PropagandaRock

A Schoolhouse Rock! Retrospective

Join @shel and @junipertheory as we rewatch and review all 64 Schoolhouse Rock! songs in chronological order.


Shel might finish it here
shelraphen.com/

Originally Aired: November 17th, 1973
Written by: Bob Dorough
Performed by: Jack Sheldon, Terry Morel & Mary Sue Berry

Shel's Review

Music: 🎡🎡🎡
Animation: πŸ“ΊπŸ“Ί
Pedagogy: πŸŽ“πŸŽ“πŸŽ“
Accuracy: 🎯🎯🎯🎯
Yikes Factor: 😬😬

This is an unpopular opinion but I don't think this one is that good. It's one of the most iconic ones with a lot of cultural staying power and has been used in commercials and stuff but I think it's just kinda boring and samey sounding and I don't like the voice of the vocalist. It also bothers me that the white background singers did get credited for this song but the Black gospel choirs we've had previously were never credited. This one has so much speaking over music and it's just boring.

The animation is also very low quality. At least it's not just a white background? But it's so choppy and beige and I don't like the character design and there's not much visually happening besides trains. I like trains! But these trains just aren't much.

Pedagogically.... I don't know. I guess you get a sense of what a conjunction is? It only goes into three common conjunctions where there's actually way more than that in English. Some of those other ones do get used and emphasized. I think viewers could probably define conjunctions from this but I'm not sure if they could describe what it means to "connect clauses that balance." Nothing in it is wrong but it feels very incomplete.

Two yikes points for the unflattering depictions of unhoused people and giving white performers better treatment than Black performers.

June's Review

Music 🎡🎡

Friends, it's time for my most toxic Schoolhouse Rock! opinion. I'm a Conjunction Junction hater. It's pretty good. It's fun. It just never vibed with me. I think a lot of this is just me hearing it 2000 times and getting tired of itβ€”especially because all anyone repeats of it is the repetitive hook. There's also so much talking, and at the end it just keeps repeating over and over while fading into nothing in the worst way. I'm sorry. I'm a hater.

Animation πŸ“ΊπŸ“ΊπŸ“ΊπŸ“Ί

Meanwhile, here I'll disagree. I think the animation is pretty great. It's all set in this same vague place of "a train yard" that gives it some great atmosphere. A good number of the gags land for me, like the way he jumps when connecting the trains or some of the less awful jokes with the two hobos. Why is one of them so mean though?

Pedagogy πŸŽ“πŸŽ“πŸŽ“πŸŽ“

This gets 3 points for really drilling into a kid's head exactly what a conjunction does, and 1 extra point for teaching a young June what a drake was. I didn't know!

Accuracy 🎯🎯🎯🎯

It's as accurate as a grammar rock song can be, by which I mean mostly accurate and kinda dumbed down. Real trains don't work like that though.

Yikes 😬

Yeah okay, knowing that these actors did get credited makes the last video much more annoying. Would love to find out who did it. Anyone want a research project?

Up Next: The song that was most fun to perform as a child in Schoolhouse Rock! Live! Junior! because it involved a lot of shouting.


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in reply to @PropagandaRock's post:

I wonder how much of my affection for this song is the similarity to groups I really love, like Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross, where harmonized backing vocals and a crisp rhythm section support a freewheeling soloist (or freewheeling-sounding but tightly arranged, in the case of LH&R)

I never watched Schoolhouse Rock as a kid, so I'm seeing all of these for the first time, and the "I'm fat enough already" bit from one of the unhoused stereotypes was a bit 😬, the casual fatphobia isn't surprising but it is very yikes

hi time for another evie hot take but conjunction junction (as a song) fuckin slaps. but, since i never really listened to schoolhouse rock outside of my parents, i don't think i got overexposed to it enough for it to lose its luster. idk