Schoolhouse Rock!

I picked this one up a week ago when I saw it at Target for a scant ten dollars. Every Schoolhouse Rock! video ever created, for ten bucks? Too good for me to pass up. Schoolhouse Rock! was part of my childhood; I remember watching these '70s creations over and over again back in the early '90s. Now, just three months and change shy of the '10s (teens?) I've seen them all again, and some for the first time at all. What amazes me most about the experience of re-watching the series after 15 years away from it is the disparity among my recollection abilities of different videos. There were some in the collection I'm sure I'd legitimately never seen before, but there were plenty I knew I had seen for which I lacked any memories at all. Take the multiplication series, for example. I know that years and years ago, when I watched the series on VHS as a child, I had a tape with all the multiplication songs on it. Some of these (2, 3, 8, and 9) I found myself extremely capable of recalling. Others (such as 0 and 5) rang bells, but I could never have hoped to remember anything about them without present-day viewing. Many of the rest seemed completely foreign to me. It's weird; I know I saw all of these, and due to simple probability, should not have seen any of them much more often than any of the others. Yet the disparity was amazing. I don't just mean with the math videos, either. For example, I found myself nearly able to sing along to the songs about interjections and adjectives, but then I was also lost entirely when it came to verbs, nouns, and adverbs. Of course, I was plenty ready for my conjunctions. And that leads me to another big point. For those familiar with Schoolhouse Rock!, the very mentioning of the program's title will incite imagery of one of two songs like 90% of the time. Those two are "Conjunction Junction" and "I'm Just a Bill." Don't believe me? Then explain why the DVD cover includes the Junction Man and Bill. It's just a fact: Schoolhouse Rock! is known the world over for these two songs and characters. And there's good reason for this, as the songs are fantastic. Unfortunately, remove those two songs from the collection, and the DVD is just a collection of usually cute but always crude animations set to cheesy educational songs. In short, nothing to write home about. (It's worth noting that the same guy - Jack Sheldon - voices both the Junction Man and Bill.) I enjoyed the experience of re-watching the series, but it lacked the sense of nostalgia that a truly important blast from the past would have included. It holds up well for the most part, which is impressive for a 30-year old show. Still, at times it comes off as dated and even just flat out incorrect based on today's knowledge and conventions. But again, I'm more amazed by how well it holds up than I am by where it falls short. Well worth the $10 pricetag.