Schoolhouse Rock

Schoolhouse Rock was a commercial advertising venture by David McCall. The idea came to David 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", by Bob Dorough. It tested well, so a children's record was compiled and released. Tom Yohe Sr. listened to the first song, and began to doodle pictures in relation to the lyrics. He informed David that these 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 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, who was at the time head 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 made it's cartoon-producers 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.

Source

This lens was picked as a Boomer Lens of the Week!

Thanks, everyone!

No More Kings (independence)
Fireworks (Declaration of Independence)
The Shot Heard 'Round The World (American Revolution)
The Preamble (United States Constitution)
Elbow Room (U.S. territorial expansion)
The Great American Melting Pot (immigration/melting pot)
Mother Necessity (American inventions)
Sufferin' Till Suffrage (women's suffrage)
I'm Just A Bill (legislation)
Three Ring Government (separation of powers)
I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College (Electoral College election)

Unpack Your Adjectives (adjective)
Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here (adverb)
Conjunction Junction (conjunction)
Interjections! (interjection)
Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla (pronoun)
Verb: That's What's Happening (verb)
A Noun Is A Person, Place Or Thing (noun)
Busy Prepositions (preposition)
The Tale of Mr. Morton (subject and predicate)

The Body Machine (nutrition)
Do The Circulation (cardiovascular system)
Electricity, Electricity (electricity)
The Energy Blues (energy conservation)
Interplanet Janet (solar system)
Telegraph Line (nervous system)
Them Not-So-Dry Bones (skeletal system)
A Victim Of Gravity (gravity)
The Weather Show (weather)

My Hero, Zero
Elementary, My Dear (2)
Three Is a Magic Number (3)
The Four-Legged Zoo (4)
Ready or Not, Here I Come (5)
I Got Six (6)
Lucky Seven Sampson (7)
Figure Eight (8)
Naughty Number Nine (9)
The Good Eleven (11)
Little Twelvetoes (12)

Dollars and Sense (interest and loans)
Making $7.50 Once a Week (budget)
Where The Money Goes (paying bills)
Tax Man Max (taxes)
Walkin' On Wall Street (stock exchange)
This For That (barter)
Tyrannosaurus Debt (budget deficit)
The Check's In The Mail (using checks)

Introduction (computers)
Hardware (computer hardware)
Software (computer software)
Number Cruncher (computerized statistics)