PropagandaRock
@PropagandaRock

by Junebug Theory.

In a few days, we'll be starting our America Rock! series. We're both dreading it. These episodes won't be fun, and we’ve got nine of them before we finally get to look at Science Rock. But why is this season so heavy on the propaganda? What took us from I Got Six to Elbow Room? To find some answers, I started doing some reading. This would slowly evolve into a massive research project attempting to understand the historical context of Schoolhouse Rock, one that lead me down some truly wild rabbit holes. When I finally had a grasp on the story of this show, it gave me an idea: before we get into the bad history lessons of America Rock!, why not try to do better?

Welcome to HISTORY ROCK! SUCKS ASS, where we'll be telling the true story of Schoolhouse Rock: a story of violence, marketing, censorship, music, and Reaganomics. We've got analysis! We've got sources! We’ve even got our own musical interlude (sorta)! Schoolhouse Rock didn't just appear out of thin air, it was made by specific people for a specific reason. If we want to try and understand the show, the best thing we can do is learn it’s historical context and discover what those reasons are. Why was it so successful? Why did it eventually die? And why is America Rock! so… like that? Let’s find out together.


JuniperTheory
@JuniperTheory

you should read it

i did a TON of research for it

pls share your thoughts


hellgnoll
@hellgnoll

* i scoured the deep web for a lot of resources to help june with this. the research process was in-depth and really cool and she deserves your eyeballs!


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in reply to @PropagandaRock's post:

This was awesome, thank you so much! Later 20th century America is a big gap in my historical knowledge that I'm slowly filling in myself, but it really helps when you lay out things like "MLK and Robert Kennedy assassinations were the same year", you know?

this was a fantastic essay on the cultural environment that led to SHR!'s creation; thank you for such a detailed and well-sourced write-up! a lot of this information is stuff that makes so much sense in the context of a post-Vietnam and post-Nixon America, but I probably wouldn't have thought of on my own without research. 1970s were a weird time for this country.

I'm going through the backlog of your reviews I haven't read and that comment about lazy cartoons being more like radio shows reminded me of this cartoon called Calvin and the Colonel from the early 60s that literally was just recycled episodes of Amos 'n' Andy.

in reply to @JuniperTheory's post:

Fantastic essay. I remember when I was a little kid and Cartoon Network only played Hannah Barbera cartoons (for the most part), and when Cartoon Cartoons happened as a backdoor piloting process for new original series my mind was legitimately boggled at how the new cartoons moved in a way that reminded me of the Loony Toons that CN would play when they weren't on the ol' HJB Reruns.

All in all, having context for when this would get put on for me and I'd tune out completely ("Aw, man, Schoolhouse Rock? I was watching Charlie Chan and the Clue Clan!") and maybe doze off is really something.