Originally Aired: February 24th, 1973
Written by: Bob Dorough
Performed by: Blossom Dearie
Shel's Review
Music: π΅π΅π΅π΅
Animation: πΊ πΊ πΊ πΊ πΊ
Pedagogy: πππππ
Accuracy: π―π―π―π―π―
Yikes Factor: 0-ish
This is our first song performed by a woman and starring a female protagonist. I really like this one. The music is really pleasant and swelling, although strangely disjointed into basically two completely different songs. I like both of the songs though. They're both catchy. I love the violins. The animation is also far more detailed and filled in than we're used to and is super cute and appealing to me. Maybe it's because I'm from New England but the whole thing is just so cozy and gives Charlie Brown Christmas vibes. The little alien octopus and visual gags are great too. It also repeats itself just the right amount for it to stick in your head. Even though it's working with much larger numbers, I've always found the 8s easier to remember because of this song.
Pedagogically, I think this one is great. I love how it connects it back to the simpler 4 times tables which are easier for children to memorize since they have smaller numbers; although probably not by utilizing Four-Legged Zoo. I like how the thermometer increases from 32 to 40 visually, to connect that 8 times 5 is the same as 8 times 4 plus 8; rounding it out nicely, and of course 8 times 4 is 4 times 8 which maybe you already remember from learning your 4s from the very large schoolteacher who cohost ranked as incredibly smashable. I also like how we touch upon the distributive property again with "8 times 12 is the same 10 times 8 plus 2 times 8" which really does help set us up for algebra in the future. It's also important because, remember, if you've already memorized 2β5 through jauntier tubes, then you already know half of 6β9 by just flipping the digits in the equation. 8Γ5 is 5Γ8 and you already know 5Γ8 from Ready or Not, Here I Come. Also I guess we get taught the symbol for infinity? As a kid I took the message that this meant the number 8 had some sort of special property related to infinity, so maybe that was a little confusing, but it wouldn't cause me to flunk math class (if I had been in math class, which I wasn't, because I was being alt-schooled and my only math education at the time was Schoolhouse Rock!).
Nothing here is factually wrong or implying anything weird about the world. It's numbers babey. I do think, these days, it's somewhat startling to see a big American Flag garbed man on stilts holding a giant flag with "88" on it!!! Kinda terrifying! But at the time that wasn't code for anything and definitely wouldn't have been imparting any kind of weird dog whistles onto children so I don't feel like it's worth a yikes.
June's Review
Music π΅π΅π΅π΅π΅
So, like, the song itself isn't actually a 5/5 I don't thinkβlike Shel said, you're essentially listening to two separate songs and the one during the multiplication section is just kinda Standard. It's very what we expect from Schoolhouse Rock!βa quick jaunty beat with some funny animations while we go over multiplication tables. It's got some nice parts, but it'd be at most a 3.5/5
But, we're not here for that, we're here for the piano and violin at the beginning. And that shit's legendary. Like, holy cow, what a great fucking opening, you start this cartoon and you know it's something special. And fun fact! I'm not the only one who thought this, as this song has been sampled a like, genuinely kind of stunning number of times by different hip hop artists over the year. From the intro track to Music to Driveby by Compton's Most Wanted to a song off The Score an album by the group Fugees to fucking Will Smith, tons of people heard that intro track and thought "that sounds haunting. I'm gonna use that someday." It hasn't even stopped; one of the more recent samples I could find was from 2017! Now that's the sort of legacy you want in a funny children's song. In fact, I'd argue that this has the second best sample of any schoolhouse rock song ever. Number one you'll see when we count a bit higher, haha.
Animation πΊ πΊ πΊ
This is some old fashioned "look at all these funny little things" schoolhouse rock animation. Kinda fun tho! Absolutely could be worse. And shout outs to THE TEACHER for coming in at NUMBER 10 on the HOTTEST SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK character poll. I don't think that changes the point value I just wanted to point it out.
Pedagogy πππ
It teaches 8s better then other songs! For multiplication tables you want a simple song and this one is pretty good for... most of it. I do appreciate the attempts at "and this is how you go beyond 80" but I think they're done better in Lucky Seven Sampson.Β
Accuracy π―π―π―π―π―
This is one of the more weirdly dated schoolhouse rocks but it's still just multiplication. Might start skipping this field 'til we get to grammar, haha.
Yikes
Yeah uh. HEY ITS THE NUMBER 88 hits a bit different as Shel said but it isn't their fault. The kid falling in ice creeped me out, but that's mostly due to that one magic school bus episode. Hmmmm. Magic Propaganda Bus series next?
Up Next: A furbait episode so salacious it almost got banned for violating federal laws!

