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About

Schoolhouse Rock! is a series of educational cartoon shorts that first aired on ABC in January 1973, and were re-aired well into the 1990's. The shorts have become a source of nostalgia, and have been parodied several times by comedy TV shows, and on YouTube. The parodies are often used as a means of political satire.

Origin

The first Schoolhouse Rock! short aired on January 6th, 1973, with the first of the Multiplication Rock series titled Three is a Magic Number (shown below).

Other notable Schoolhouse Rock! cartoons are I'm Just A Bill^[1], which first aired on March 27th, 1976, (shown below, left) and Conjunction Junction,^[2] which first aired on November 17th, 1973 (shown below, right).

Parodies

On Television

Schoolhouse Rock! parodies first started to appear on television in the mid-1990's. The first parody was shown on The Simpsons episode titled The Day the Violence Died, which first aired on March 17th, 1996 on Fox.^[2] The short was a parody of I'm Just A Bill (shown below, left). Another parody appeared on the animated comedy series American Dad in the episode Stanny Slickers 2: The Legend of Ollie's Gold, which first aired on May 11th, 2008. In the short (shown below, right) Stan recounts the tale of Oliver North's role in the Iran-Contra scandal that occurred during the mid-to-late 1980's. While it didn't directly parody a Schoolhouse Rock! song, it did heavily emulate the style of the original shorts.

Other parodies were featured on late-night television shows such as Saturday Night Live. On March 14th, 1998, a Schoolhouse Rock! parody titled Conspiracy Theory Rock! (shown below, left) was shown as that episode's "TV Funhouse" animation segment from Robert Smigel. The short is rumored to have been removed from future airings of SNL.^[4] On MADtv, another late night television series, a short series of Schoolhouse Rock! parodies were featured on the show which were titled Public School House Rock. The shorts were often a satire of the American public school system (shown below, right).

On The Internet

The first known online Schoolhouse Rock! parody was posted in October of 2004 by Eric Henry, and was titled Pirates & Emperors (or, Size Does Matter).^[5] While the original site the video was hosted on no longer exists, the short was reposted to YouTube (shown below) by Jasmine Archer on September 17th, 2006, where it received over 411,000 views in over six years.

On August 8th, 2013, YouTube musician Brentalfloss posted a music video which uses the Schoolhouse Rock! music and animation style to warn against buying game consoles too early after their launch. The music video (shown below, left) received over 1.1 million views in over nine years. On March 31st, 2021, YouTube musician Ginny Di posted a live-action music video which parodied the Schoolhouse Rock! music style, and teaches about rolling for attributes in Dungeons & Dragons. The music video (shown below, right) received over 99,000 views in over one year.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References