Ah crap, you’re talking about Saturday Mornings again. There were 6 other days, you freak!
Were there? Were there really?
Ok, maybe there were. But as far as purified iconography, something about the Saturday mornings of my childhood have stuck with me, even as a grown man who has aged from single digits into…older numbers. Don’t worry about how many there are. There’s enough.
Regardless of the shifting schedules and ephemeral nature of cartoons, if there was one thing that could be said to be constant, it was Schoolhouse Rock.
Schoolhouse Rock “taught” without “teaching,” a valuable idea that can be too easily dismissed. Those bite-sized animated infodumps taught through repetition and melody using a deceptively simplistic method that boiled down information into dense nuggets.
But mainly, they were catchy as hell. To a ridiculous degree. Some had more of an “earworm” quality than others, but you could tell a lot of time and love went into the creation of every Schoolhouse Rock offering.
So, naturally, it feels like something I’d want some action figures of. Because if my toys can teach me something, well that’s just a perfect world situation, right?
Aiming for only five is difficult, since there is a huge cast of characters involved with all of the Schoolhouse rock cartoons. I wouldn’t necessarily require super-duper articulation here either, since most of them are shaped in a way conducive to action figure joints. It’s possible the best way to get them would be through Super7’s Reaction line. I think I’d be pretty ok with that.
Without further babble, here are the top five Schoolhouse Rocks action figures I’d like. Starting with;
The Conductor from Conjunction Junction
Just what the hell is your function? One of the more iconic songs from Schoolhouse Rock, the Conjunction Junction song gets in your head and stays there for…well, for 30 or 40 years or more. And the conductor who guides us through this byzantine sentence structure nightmare would make a great figure. Give him his lamp and he can help us all make sentences.
Mr. Morton.
One of that later entries to the Schoolhouse Rock pantheon, Mr. Morton was the subject of the sentence, and what the predicate says, he does. With the most somber minor key melody in the entire Schoolhouse songbook, the Mr. Morton entry made a huge impression on me despite the fact that I was a teenager by the time his episode aired. There’s something a little depressing about it. The damn cartoon makes me feel things, and for that it deserves a figure.
The Magician from Three is a Magic Number
The first aired Schoolhouse Rock cartoon deserves to be immortalized in action figure form, and while there were many characters throughout the brief airtime, the magician was the host of the bit. He could come with his hat, a rabbit and that mustache, which only a man in a fuschia tuxedo could pull off. This one is De La Soul approved.
The Electrical repairman from Electricity, Electricity.
Man, that dude just kept coming into rooms and turning on lights, freaking out everyone. He’s a rabble rouser and a troublemaker. But he’s also the star of one of the three catchiest Schoolhouse Rock songs of all time, along with Conjunction Junction and the one coming up in my number five spot. “Electricity eeeeeelectricity” plays on a loop in my head, and…well, that probably explains a lot. Whenever I turn on a light I like to think GIANT WORDS ARE BLINKING
The Bill stuck on Capital Hill.
This one had to be on the list. He may be just a bill, but he’s not “just” a bill. He’s an icon. A hero. A star. This exhausted and depressed piece of rolled up paper has transcended his beginnings and is almost the poster boy for the entire Schoolhouse rock phenomenon. Alien civilizations that land on the Earth once we’ve been wiped out by Nuclear Radiation-mutated Coronaviruses will learn about our political processes through Bill’s 3 minute journey. And it will get stuck in their large gray heads also.
Honorable mention to the Schoolhouse Rock mascot…Schoolhouse Rocky. A kid superhero in red spandex with a blue cape.
