Rating: Summary: The best collection of musical shorts ever Review: The reason people read a review is usually to help decide whether to buy a product. don't waste your time, just buy this disk. it is simply the best collection of musical animated shorts ever created. the melodies, lyrics and images are so clever, profound and yet enjoyably simple that they will awe you with their beauty. for those of us who enjoyed schoolhouse rock in our chilhood, every song will spark a fond memory. for those who haven't had the pleasure (unfortunately, and to the great detriment of the current generation, schoolhouse rock seems to have been shoved aside by such puerile revenue generators as hawking merchandising spinoffs from the latest pop culture garbage trend), you will be amazed at the quality, catchiness and intelligence of these productions.when i got the disk, i picked the american series and was immediately enraptured by "no more kings". its a beautiful, clever and funny encapsulation of our rebellion from british rule. kids will love it for the funny scens, adults will appreciate the content, and everyone will like the music. i couldn't help but marvel how much better it was than the random quicks we've been playing for our child. and this was only the first song of one of the many different groups! the series covers grammar (it's still the way i remember parts of speech), multiplication tables, american governmental principles, science and money. schoolhouse rock won an emmy in 1978 and it probably deserved a few more - it is truly in a class by itself.
Rating: Summary: I Bought Two Copies.... Review: ....one for me. One for my 5yo. niece. Good educational stuff for her - just plain fun for me. Ok - they take me back to my youth, but I love "Interjections" or "Verb - That's What's Happening". I also like things more now than I did as a child ("Figure 8"). The menu is a bit cumbersome for a child (even a big one like me), but it's a jam packed set.
Rating: Summary: wow Review: I just met Bob/heard him play these songs at a coffee shop in the Colorado mountains (3 is a magic number, bill and conjunction junction). It was an amazing trip down my childhood and I'm now ordering the DVD.
Rating: Summary: Step into the Way Back Machine.... Review: Growing up in the 70's, these were a staples on Saturday mornings while watching cartoons. I was really suprised by how many of the ones I had forgotten about. Oh sure, I can remember the classics like Conjunction Junction, and Three is a Magic Number, but there were a lot of them that when I heard them again, many memories came back, like finding a box of toys you had when you were a child. And I never realised how many of these were actually made! I was really impressed with all the new stuff and the extras included in this set, and it was definately worth the money. The cartoons are pleasingly simple, the songs fun to sing along with, and the memories are priceless.
Rating: Summary: Great for kids of all ages Review: As a child of the eighties, I just had to have this set. It is such a great dose of education made fun. To this day, I know important facts like the preamble to the consitution and that a noun "is a person, place, or thing" all thanks to Schoolhouse Rock. This set includes all of the tunes you remember(Conjunction Junction), some you may recall(the Mr Chips series), and one brand new lesson to Rock the Schoolhouse. There's also some neat extras including - of all things - a Nike commercial that embraced the SR-bunch. What a great way to get my son off on the right educational foot. My wife and I love it... Nostalgia for us, a solid foundation for him as he grows. Much thanks to Lolly and all the gang.
Rating: Summary: School House Rock Series Review: I have been using the School House Rock series for five years in a multi-grade upper elementary class in bush Alaska. I still hear former students humming the tunes from "Conjuction Junction" to "Three is a Magic Number" in other classrooms. This series may appear dated to some but, students in the elementary grades hum right along with the music and will watch the video over and over again. The Grammar Rock video still teaches the basic parts of speech to students and I am still discovering things about the parts of speech to use in daily language instruction. The segments are short enough to be used by themselves for mini-lessons. The only complaint from the students is on the Multiplication Rock video about the number 8. They think this segment is too slow and boring. However, they do laugh at 'Mr. Twelve Toes'. The Science and Social Studies videos in this series still hold the students' attention and provide an entertaining way for students to learn about government and elementary science. It is a good set to have handy for a rainy day activity.
Rating: Summary: Memories Review: Our family loves Schoolhouse Rock. It brought my husband and I back to our childhood.
Rating: Summary: Correction! Review: On January 29, somebody posted a review that said that there were like 30 ads for kids movies before they could see the songs/videos. NOT! There are only 8 ads on my DVD and I can skip right through them. The DVD is great. "You can call me lucky 7, cause Lucky's my name." "I'm just a bill, yes i'm only a Bill." "Lolly lolly lolly get your adverbs here." "the shot heard 'round the world was the start of the revolution" "three is a magic number"
Rating: Summary: Instant success! Review: I received this DVD set for Christmas from my brother and I thought,"How nostalgic". Then sitting at dinner a month later my 8 year old daughter was complaining about learning her 5's on the multiplication table. I tried to explain a trick to her but wasn't doing very well. So after dinner we sat down with the multiplication songs and after 2 minutes of watching "Ready or Not Here I Come" (multiplying by 5's) she yelled,"I get it! Now lets do 6's!" The next day she went to school and made a 100 on her math test! Amazing! I took the DVD to school to show our 8th grade history teacher all the history songs which she had never seen. She was so excited to hear the "Preamble" song, she asked how she could get her hands on the set. I so remember singing the Preamble in Senior Government as I had to write it for a test along with all my other classmates. It made learning so much fun and so easy. This is must set for parents.
Rating: Summary: Yay! It's on DVD! Review: A wonderful DVD! Takes me back to my childhood - watching Saturday morning cartoons while eating bowls of Fruity Pebbles. Every song is here, including some that I had never seen before (mostly the "Money Rock" entries). They still hold up as being fun and informative, even today. Two minor quibbles: 1) The shuffle feature never worked on my DVD. The songs played in the same order every time - staring with "Unpacking My Adjectives" and then going through each section the same way. This may just be a glitch in my DVD. 2) Since the good people at Disney now own ABC, we are "treated" to eight - count 'em - eight previews for Disney videos, movies, and assorted junk. You can get past these by either hitting the "Menu" or "Title" feature on the remote or Chapter Advancing past them all. In spite of these, I would still recommend this to anyone feling nostalgic for their youth or needs to teach someone about civics or multiplication. (Come on, do you know anyone who can recite the Preamble to the Constitution WITHOUT singing the Schoolhouse Rock song?)
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