Hooking up words, and phrases, and propaganda about global warming.

It is likely that anyone in our generation who watched any amount of Saturday morning cartoons is familiar with Schoolhouse Rock. For those who aren’t or maybe for the education of some of our overseas readers, I will enlighten you. Born out of a commercial advertisement venture, Schoolhouse Rock was a series of short, animated clips aimed at educating the viewer in various subjects. The first series tackled multiplication tables including “Four Legged Zoo“, “Three is a Magic Number”, “My Hero, Zero” which, through song and animation, exercised the multiplication tables from 1-12 times the number in question. It first aired in January of 1973 on ABC, usually between Scooby Doo and LaffOlympics, and is one of the few things from the 70s worth preserving (the double DVD collection set is a part of the GorT video library).

The series grew to include historical and civics lessons – I swear my whole grade school class was humming, “We the People, in order to form a more perfect union…” when we had to learn the Preamble of the Constitution. And also lessons on grammar to include the aforementioned “Conjunction Junction”. A little after my time they launched into what is now titled, “Science Rock” and a “MoneyRock” was added later as well. More can be found here (with a Wikipedia grain of salt as usual…but this entry looks pretty accurate). The catchy (and campy) tunes with the simple, but entertaining animation was focused on the simple education through something memorable that anyone could sing. As Potsy Weber learned in Happy Days (“Pump Your Blood“), sometimes you need a little help in remembering facts. You know that it was successful when it gets parodied as MadTV did a number of times.

So, in keeping with previously mentioned atrocities by Hollywood, where there is little new, innovative thought and the rehash of old ideas is rarely done well, Disney is set to launch a new Schoolhouse Rock series with recycling, conservation, etc. as the theme. Why they can’t do this without staining the legacy that exists, is beyond me.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.