George R. Newall, one of the creators of animated musical series Schoolhouse Rock!, has died in New York. He was 88 and the cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest.
Schoolhouse Rock! ran on ABC from 1973 to 1984 and was revived in the 1990s. It used animation and peppy music to educate children on a variety of subjects, including grammar, math and government. Songs included “I’m Just a Bill,” “Three is a Magic Number” and “Conjunction Junction.”
The show won four Emmy Awards.
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For those of us in the US, "SchoolHouse Rock" was a fun series of cartoons with catchy earworms that was shown between Saturday Morning Cartoons on ABC. Besides the ones listed above, it covered Women's Suffrage, a brief look at the American Revolution ("Shot Heard 'Round the World"), taught names of planets ("Interplanet Janet"), and I still use their song to remember the Preamble to the Constitution. It was as groundbreaking as "Seseme Street" and "The Electric Company" on PBS, imho. I am very sorry that there's nothing equal to it on TV/Youtube today.
