favorite numbers!
Mine:
Preamble (american consitution) All time fav #1!!!!
Adjetive Song (he was a hairy bear...he was a scary bear...)
Adverb Song (lolly lolly lolly get your adverbs here...)
American Melting Pot
I'm just a Bill (on capital hill)

 

[David Lambert]

Well, my favorite to sing-along to is probably everone else's favorite: I'm Just A Bill.

The Preamble gets a special place in my heart, because it helped me do well in Social Studies when we all had to get up in front of the class and recite the Preamble to the Constitution. I was reciting it perfectly, with the "We The People..." song in my head but my mouth not carrying the tune at all, and then I cracked up because some other kid in the front row started making faces at me. I got an A; he got a trip to the office. :p)

My other favorite has gotta be Interplanet Janet.

 

[Scott Leopold]

The Preamble is probably my all-time favorite. I also used this to help me in a Social Studies class. For me, it was in 7th grade. Our teacher, who I've always despised deeply, announced that we were going to study the constitution. She said that anyone who could recite the preamble then and there, though, would not have to participate and would be given A's for each of the tests & quizzes she had planned. I quickly raised my hand and did it perfectly, although in one or two spots I had to half-sing the preamble song to remember the words. While the entire class was impressed, my teacher was not. She said she asked me to recite it, not sing it, and that what I did didn't count. The class was furious, and much yelling ensued. When she still refused to give me credit, several people took to pelting her with paper wads. They were rewarded with trips to the office, while I still got the shaft.

My other favorites, in no particular order, would be Conjunction Junction, The Adverb Song, Three is a Magic Number, The Shot Heard 'Round the World, Interjection, Naughty Number Nine, Rufus Xavier Sasparilla, and several others.

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

"Interjection" was always my favorite as a kid. That song rules.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

I'm still just a Bill
Conjunction Junction, what's your function?
Electricity, Electricity!

 

[DavidBL]

My favorite is "I'm Just a Bill"
My second favorite is the Simpson's parody of the same: "I'm an Amendment to Be"
Too bad that couldn't make it on as an Easter Egg. Although it will certainly make it into a future Simpson's set.
Definitely picking this up tomorrow.

 

[David Lambert]

Reading Scott's story, I'm really amazed. I often thought back on my own experience with the recitation, and thought to myself that my teacher wouldn't have CARED if I'd sung it. That she would have been grateful for the guys at ABC who made sure that kids got this bit of musical education in the middle of their Saturday morning cartoon routine.
Wasn't that the POINT of Schoolhouse Rock?
For Scott's teacher to actually deny the education benefits of the programming is real hyposcrisy, in my opinion.
What I *hope* the situation really was, was that she was somehow completely ignorant of S.R. and the musical "We The People" number, and she just thought Scott was somehow mocking the situation. Still not completely acceptable, since he DID get the whole thing out. But still, better than spurning what education TV *does* provide! :rolleyes
FWIW, mine was 7th grade, too. Seems about the right age for learning this material.

 

[Enrique B Chamorro]

I think Scott had the teacher who was identified as
an alien in Men In Black 1!
That explains a lot!

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I was in 9th grade when we had to write down the Preamble in Social Studies.

I spend the night before reading the words and singing to tune to refresh my memory. It was hillarious in class that day...you could actually hear the students humming the tune to jog their memory!!!

p.s. oddly there is just *one* difference between the song and the real thing...

The real preamble starts:

"we the people of the united states of america in order to form a more perfect union..."

and the song just goes:

"we the people, in order to form a more perfect union..."

I wonder how many people made that mistake when humming the tune to try to remember it!

-dave

 

[Eric Thrall]

The real preamble starts: "we the people of the united states of america in order to form a more perfect union..."

This is a minor nitpick, but the real preamble starts "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union..." - it doesn't include "of America".

 

[Robyn Young]

My Favorites are actually ones that often get overlooked:

The Tale of Mr. Morton (subjects predicates)
$7.50 Once a Week(the allowance song)
Dollars and Sense(the bank song)
Hey Little Twelvetoes(the 12 song)

Of course I like some of the more popular ones, too, like Interjections, Electricity, the Energy Blues, I'm just a bill, Mother Necessity, etc.

I have all the cd's in my car, and when I drive around town with the boys, we sing along! I can't wait to get my copy!

Robyn

 

[Scott Leopold]

I'm pretty sure my teacher was aware of SR, and it's value as a teaching aid. The primary tool she used to teach us the preamble, which was the first thing we studied, was a filmstrip and audiotape of the SR Preamble song! This led to many arguments and cries of hypocrisy, especially when she had us sing the preamble as a class to help us learn it.

She was one of those teachers who was so bad that the parents never did anything because they just couldn't believe she really did the stuff we accused her of. A very large bookshelf once fell over on her in class, and would have caused quite a bit of harm had two students not caught it. The whole class erupted in laughter--not because we were dumb kids, but because we truly despised her that much and it brought us great joy to see her in peril. Of course, she turned around and wanted to know who had laughed. One sorry kid was dumb enough to raise his hand (he was also the one that started the barrage of paper wads the day of the Preamble incident), and suffered her full wrath.

While I may sound bitter over the whole Preamble Incident, what I'm really bitter about is how she screwed me out of straight A's my 8th grade year. I had received straight A's for 27 straight quarters (from 2nd grade, all the way through Q3 in 8th grade), and was planning on ending my grade school career with a near perfect record (I had received a B in the last quarter of 1st grade, but that was at a different school so I never thought much of it). I was also on track to win the Straight A award at our 8th grade awards ceremony. The only two people close to me were two girls who each were receiving a B in gym for the 4th quarter. To put my mind at ease, I checked the teachers' gradebooks to see what I'd be getting. I think the lowest grade in any of my classes was a 94, so I knew I was set. One class I wasn't at all worried about was English, which was taught by my 7th grade teacher. My lowest grade for the quarter was a 98, but I also had several extra credit grades of 103 or higher, so based on what I wrote down, my average was well over 99--close enough that it should have just been listed as a 100. We received our report cards right before the awards ceremony, and I saw that I had received straigh A's in everything but English. She had given me a B+, thereby allowing the award to go to three of us instead of just me. I protested, but she insisted that I had a 92 average, and thereby deserved the B+. My parents couldn't imagine a teacher lying, and sided with her, telling me I must have made a mistake. I admitted that a little mistake was possible, but not a 7+ percentage point mistake. I also argued that, if I really had a 92% average for English, then there was no way my total average could have been so high. One thing they announced when handing out the awards was the top students' grade average for the year. Basically, they'd take all the test and assignment grades and average them out. I received a certificate for having the highest with a 98.7--3 points higher than the next best person. All my arguments fell on deaf ears, however, and I had to settle with sharing my award.

As it turns out, that was my 7th grade teacher's final year teaching--at least at our school. My class felt kind of bittersweet about this. It was nice to revel in the possibility that we had driven her to the breaking point, but it was sad to think that we were the last class to have to endure that suffering. Surely the class behind us deserved to have to put up with her for at least one more year.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Scott,
I'm still getting over the effects of a teacher like that who got me kicked off the honor's society in 11th grade. I received a B+ in her precalc class rather than an A- because on the Final that she printed on her dot-matrix printer I mistook the number "8" for the constant letter "B". I solved the whole equation down as far as I could with two constants...and couldn't imagine why she put such an obviously unsolvable question on an exam. It really did look like the letter "B", my father saw it and that's what he thought too. But there was no chance for her to reconsider *anything*.
Oh the stories I could tell you!
dave

 

[David Lambert]

I had all A's and B's in High School myself...except for 1 "C". The "C" was given to me at the end of my Snr. year by the teacher who happened to be the sponsor of the Honor Society in that school. He insinuated that I was a terrible Honor Society chapter president (never explained what I was supposed to have done wrong, and the Principal thought I did fine there AND as VP of the Student Govt.), and that as a result I deserved a lower GPA. Since noone else would give me a lower grade, he did.
As I indicate above, I *did* discuss with the Principal at the time, and was told that the teacher "would NEVER do something like that", and so my academics must have deserved the grade I got. I look back on it and laugh. It certainly didn't make a difference in my life or anything. :shrug:
Hey, could this thread be any MORE off-topic?

 

[MatS]

time to put this puppy back on topic....
lookie here, Link Removed

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Yes! I am a traitor to my misogynistic forefathers! My favorite is "Sufferin' 'til Suffrage!"

 

[Paul D G]

Since we're all going down memory lane:

- I was in 8th grade and the teacher (a sub this day) announced we were going to learn about the Preamble. Most of the class announced they knew it and started to sing it, with the sub looking on shocked and amused. He was very pleased with this and wanted to know where we learned it.

- Not too long ago I got into an argument with my boss. She, who claims to have been an English major, insisted that words like Don't and Can't were conjunctions. I tried to tell her they were contractions ("contractions are what you get when you have a baby"). I said "What's the matter with you? Didn't you watch Schoolhouse Rock?" at which point one of the office girls perked up and started singing Conjunction Junction. "See? And, But and Or can get you pretty far."

I'm sure I'll be reminded of a lot when I sit to watch the set tomorrow, but I fondly remember:

Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here
Im Just a Bill
Conjunction Junction
The one about pronouns, can't remember it at all right now but I know it was a fav back in the day.
Little Twelvetoes
Three is a Magic Number
Lucky 7
Interplanet Janet

... I could go on!

-paul

 

[ScottR]

Where are the original Schoolhouse Rock titles and openings with Rocky and the kids going into the Schoolhouse??? Were these just seen when the shows were in reruns in the early '80's???

 

[Derrick_Ellis]

I really can't wait to pick this DVD up. I think I'll even get a copy for my Aunt (who is only 10 years older than me.), because she used to watch these with me on Saturday mornings. All I need now is a bowl of Cocoa Puffs and I'm all set!

 

[Scott Leopold]

Picked mine up on my lunchbreak at Target. They only had one left, so I was relieved. The nearby BB is very difficult to deal with, and I didn't want to attempt a price match without the ad. (NOTE: By "difficult", I actually mean "unbelievably stupid". They still don't know how to work the whole "in-store pickup" thing with bestbuy.com despite numerous complaints by me, and several lengthy attempts by myself and bb.com operators trying to explain it to the managers there.)