I feel for Today's Youth. Bad enough that their freedoms are continuously eroded by the New Dictatorship...I mean, the White House and Congress...and [conjunction] that they are under constant threat of attack within their schools. Now, horror of horrors, they don't for the most part have Saturday morning cartoons anymore. And worse: they don't have a regular dose of Schoolhouse Rock! [interjection]. That's just plain Wrong. Criminal, even. THE STORY The Schoolhouse Rock concept came to life in 1972 when advertising exec David McCall noticed that his young son was having Issues with learning the rote multiplication tables in school, yet he had no problem remembering the words to various rock songs of the day. What began as a song written by Bob Dorough - "Three Is A Magic Number" - soon blossomed into a series of animated musical shorts, broadcast on ABC-TV, and compiled into a two-disc DVD set released in the series' 30th anniversary year. The Schoolhouse Rock Special 30th Anniversary Edition DVD features all original 46 animated Schoolhouse Rock songs, divided into five categories: Grammar Rock, clever English lessons set to music; Science Rock - a few lessons having even been taught to med students; Money Rock, "Where the money goes", indeed; Multiplication Rock, all the numbers a body needs to grow; America Rock, Issue-laden, perhaps; but way more interesting than any History class I ever took. ...but that's just disc one. This DVD set has many more treats in store for you. THE UPSHOT The brief description of Schoolhouse Rock on IMDB reads, "A series of shorts illustrating various songs that teach multiplication tables, science, grammer [sic; but o, irony] and American history." But for generations of kids, it was so much more than that. And after taking a brief poll of some folks in my generation, many would agree with me. For me, in those years that I was into Saturday morning cartoons, Schoolhouse Rock was a fun extension of the Sesame Street groove that I had long since outgrown. And as an adult, I can look back at those times when I was boppin' to "I'm Just A Bill", "Conjunction Junction", "Three Is A Magic Number", and more, and realize that not only was I entertained, I was educated. That's a damned sight more than I can say for the time I spent in school in civics, grammar, and math class. It's just too bad Schoolhouse Rock isn't mandatorily (adverb) included in the curriculum for at least the first few years of grade school. Maybe our children would actually enjoy learning again. DVD THINGIES If ever there were a DVD set that was all about its Thingies, the Schoolhouse Rock Special 30th Anniversary Edition DVD is it. If you only had the smallish booklet with its brief Rock history and words to the songs fans picked as their Top Ten Rock favorites, you'd have a good deal on your hands. As the Lolly boys might exclaim, wait, that's not all! This "Rockin' DVD" set also includes behind-the-scenes interviews with some of the cast and crew of Schoolhouse Rock that illustrates just how much fun these folks had, entertaining and educating whole generations of people. There were some lesser features included, such as the long-lost "Weather Show" song (shoulda stayed lost...eww), a wack Nike commercial, and an all new song, "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote To College". Still, fun arrange-a-song puzzles, a trivia game, audio commentaries on other Rock favorites, and a few "Easter Eggs", round out disc 2. But my favorite DVD Thingy has to be the "4 Music Videos By Contemporary Artists" segment. While "Conjunction Junction" by Better Than Ezra did nothing to improve on Jack Sheldon's original monster jam, and "My Hero, Zero" redux by The Lemonheads was Just Plain Strange, "I'm Just A Bill" by Deluxx Folk Implosion, and especially "Electricity, Electricity" by Goodness, were well done. The last two serve to prove what one Harvard University Graduate School Of Education student once said to the Rock producers: "...Schoolhouse Rock defined my generation". THE "BLACK FACTOR"    [ObDisclaimer: We Are Not A Monolith] I honestly agonized over including the BF in this already-overlong review. It seems a shame to reduce my feelings about the amazing Schoolhouse Rock concept to something so seemingly petty as whether or not the Rock folks included X number of Black kids in a certain segment, or that in the "America Rock" bits, they glossed over the not-so-good parts of American History. What finally made me include the BF, though, is remembering that in many of my other reviews that dealt with the adult me looking back at movies and such from The Good Old Days, I couldn't help but look at them through the veil of modern times. So...that in mind, the adult me did notice things my younger self hadn't noticed back in the day, such as Chubby Checker being rather pale in the "Nouns" segment, or the way the "America Rock" bits glossed over the not-so-good parts of American History. But dig this: I also noticed other things, like the Black superhero in "Verb", and the multi-racial characters that were part of almost all 46+ segments (without the feeling that they were being used to bump the X number quotient up), or the very clever "race exchange" in "Ready Or Not". So I reckon, in the end, my younger self wins again. BAMMER'S BOTTOM LINE 253 minutes may seem like a long time for a DVD set based on shows that averaged 3.5 minutes long. But after I watched the last segment of disc 2 (for the fourth time), I couldn't help but exclaim, Darn! That's the end! [Interjection]. SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK SPECIAL 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION:   back to top And that's the way I see it. Rose "Bams" Cooper 3BlackChicks Review™ Copyright Rose Cooper, 2002 EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com    ICQ: 7760005 http://www.3blackchicks.com/