Originally Aired: April 27th, 1976
Written by: Bob Dorough & Kathy Mandry
Performed by: Jack Sheldon
Shel's Review
Music: 🎵🎵🎵🎵
Animation: 📺📺📺📺📺
Pedagogy: 🎓🎓🎓🎓🎓
Accuracy: 🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
Yikes Factor:
Grammar Rock Jumpscare!!! Did you think we were done having endless discourse about phonics and linguistics in the comments section? This one Grammar song aired during season 3 for whatever reason but hey, we need it for the sake of our health.
Today it's every right-wing talk show host's favorite boogeyman: pronouns! Man, if only cisgender people could be this celebratory and enthusiastic about pronouns in the twenty-first century. I love this song. It's so full of joy about this little piece of grammar. I love the part where he exclaims "thank you pronouns!" I wouldn't like, listen to it on my commute but it's just a really delightful little cartoon to watch. The animation is also noticeably leagues better than anything in seasons 1 and 2. The character designs are fun and the word bubbles do a great job emphasizing the pronouns.
Pedagogically it does a really fantastic job explaining how pronouns work including gender, conjugation, and even interrogatives! It also corrects the error made in Verb! by staying that What is a pronoun, not a verb. Totally grammatically accurate, no complaints. I'm not going to ding them for not mentioning singular they, since they didn't actually say explicitly that they is plural either.
Just a good song!
June's Review
Music 🎵🎵🎵🎵
Thank fuck, a break. And what a break it is! This song uses our old favorite trope of talking a bunch instead of actually singing, but here it fits the theme of the song; the names are long and annoying to pronounce so they're the speaking parts, while the pronouns get sung. The beat itself is a great little bop, not the best song we've heard but far, far from the worst. And it's fun! Maybe it's just because I have a splitting headache and am so glad I don't have to listen to propaganda, but this is a solid 4/5 to me
Animation 📺📺📺📺📺
The animation here really shines. The gags of the word bubbles are legitimately funny, and all the characters animations are super cute. It's genuinely fun to watch, you keep refocusing on random little details and all of them are individually really fun. I also love the colors here? I don't know why the kangaroo is bright orange or the Rhinoceros is bright yellow but they're so much fun to look at. Just a pleasure all around.
Pedagogy 🎓🎓🎓🎓🎓
Accuracy 🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
Going to refer to Shel on these, but I will say that this cartoon is great for teaching that Sarsaparilla is spelled like that, and not spelled Sasparila as my childhood brain assumed. Not only does this reinforce the point of the song (because nobody wants to write that word) but I distinctly remember as a kid going "oh hey wait i know that word from that one song" when looking at root beer. Real education folks, which means this song is better then like every single America Rocks song we've covered so far!
Yikes 0/5
I really can't think of much that's Yikes here, anything would be really splitting hairs. Instead, I have to confess something else: this song feels like the gayest schoolhouse rock song. It's all about how close they are as friends, they care so much about their big pets, all the Normal People in town hate them, they focus a lot on pronouns... it's gay people. This is the gay people song.
...But then again, maybe it's not. Maybe there's a darker theme to this song we've ignored completely. Please put on your best "Game Theory Conspiracy Video" voice as your ead this next section.
Halfway through the song, Albert says "Because of pronouns I can say that I wish she would find a rhinoceros for me-and we'd be happyyy!". Did she actually do this? Did she actually find him a big yellow guy to be friends with, or is he just dreaming? And sure, the next few sections of the song are them talking about their animal friends, including the new rhinoceros, but where does it come from? Do we even know it exists? Hell, does any of this exist, or is it just a fantasy cooked up by some guy named Albert as he watches two siblings dance around with their cool animals and wishes he was friends with them? Is this why the rhinoceros is bright yellow????
Nah, just kidding, of course he has a rhinoceros. Hell, a better question would be to ask why don't you have a funny little animal guy? The song says "I have mine, she has hers, he has his, and you have yours." Schoolhouse Rock wants to know: what's your excuse for not having a big funny animal friend?
Up Next: Celebrating diversity through racist caricatures.
