Friday, March 21, 2008

Blast From the Past. And I Do Mean A Blast!

This week's Gabfest* finished up with John Dickerson remarking on the resurgence in popularity of Schoolhouse Rock. I am delighted to hear that his kids are enthralled.

I don't know how many of you had the, in retrospect, rare privilege of seeing these great little shorts that were mixed in with my diet of Saturday morning cartoons. Here's my all-time favorite, "Conjunction Junction." Get your grammar groove on!



Better than comfort food, I say. I still sing snippets of this song, out loud, all the time.

More deliciousness here. Pretty good-looking fan sites here and here. And Wikipedia's entry is awe-inspiring in its comprehensiveness, if you're even more maniacal than I.


* As of this moment, the Gabfest page is not yet updated to reflect the availability of this week's podcast. If you're impatient, you can it grab from the iTunes store. Yep. Free.

3 comments:

Adam said...

You should check out the tribute album from a few years ago (actually it might be like a decade now) of modern artists covering Schoolhouse Rock songs. I think Better than Ezra did Conjunction Junction.

Yea I just looked it up it's from 1996.

If you're into early 90's grunge and related genres it might be of some interest. Bling Melon doing 3 is the magic number, Weezer doing The Shot Heard Round the World and the unstoppable Biz Markie shows up on it too. I might download it myself when I get back to the city.

bjkeefe said...

Adam:

Now that you mention it, it does sound familiar. Let me know how you like it, if you download it.

I gotta say, though, the comfort food aspect probably only works with the original versions. I suspect I'd think the cover versions would be appealing only as novelties. (I am suddenly unable to rid my mind of the thought of Pat Boone doing "Panama" and Bill Shatner doing "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.")

But, you never know. Sometimes the cover can even be better. For example, Guns 'n' Roses, whom I don't even like, did a much better job with "Live and Let Die," I thought.

Adam said...

You can check some of them out for free (legally... or I guess more legally than pirating it)...

Better than Ezra doing Conjunction Junction (fast forward to about 3:20 to hear the song)... I don't like this as much as the more energetic original version.

Blind Melon doing Three is the magic number... different. I kind of like it. I wasn't too fond of the original though, which you may not agree with.

I don't think any others are on Youtube... I may download it I really want to hear the Shot Heard Round the World done by Ween, which is my favorite band.

Speaking of Ween, I was at this townie bar in New Hope today (which is where Ween is from and apparently still lives near) and I asked the waitress if the picture of Gene Ween was for sale... she said it was and that she'd have him sign it when he got back from Hawaii but I wasn't goin' to be back any time soon. But that was a great experience anyways.

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