Schoolhouse Rock! (Special 30th Anniversary Edition)

Man. How to begin? I was born in 1970, so Schoolhouse Rock was an integral part of my Saturdays growing up. Over the past thirty-odd years I've caught myself out of the blue humming "Conjunction Junction" more times than I can count! What a blast to go back and see them all again! I bought this as a surprise for my family (wife, son and daughter--and yes, me too!) for Christmas. I knew my wife would remember them and I wanted to introduce the kids to them to give them a glimpse of how seventies Saturdays were. It's been awesome. We'll watch an episode and my wife and I will talk to them about how we used to enjoy them. My son, who's into music bigtime, gets a kick out of the period atmosphere of the songs and the lyrics. My daughter thinks it's really cool how the songs can be so catchy and teach so much at the same time. Of course, I do too! My wife has always said I'm a lot like the kid on "Wonder Years"...always reminiscing. Guilty. It's just that some things are worth remembering, and this series is definitely one of them! I get the same kick out of this that I do out of the Peanuts Christmas/Halloween/Thanksgiving specials. There's an atmosphere about these toons that makes you want to stop whatever you're doing and just soak it up because it's so campy it's mesmerizing. You know you're witnessing something really nice. I'm not a grandparent yet, but for all of you who are and who remember the Rock, then this should be one of the first gifts you ever give your grandchildren. Young parents, take note...you may not remember these toons, but your kids will never forget them. Buy them. Now. LOADS of fond memories! (And they really help the kids in school too!) And they're so cheap you can't possibly regret it! By the way, my mystery is solved. I knew there was one of the toons that kind of spooked me out when I was little, but couldn't remember which one. Finally figured it out after three decades! It was the mathematics cartoon about number twelve...little twelve toes dude used to scare me! And the music was kind of surreal like a Pink Floyd song. Now I can sleep peacefully...ahhhhhhhhh! "Conjunction Junction, what's that function......" :)

The best had all the shorts the music everything I love it,

Are you a parent now that remembers these from your childhood and you're asking yourself, "Could Schoolhouse Rock! possibly still be as captivatingly educational as it was in the 70s?" or perhaps you're saying to yourself, "These are so dated my kids would never stay tuned." Let's put it this way...This is one of my kids' most requested DVDs (ages three through seven), and they walk around the house singing about nouns, the branches of the government, counting by 5s, electricity and the National 'Tyrannosaurus' Debt. The songs in this compilation of shorts that used to run between regularly scheduled shows on Saturday mornings on ABC mainly during the 70s actually helped me in school. Schoolhouse Rock! is a series of 46 educational shorts featuring easy to sing along to songs about grammar, science, math, economics, history, and politics. Money was added in the 90s and computers to the 2002 DVD release. My preschooler--because of this DVD--can count to 100 by 5s and my second grader knows what a noun is and that all he needs to do to describe nouns is "unpack his adjectives". Each song is apx 3 minutes or less of straightforward education. And since the songs are so brief and the lyrics are so easy to remember, kids retain a lot of information from some very short, simple lessons. This is an essential purchase if you have young children. Side note: The ads at the beginning of the DVD are indeed a pain, but easily circumvented by pressing the STOP button TWICE on your remote as soon as the first ad starts, then pressing your MENU button instead of PLAY to get the DVD going again; this brings you right to the main menu where you can play the DVD by topic, mix up the songs or play them in order.

This is a great DVD containing all of the original songs we grew up with during our Saturday morning cartoon days. It's just as entertaining and catchy as it was in the early 70's, and if my daughter's any indication even children as young as 2 will find it enjoyable. What surprised me when I saw the list of songs was that there were many that I had never seen. In particular, all seven money songs didn't get on the air before I stopped watching cartoons, so there was actually new stuff (from my perspective, anyway ;-D). You can play the songs in a few ways. First, you can go to the Play List and select songs by their group -- grammar, science, history, money, multiplication. There's also an option called "The Whole Enchilada" which will play all 46 songs. Depending on the style you choose ("mild" or "spicy"), the songs either play back in order by group or in a random shuffle. There's also an option called "Jukebox", but this was deceptive. Instead of letting you pick any set of songs you want, you can only pick from the top ten songs (as determined by the publisher based on viewer feedback from years ago). My daughter just turned two in September, and she loves to watch the Grammar Rock set. Within two days of seeing it, she was singing the chorus of "Interjections!" (as well as a two-year old can sing, that is ;D). I don't know if it's mainly due to this or just the rate her language skills are naturally developing, but her use of pronouns has greatly improved in the last couple of months and that song is another of her favorites in the Grammar set. The other sections are moderately advanced for her age (especially multiplication rock and money rock), so she's not so interested in those yet. Surprisingly, she loves to watch "Suffering Until Suffrage" in the America Rock set -- probably because of the music. The bonus materials DVD is OK, but apart from the Emmy section it's mainly fluff. The Scooter Computer and Mister Chips set is the one set of songs that's visibly dated, just by virtue of the subject matter. And I'm not sure why they called "The Weather Show" a lost song -- I clearly remember seeing that on Saturday mornings, which means they had to have been playing it pretty regularly. Maybe it was "lost" from the Science Rock VHS tape, but then why not just put it in that set on the DVD? Overall, a definite 5-star buy!

Loved these shorts as a kid! They were there entertaining and educational at the same time. Still relevant now and still entertaining!

Kids loved it just like I did when I was their age. Good gifts.

Criticisms of this program today reflect the many changes in our society but the project exemplifies a great creative work motivated by a sincere objective presented in a positive spirit. Only a few of these videos, such as The Checks in the Mail, may soon altogether lose their frame of reference, but the majority remain relevant and should remain relevant for many a decade more. Some of the images could be considered to portray negative stereotypes but the overwhelming spirit of this work is positive and encourages good discussions among children, parents and teachers. Some of the Christian and Islamic references (gospel music, Noah's ark, polygamy, etc.) may seem more sensitive topics by today's standards, but the overall impression is one of acceptance, family values and individual self-esteem. I admit nostalgia in purchasing these videos as much as a desire to teach my children, still, these decades' old cartoon music videos remain effect tools in teaching simple but important concepts. There are elementary lessons in grammar, multiplication, American independence and expansion, health and hygiene, basic government and money management, civil rights, etc. put to many musical styles such as soul, gospel, jazz, blues, folk, etc. The lyrics are clever, original and memorable, the music catchy and the messages are on-point. This is superior craftsmanship that is much more than retuning nursery rhymes. Best of all is that the CHILDREN `get it'! This collection contains two DVD's. The first contains reproductions of all the original music videos for all the original categories but with limited interaction and lesson. The second disk provides interactive activities. Some mouse functionality/interactivity failed after a short while requiring tab/enter to run programs. This is a failure of the disk programming functions but otherwise this is a solid product from Disney. And if not for the disk functionality issues and some consideration of content, this is a 5 star product and admittedly a rating of loving nostalgia as much as appreciation for the clever works of music and video.

My grandbabies love it... Almost as much as I did when I was a kid... Saturday morning cartoons with these shorts... The GOAT...

This dvd was so catchy. My son keeps wanting to watch it over and over. I had to change the region of my laptop to stream it through the tv as it was not compatible with my dvd player.

何年か前にYouTubeで存在を知って全編見たくなって購入しましたが、まさかのリージョンコード違いでした。やむなくドライバをもう一つ買ってリージョン１専用にして見ています。日本では「勉強なんか役に立たない」などと反抗期の子供に媚びた言葉が飛び交いがちですが、これ、オープニングに"Knowledge is Power"って出てくるんです。「知識は力だ」。これのオリジナルの放送は私が子供の頃なのですが、勉強なんか役に立たない、と騙された日本人の子供とこれを見て育ったアメリカ人では大人になってどれだけ差が出るのか、と思わずにはいられませんし、実際自分のアメリカ人の友人と話をしているとなんとなく差があるようにも感じてしまいます（涙）。それはさておき、内容は小学生向けの国語算数理科社会のあれこれをアニメと歌で見せる一本3分程度のものですが、大人が見ても楽しめますし、制作スタッフにも有名な人の名前が散見されて、アメリカの大人がフルパワーで子供のために役に立つものを作っているのをヒシヒシと感じます。国語（すなわち英文法）のテーマのものは、我々日本人の英語の勉強にも非常に役に立ちます。リアルタイムで見たかったとつくづく思わせられる作品ですが、今見ても十分役に立っています。

Just as I remember them when I woke up on Saturday Mornings to the sounds of "I'm Just A Bill" and "Conjunction Junction" among many other songs. This DVD set contained all the songs originally broadcast on ABC as well as some new and unreleased gems and the discs were in very good condition completely playable on my X-Box 360, the seller definitely outdid themselves with the swift delivery too

I was looking to bring back some memories with these cartoons

Finally I am proud to say I have found and bought the complete collection of Schoolhouse Rock and furthermore, there is so much extra stuff included on this awesome dvd!