Schoolhouse Rock! (1973 TV Series)

Amazon.com It’s hard to overestimate the effect Schoolhouse Rock had on anyone who was a child between 1973 and 1985. Forty-one three-minute educational cartoons set to original songs, they were the original music videos, and they taught countless kids the difference between adjectives (“Unpack Your Adjectives”) and adverbs (“Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here”), how to multiply (“Three Is a Magic Number”), basic principles of science (“Do the Circulation,” “Interplanet Janet”), and American civics (“I’m Just a Bill,” “The Preamble”). All of the original songs are here, plus four Money Rock songs–“Dollars and Sense” and “Where the Money Goes” are as classic as any of the original standouts–and four tracks from the short-lived Scooter Computer & Mr. Chips series (which, unlike the rest of the Schoolhouse Rock songs, can be dated by the proto-new-wave-influenced instrumentation). A classic collection of (mostly) timeless songs that shaped the minds of a generation or two: how many box sets can you say that about? –Randy Silver