If you’re from Generation X or even Generation Y, you no doubt remember Saturday morning cartoons with fondness. When cell phones were still uncommon and the only gaming system most people had in their homes featured poor graphics, kids would spend all Saturday morning glued to their TV watching Captain Caveman, The Superfriends, and other popular shows.
Although most of these cartoons were tame by today’s standards, parent groups had a problem with what they thought was a lack of educational content, among other things. So, in an effort to be diplomatic, the networks began airing interstitial programing during the 1970s.
The most popular and famous of these was the series Schoolhouse Rock!
Schoolhouse Rock! first aired in 1973 and ran until 1985. It was later brought back in the 1990s and the 2000s. But those versions were a shadow of the original in both popularity and influence, so let’s just focus on the original version. The series featured animated educational vignettes about math, science, grammar, and American history. Bob Dorough wrote and performed many of the songs, but one of the most memorable, “I’m Just a Bill,” was written by Jack Frishberg and performed by Jack Sheldon.
The song follows the story of Bill, who (as the title of the song states) is just a bill, but he is hoping to someday become a law. The song then relates the process whereby a bill originates, faces a potential veto, and eventually becomes a law.
The song was as catchy as it was instructional.
But as popular and informative as Schoolhouse Rock! was, it couldn’t survive the changing times. When the popularity of Saturday morning cartoons peaked in the mid-1980s, so too did the popularity and perceived need for educational programming. Parent groups became more concerned about Satanism in rock music and Dungeons & Dragons than they were about kids learning something on Saturday mornings. And when the original writers and performers of Schoolhouse Rock! tried to revive the series in the 1990s, they had such a smaller market for their shorts.
Saturday morning cartoons were a thing of the past and all the Gen Xers who watched Schoolhouse Rock! in the ’70s and ’80s were either starting families, in college, or trying to start grunge bands.
There was simply no market for the new Schoolhouse Rock!
But those of us who grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons will always have fond memories of Schoolhouse Rock! We also have YouTube.