Schoolhouse Rock was a series of short educational cartoons televised on the ABC network beginning in 1973. The colorful animations, accompanied by catchy songs, taught Saturday morning television (see entry under 1940s—TV and Radio in volume 3) viewers all about math, grammar, American history, and science, among other topics. The innovative series won four Emmy Awards and has been regularly rerun, a sign of its lasting popularity.

The brainchild of David McCall (1928–), a New York advertising executive, Schoolhouse Rock followed Sesame Street (see entry under 1970s—TV and Radio in volume 4) in its use of advertising techniques to teach basic skills to children. McCall marveled at his son's ability to learn when multiplication tables were set to music. He convinced ABC, which was looking for educational content to air during Saturday morning cartoons (see entry under 1960s—TV and Radio in volume 3), to let him develop an...