How Schoolhouse Rock Rocked: Featuring Bob Nastanovich of Pavement

was definitely towards the tail end of it. Let's say thirty eight to fifty years old. Actually, yeah, that's not true. So let's say it was up to yeah nine, Yeah, so iwhere in that rain fifty ish? All right, that's what you agree on a little more. Maybe so that fifteen year period you were lucky. Yeah, Like if you just heard that theme song and like something inside your body happened emotionally in your brain, then that means that

that you grew up in the seventies and eighties. Uh. I think the heyday of Saturday Morning cartoons personally, uh, as a fan of schoolhouse rock, one of my favorite favorite favorite things in the world. Yeah, it was pretty great. I still love it. Yeah, Like I still listen to this stuff semi regularly. Oh do you. Yeah, it's been a little while. When I went back to UM to research this, I listened to or watched a bunch of them, and they all just came flooding back. Yeah, and them.

The writer of this article actually interviewed, didn't he Bob Doro? It's it sounded that way unless he's a big fat liar in his author's note. Well, I just remember when this article went around, Like the first thing we do when there's an article at how SUF works is there's a UM email that goes around everyone where people kind of suggest kind of questions you can answer and stuff like that. Um. I don't think we ever really talked about that, did we don't think nine years in that's

a secret. Uh, And people say, hey, you should think about this, you should do this, And I said, somebody should try and interview Bob Doro. It's like he's ninety three years old, and you know, you can still get in touch with a guy, I think, and apparently this dude did. And sadly, I think all we got was like one quote. Yeah, well, he was on his way to like a jazz gig in London when he caught him. I bet you that was more in there than this. I was all disappointed. Oh, you're saying I wanted like

more more select quotes from Mr Doro. You wanted like I called Mr Doe. He answered, hello, said Mr Doro. We should have interviewed him for this. I don't know why we didn't. I don't either. Apparently it's easy to get to uh and there's well, I'll get to that. Never mind. Should we get in the way back machine? Yes, let's go back to the seventies, the greatest decade history of humanity. Probably, I'm not joking. I'm a fan of sixties. Seventies,

and eighties would be tough for me to decide. Sixties were a little too hippie for me. I love the seventies, so I mean, I had loved the seventies, and not even as a Golden age. There was a lot wrong in the seventies. Nixon was president during the seventies. Okay, lots of stuff we're wrong in the seventies, but something about that decade just hit all the boxes. I just love it, and it reminds me my childhood, which is great because you know, I had a good childhood. It

was fun. I a lot of We talked about that in the Nostalgia episode on how nostalgi just the correct path in life, even though John Hodgman doesn't think so. So early seventies, there's a gentleman named David McCall and um he was. He co owned an ad agency called McCaffrey and McCall and as the story goes, he was on vacation with his family and he knew his son was having some trouble in math um remembering specifically multiplication tables. Yeah, no matter how much he yelled at him every night,

he couldn't get multiplication. But they're in the car and this kid was singing, as the story goes, rolling Stones, rolling Stone song, and he was like, well you know that, Why can't you remember the other stuff? I don't think he was that gruff, but it did hit him. He was like, you know, my son, remember, he has no problem memorizing things, but there's something about these multiplication tables.

So I wonder if there's something too. Uh sing song and turning learning into not only just music, because that's

not a new thing. People have been doing that forever, but popular sounding music, right, and like pairing them with concepts to teach, right, to to make kids understand difficult concepts, right, And it's it's so weird now, especially if in the post school house rock world that that, yeah, of course people do that, Like that's a technique that you used to teach kids, but apparently no one else is doing this.

At the time that this was a pretty interesting idea and it really it germinated in just the right guy's mind, because this guy McCall was, like you said, he was a partner in this advertising firm and they basically specialized in in doing the same thing but get you getting you to buy something. He was, maybe we could do the same thing that we do to sell people stuff, but to basically sell education to kids, to teach kids

using the same techniques that we use in advertising. Yeah, Like they would see a jingle for a product that would get lodged in someone's head, and they would say, you know, why can't we do that same thing, Like it would get lodged in a kid's head and they would have learned something instead of bought something. Right, But you could also buy stuff. If you learn enough stuff, you can buy even more stuff. Uh. So he went

to UM. One of these Uh I think he was a creative director or co creative director named George Newell ran it by him. He said, great idea, get someone on it, and he threw a cigarette at him, got out of the office and commissioned a one of their writers. They had jingle writers on staff or at least working with them, and they said, go write something. Uh. It wasn't very good. Didn't you feel bad for this person? I did, But you know what, it could have died

there right, never would have a Schoolhouse Rock. But this person went down in history is the contributor to Schoolhouse Rock. Who who didn't it didn't make it? Yeah, or the person who almost killed Schoolhouse Rock. I guess so. But McCall was like, no, this idea is too good for this Yeah, which is really, you know, a great thing

and a lesson in persistence. So he went. Newell was a jazz piano player and he went to his buddy one Bob Doro, one of my heroes, who was was a and is a great bebop jazz pianist and composer, and said, you can write a jingle too. Why don't you try this out? And here's the one quote we might as well read it from ninety three year old Mr Doro. I don't know how I looked out. Apparently they tried other songwriters, but most of them wrote down to kids. When I met McAuley said here's my idea.

I give it a try, but don't write down to the kids. And when he said that, I gotta chill. I have a high opinion of children. And that was sort of the key right there. They weren't uh songs like written in a remedial way because it was children. It's a bitsy spider, give me a break. Oh that's a classic. So um, but you're right. But so this idea germinates in this right guy's head. He happens to end up indirectly getting in touch with this guy who has a high opinion of children, and he happens to

be a jazz composer. Things are starting to like happen. There's basically the hand of the Almighty at work here. That's right. Uh So Dora goes home. Um, he has a daughter, gets out of textbooks, and the first thing he comes up with to me one of the best man. It is far out. Three is a Magic number was the very first Schoolhouse song written because the first thing they wanted to tackle was math. Because of uh McCall's son. Yeah, this this composition that he came back with, three is

a magic number. Um, it's a I when I hear it, it's super cool. But I don't. I I'm really surprised that everybody was like, this is, yes, figure something out from this. Man. I loved it. It is, it's cool, but it just doesn't seem like the basis the keystone of Schoolhouse rock to me. I'm surprised. Well, it's one of my favorites. That's great because it dealt with multiplication. Uh. And not only that, but uh, like you said, got a little trippy with the symbolism faith, hope and charity,

heart and mind and body. Uh, it was about and I wanted to do a podcast on three, the number three, because it's very special. It is very special. It is. We did one on zero, Why not three? Man, I forgot about that. Remember, I think my brain melted a bit there. One it's tough. Zero is tough. It is tough, um and not at all magic, right, not really? Um? So regardless, if you would have been working there, you would have been like and everyone else enjoy I did,

You'd be like, I'm gonna go get a bagel. I'm not gonna even work on this process cheese account. Um. I did think of Madmen quite a bit when I was researching this. It was sort of that same time period or I guess towards No, Madman didn't make it into the seventies. Yeah, I thought he did, because it wasn't he supposed to be dB Cooper at the end, and that was yeah, early, I guess that was seventy one. I think it did crack into the seventies, not like

Boogie Nights did. That was all seventies. The No, that's right, it cracked into the eighties with that cheese that that song you recorded. Well, no, I was, well, yeah, that for sure. But I was thinking about when it when the the Party, the New Year's e Party Girl nineteen with Bill Macy. Yeah, man, what a great movie. That was wonderful. Yeah, movies almost like twenty years old. I believe it. We're old, Chuck, I know. But those those pop culture references are the ones that really hit home

for me. What the ones from the seventies. Well, when I think of like Boogie Nights, I was like, oh, yeah, that was just like a few years ago, right. And then someone says it's celebrating its twentieth anniversary and I'm like what, Or like when I see an athlete's son or daughter. Yeah, it's weird to see that it is playing the same sport. The rookies are now like the old coaches and managers in the sports now man bizarre. Uh. So everyone's impressed at McCaffrey and McCall um. Then they

did a pretty smart thing. They went to um. McCall was on the board of the Bank Street College of Education uh in New York there, and he took it to them. It was just a song at this point he said, what do you think is a learning tool? Uh? They used it, played it for the students and they were like, this is awesome. They're responding again, little job. He's just sitting there with his arms across the scowling. I've never seen him so mad before. Uh. The students

liked it. The agency liked it, so they knew they were onto something. They got their art director, Uh Tom yo y o h e, oh you're going with Yo. I'm going all out with yoh okay Tom YOHI and UM said, put put some animation to this, draw out some storyboards, because that was the beauty of Schoolhouse Rock to me was Uh, it was a combination of everything.

It wasn't just the song, like the songs are great, um, and we'll get more to the music here in a bit, but it was the combination of the visuals with the song and the fact that you were learning something in such a unique way. It was just like the perfect storm of awesomeness. Yeah. The songs on their own would have stood up on their own. Oh yeah. And initially like they they planned to just release an album of

cool songs like this. Yeah, but it was when Yo he started sitting there right like drawing some of this stuff out. That's I mean. School was Rock is not one or the other. It's the combination of those two things, and they play off each other. So well, I agreed. Uh, So they took UM. Now they have these storyboards. Uh.

They take this to a guy named Radford Stone. He was their account supervisor of the vp UM for ABC, and they said, there's this young upstart at ABC for their children's programming named Michael Eisner that if he's ever going to go anywhere, but right now he's running the kid's shop over there. Um, and let's bring in because this guy knows a lot about kids programming, Let's bring

in Chuck Jones to the meeting. Shout out to her from Jessica, granddaughter of Mr Jones, and uh sat down in a meeting, played the demo tape, showed him the storyboard they helped. Turned to Chuck Jones, so what do you think? And he said, buy it? By it that's how Chuck Jones do that. He didn't and Michael Eisner bought it and uh, before you knew it are own business. We're gonna take a break, I think we should. Josh is gonna go collect himself and we'll be right back

you all right, all right, we're back. So strange. Um, So, Schoolhouse Rock started on ABC Saturday morning. Is that what they call an interstitial? Yeah, we had some of this, Yeah, it was. It was. It's programming between the programming that's not commercial. When the creators of the program you're actually watching weren't good enough to make twenty two full minutes,

you round it out with interstitial program Yeah, exactly. Uh, this is January six and seven was the first weekend in ninety three, so I was but two years old. Well three, yeah you you were in the upper atmosphere just playing my liar, coalescing, waiting to be born, flapping my wings. Uh. And this was before like like you said,

this is the original thing was. It was just gonna be an album called Multiplication Rock um, until they realized that the visuals were important they could put it on television. And the first four songs that first weekend were some of the greatest, aside from threes, magic number four, legged Zoo, Elementary, my Dear, and my Hero zero great song uh zero again yeah, not magical, but it is a cool number.

Such a funny little hero came along. They counted on their fingers and so that when was that check three? And um, I think that first one had quite was so it was up to third. There were thirteen episodes that if it went from zero to twelve. Yeah, I think what they settled on was, um almost like seasons, uh themed season, so that the first season was going

to be math related. Yeah. So um. Apparently Bob Darrow had been off like coming up with songs, didn't realize that they wanted a song for each number, and he had started to combine several numbers in a different song, so he didn't get the memo. He didn't and he finally did and um he uh. He was trying to figure out how to like break the songs apart, and he came up with one called the four Legged Zoo.

Have you heard that one? Yeah? It's fine, so so not one of my favorites, but I mean they're all great. It's just some standout a little more than others. So what's your favorite of the multiple k rock Three is a magic number? Okay? Yeah? And and that was something else I noticed about this. There are um for each season. There were at least one standout song per per season that just about everybody knows. And I would guess three is the magic numbers. Probably that one, yeah, or maybe

my Hero zero. That was a big one. Yeah, that was a hit, so much so that um Bob Doro was up for Grammy in nine four for um, I I think the whole album, right, yeah, but the those jerks at Sesame Street one, if you're gonna lose, lose the Sesame Street. Yeah, And Dora is like writing and singing these initial first few songs. I think he's saying, yeah, all of them except two, and he hired two other jazz musicians, Grady Tate and Blossom Deery, Grady Tate saying

Naughty number nine and Blossom Deery saying figure eight. But all the rest of them, the other eleven, Bob Durrow sang and he wrote all of them. So yeah, they really struck gold with that guy. Yeah, I mean he was he was that initial genius behind this whole thing. Yeah, and this is another cool thing about Schoolhouse Rock that I noticed, Um, the people involved stayed on for basically

the whole run. In the initial run from seventy to eighty five, Yeah, it seemed like a project that everyone enjoyed working on, and that was highly collaborative, and it just seemed like a good experience. I don't think there's like the v H one special like the Dark Side

of the school House rockyears. You know. Uh, so they move on to I don't know which one is my favorite, Grammar Rock or History, Um, but they moved on to Grammar Rock next yea seventy three to seventy four, And we should say I don't think that these were, Um, Like, I don't think there are breaks in the season. I get the impression that from three till when they had enough episodes, they were just running on like every Saturday morning during cartoons. Yeah, I certainly don't remember like breaks,

like it just seems like every week they were there. Um. So seventy three and seventy four you have Grammar Rock, which um debuted. Some people will probably say the biggest of all time Conjunction Junction. Yeah, that's so, and everybody knows it's a great, great song, uh song, as he's sang many others, including my all time favorite, which I'll get to later. Okay, but I know what it is. I bet you don't. Um. He was MRF MERV Griffin's trumpet player, Jack Sheldon, who just had this voice that's

just like it's the conjunction Junction. Yeah, it's unbelievable, very unique guy. And he kind of looked like Will Ferrell to me, like he should play him if they did a movie about they should do a movie about the whole thing. If she asked me, Yeah, I think there's no controversy or conflict. It's just two hours of everybody getting along doing great stuff. He wants to see that, right, Um, so Jack Sheldon came along, uh sank in junction junction

and did you go back and listen to that? Like for this, listen to a lot of these, So that is a sophisticated song. If you listen to like that, we remember our poetry episode. If you listen to like the meter and the um, the rhyming pattern, the rhyme scheme, and the slant rhymes they use, like for something that's made for kids, it is not just rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, ryme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme. You know, like it's a sophisticated song. Um. And it's

pretty pretty cool. Yeah, I think that's I mean, I think that's why it worked. That was a secret is um it's I guess it's that not not talking down to kids. Yeah, And like the music was was good, Like if you listen to um, I mean those are a little sing songy, but like some of them were like pop music at the time, like the Verb song

some one of the funkiest songs I've ever heard. Verb That's What's happening, And especially that one, like I read I read this great blog post by this African American guy that was talking about how verb was like meant so much to him because at the time, you know, they didn't have a lot of like cartoons and stuff that but addressed the black community at all. And so

all of a sudden, you get this cartoon. It's got the super funky music and this kid that looked like him having this great adventure uh in the city, and uh it just kind of it's pretty pretty neat thing, I think. Yeah that was season two, was Grammar, right, Yes, So apparently in that same season, lady named Lynn Aaron's um was a She was a copy copy department secretary. Yeah, this is where it reminded me of Madman, and she's like basically took Peggy's journey from like secretary to superstar.

I've never seen mad Yeah it's good. I'm rewatching it right now. Really, yeah, it's that good. Yeah. So, um, Lynn was she was a secretary at the advertising agency. And apparently she was playing her guitar on lunch break. Another reason the seventies were great exactly, And um, who was it that Founder Newell, the creative director guy. Yeah, like in the movie, he's just walking down the hall and here's this beautiful music and stops. It's like, what

in the world's going on in there? Right? And it was Lynn Errands, And so they took her and put her on I guess part time on the project um and they, I guess eventually made her a full time songwriter, which is pretty cool. That was her gig. Fifteen of

the songs, including some of the biggest ones. Now and as a person plays her thing great song in Her Planet, Janet interjections to good one a Victim of Gravity about Isaac Newton in Her Planet Janet, sounds like Rocky Horror if you go back and listen to it, kind of does it bears a real resemblance to it? Or Rocky Horror sounded like inter Planet Janet. I went and looked. Rocket Horror was three years before In A Planet Janet the movie or the play the movie? Okay, so the

play was even before that? Was it a play first? Uh? Meat Loaf was even in the play, oh yeah, before the movie, right, and not a play I guess, musical which play with songs and dancing. Uh So. The next one to come along was America Rock or History Rock, which kind of vised for the best to me with Grammar Rock, and that one tied into the bi centennial.

Yeah that was a big deal, which you don't remember, but I remember being a little kid, being five years old, and uh, it took over the country for you know, that entire year. Yeah, I know there was like a

resurgence and colonial emblems and stuff like that. You know that if you ever walked past like a very very old person's house today, you might see like a flag holder that's a black metal eagle holding like some arrows maybe or that is from still there, like a resurgence and Betsy Ross and colonial like knick knacks and stuff. I wasn't I was just born, but it was there was a it created like a high water mark that I was able to see even you know, four or

five six years later. So, uh, History Rock or America Rock um featured some of the best songs Mother Necessity Shot heard around the world. Uh and No More Kings, which is maybe my second all time favorite. Yeah, and that's the one that um. There was an album that came out in called Schoolhouse Rocks Rocks, Schoolhouse Rock Rocks, where they got contemporary artists to cover these songs and did you ever listen to that. I listened to the

Pavement win to day. So I emailed Bob Nistanovich today from Pavement because, as I said in the previous episode, I tricked him into being my email friend. Um, and I said, hey, dude, I would love to hear if you have any thoughts on them, more kings, how you guys were approached, if there any stories, what it meant to you, what it didn't mean, whatever, let me know. No, no, no, He emailed back. Uh. And then I said, I'll call you on my way to work, called him the way

to work. Crickets. Yeah, I got his voicemail, and then as I was coming in the studio, he called him left the voicemail saying he was in his minivan rocking out and he didn't hear the phone ring, which is very funny to me. But um, I told him I'd like to hear what he has to say, because he said he has a tale to tell about that experience. Man, we're gonna have to record it after this. Well yeah, or if it could be like a listener mail, Yeah, like if I can get him on tape, then we'll

tag it at the end. If not, if it ends up being an email version or something. I'll just maybe recount it in my own dumb words, or you could ask him if we could read the email and make a listener mail. Oh for real, like a real listener mail.

All right, it's not about it so anyway, uh So, listen up for the end for Bob Nistanovitch story about No More Kings, because if you listen to that CD, it's like the lemon Heads and uh ween, it's the super ninety c D Mob Moby and they're all most of them are pretty straight ahead, and so you get to the Pavement song and it's just all pavement. Like Malcolm has changed his words. He there's like laser guns at the end, and it's just wonderfully pavement, like quintessentially pavement.

Like leave it to them to just kind of throw it all out the window and do their own thing. I liked a lot um three ring Government. I didn't really know that one that was good, and apparently they um So it basically talks about the different branches of the government but puts in the context of a three ring circuit us and it's um really, I mean, aside from the fact that it compares to the government to

a three ring circus. It's not at all offensive. Apparently they said on that one for years and didn't release it until nine nine because they were worried about offending the government, which is a strange thing to worry about through today's lens. Yeah, but even still, I mean, this is like post water Gate. It's not like everybody was like, oh right, you know, we we couldn't possibly call the government a three ring circus. Yeah, that's true. That is weird.

It seems like that would have been a good time to do it. Yeah. But the most famous song, um from that year by far was Sheldon's on just a Bill? Is that your favorite? No? Okay? Um? That was composed not by Mr Doro but by a man named Dave Frishburg. And Um, I mean that one was just a mega hit, straight to number one on the Billboard charts. It's it's like, as far as Schoolhouse Rocks goes, that's the that's the that's the cultural icon, that signifies the whole thing. I

think close close second would be conjunction junction. Maybe they're tired, I don't know, but I just feel like I'm I'm just a bill is the most readily recognizable. One. Yeah, and it's just amazing when you look back, though, like the learning that was going on and the teaching that was happening these kids us, we were learning how a bill becomes a law right in the in the best way possible, like better than any well, not any teacher. They were great teachers back then, let's say, like any

dump teacher that's boring their kids. But it definitely struck a chord with me, you know, And that's how I remember a lot of this stuff. And apparently two adults were also noticing Schoolhouse Rock at the time. Supposedly there were plenty of orders. This is before video, because before they were widely available, I guess in the home. I'm trying to think of how they would have played them

if they didn't have video cassettes. But anyway, apparently lobbyists and legislators would get in touch with ABC and be like, you gotta get me a copy of that I'm a Bill thing and give me a beta MAX because I want to show it to my staff to train them on this kind of stuff. Well, I think they asked for cassettes, at least the very least, so they could play in the music. I see, maybe that's what they meant. Probably okay, an eight track. Um. And then there was

Science Rock was the year after that. That was seventy and seventy nine, which is pretty good. InterPlaNet Janet, Victor's so weird? What InterPlaNet Janet? Yeah, it's a good one. And then the telegraph Line song, which um, I think that was written by this Arns too, I think, And that one was really like, I mean it was you literally learned about the erb A system and how the body communicates uh to the brain by listening to that song. And that's the one that they wanted to play for

med students and they did amazing some of them. All right, well let's take another break, and um jeez, we'll we'll cover the the sad last season of Schoolhouse Rock after this, so chuck. Schoolhouse Rock for the first four seasons was the epitome of creativity. Even their process was creative, Like the songwriters would I guess they would say, this season our theme is, you know, it's going to be science, are gonna be grammar or whatever, So go go forth

and figure this out. The songwriters would come up with songs and they'd pitch them to the creative team. And so there was this process of creativity and it started with the creatives. That's the key here, That's what made it just so legitimate and so wonderfully creative this whole time. It started with the creatives, right, yeah, and they would

pretty cool. They would get them vetted by that Bank Street School of Education, so they would get to make sure everything was like, you know, it was right yeah, and then ABC, oh, let me say it. And then they'd say, oh, I guess it's fine, and then they'd start the storyboard it once they had the lyrics set

in stone, right. That was the first four seasons. The fifth season they said, died, Creativity Die, and they reversed the process and they said, hey, songwriters, here are your assignments now where we we think kids should know more about computers. So we're gonna just screw this whole thing up. Okay, yeah, this is the part I don't get it, says the ABC program exact Squire Rushnell commissioned this because that was

the idea that children were afraid of computers. I can't I don't remember anything, but they're being like excitement about computers. I don't remember any kids being like I don't want to go near that. Yeah, I remember kids being like, oh that's cool, let me sit down, And usually it was the parents that were afraid of computers. Well, I think here unless the problem. Yeah, with season five, so we should say season five two. If you notice we jumped quite a bit from nineteen seventy nine and nine

eighty five. Schoolhouse Rock was running all those years on Saturday mornings. They just weren't any new ones. They were the same ones that they were rerunning. The Class five Squire Rushtional says, give me give me four episodes or six? Is it four or six? On computers? Yeah, and we're gonna call the season a Scooter Computer and Mr Chips what do you think of that? So it's what like, uh computer with a bag of chips. It's like, no, Mr Chips is a computer? Well, what's Scooter computer? It's

just a kid. And they said, well, what about the Goodbye Mr Chips? That great book? And no one's ever read that? What's a book? So, uh, it was a little confusing disdain for him. It's a little weird. I know, I feel bad if that's not really how it went down, but it sounds kind of like that classic story, you know, like an executive takes over the creative and it just goes downhill. It's usually how it happens, UM, And I do feel a little bit bad because you know, the

originals were still involved. They got Mr Doro back on board, and uh, I think they did the best they could. But I think one of the issues is UM, all the other seasons, you know, math and science and history, it's all civics. It's all baked in like that stuff. It's classic and didn't change when you're writing songs about uh, data processing and basic computer language a couple of years later, like, no, it's not relevant anymore, you know. So it's sort of

that's why no one's ever heard of it. Plus again they were like, so wait, Scooter computers the boy or the computer he's hanging out with, right, And why is the computer on roller skates? Yeah, just stuff like that, you know. It was it was an undignified into something really great. And so they pulled the plug on the whole thing. In They said, Hey, this Mary lou Retten lady. We like her. She's got gumption, she's got apple pie

coming out of her ears. Um, we love her, and we want to put her on TV, so they put her interstitials on ABC Fun Fit. I'll bet that was the same time when Reagan made Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is like fitnesses are that? Bet totally remember that the Presidential fitness Test, right? Yeah? Man? I failed that so many times. Yeah, I think I was always sick that day. It's like I gotta climb a rope. Still to this day, I've never climbed a

rope in my life. I made it this far. You know, I'm gonna be chased by a tiger on the way something. I was gonna say, that's how you're gonna meet your demise one day, just gonna be in like a burning building and a rope's just gonna fall from the ceiling like a cartoon. Good. Uh. In the late eighties, UM, there was a student at Yukon Go Huskies that said, I want to bring Schoolhouse Rock back. They started a petition.

I could not find this person's name for the life of me, but ABC said, you know what people want this um, and I guess it took him a little while to get around to it, but nine they brought it back, rerunning UM all those classic tunes and cartoons and added some new stuff by Bob Doro in the Gang. Yeah, they brought back the originals and this this season was called UM Money Rock and they did a substantial number of new episodes, but again written and performed by all

the original people. But a good starting or twenty years later um and they had things like UM seven fifty once a Week, which is about maintaining your budget, Tyrannosaurs Debt which is about the national debt, UM and plenty of others. Remember the Tale of Mr Morton. That was another Lindon Errand's offering. What was that one about? I can't remember exactly. I didn't go back and rewatch it, but I remember he's like, they'll sell his money on

Scratch Office or something. I don't think so. Um. But you know, again, the reason why this was that it works so well, It's because these were men and women who were used to selling products for a living and it was just sort of a natural, uh, a natural thing for them to do as an ad agency. It seems weird at first when you're like an ad agency came up with Schoolhouse Rock, it kind of makes perfect

sense when you think about it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, they they were selling this these ideas to children in ways that were comprehensible the children, that were approachable by children. Um, and they just kind of took the kids point of views and packaged it for them. I think it's a good way to put it. Yeah, So besides the Schoolhouse Rock Rocks c D, which I still have. Actually, yeah, that nineties thing created a bit of a resurgence of it.

The resurgence in popularity for sure. Boy that Blind Melon Three's matchic number. It was great. Yeah hear that one? Did you like them? I think Soup, their second album, is one of the great underrated records of the nineties. I don't recall that one man, It was think I only heard their first album, but they that was the too. They I think they made like the pop charts right out of the gate and just kind of were unfairly labeled as a pop group even though they really weren't.

They were because a lot more to them. No rain song and the catchy video with the whole girl and everything. Yeah, Soup was good, man, you just checked that out. Well, it's very good, very sad what happened to him? Hey O deed and they didn't find him for a while, right, I don't remember that part, but maybe I think I think no nobody missed him for a little while or something like that, but a waste um in though there

was another resurgent. I guess I was before the CD uh when they took it to the stage with Schoolhouse Rock Live, which kind of started out as most great theater like this in a in a sort of a basement black box theater in Chicago, and it just grew from there to eventually an off Broadway run. Yeah, not just that. It started in the basement theater of a vegetarian restaurant in Chicago. Just to add that extra little dose to it. Yeah, why not made it on to

Off Broadway. Yeah, it ran for four solid years and then they had a touring version. Um. I remember wanting to see it, but and I think I was living in New Jersey at the time. I should have gone and seen it. I think I had no money at the time. I think it still might you still might be able to catch it. There's a group called the Theater Bomb Theater Bam Chicago, Theater Bam Chicago, and they're still doing shows. They're still touring. As far as I know, I need to do my U Free to Be You

and Me live show. That's one of my dreams. I talked about that before. There isn't that Rosy Greer one? Yeah, but did he do the whole album or just that one song? Just the one? It was conceived by Marlo Thomas. That's pretty great. But um yeah, that was another like that one hits me square in the face, still from childhood, right in the bread best right in the breadbasket. Uh ninety seven they had a twenty fifth anniversary UH package

of VHS tapes. So think about this, like it goes up the air in n then all of a sudden ninety ninety seven, there's like schoolhouse Rock everywhere. It will never die, no, And I think like this was one of the first instances because dude, admittedly Generation and X is extremely nostalgic as far as generations, Yeah, very nostalgic. I would propose that Schoolhouse Rock was the thing that

kicked it off as far as gen X nostalgia goes. Well, it definitely was something that was so drilled into our consciousness. It gets a touchstone, right, But I mean, the surgeonce of it, I think is the is the first example of just how nostalgic as a generation generation exists for sure, that's that's mine. You got Sharknado. I'm predicting that that will be rooted out by historians and years to come.

Dig that one out of the vault. Uh. Maybe at the place of your death, like a plaque next to that rope that you couldn't climb will be a memorial, will be like rope Jeez, you already forgot. Uh. Kennedy Center had a sing along for the fourtieth anniversary, two thousand people in attendance. UM. Pretty amazing. I would have done anything to have gone to that. UM. And then it's been parodied and homaged over the years and everything from The Simpsons to Saturday Night Live. Did you see

Conspiracy Rock? Conspiracy Theory Dude? That was a TV fun house bit, right, yeah, by Robert Smigel. It's one of the all time great man. He nails nails the conspiracy theory, Nail's Schoolhouse Rock. But it's all about how these major corporations like GE and Westinghouse own the media they owned like ABC, NBC, all these um media outlets, and how they can use it to shape opinion and squash UM opinions. That disagree with them or their products, and um choose

what to report on. It is so good. Go watch it right now. It's on YouTube. Um. But apparently there's a bit of a conspiracy theory around it as well, because it aired on the actual Saturday Live episode. But then when they reran it and I think released that episode on DVD, it wasn't there. They they edited it out, and um, supposedly it was just because Lauren Michaels didn't think it was funny. There's just no way that that's

all it was. It was so I'm thinking, no, it was such a smack in the face too NBC and like all the other ones that, yeah, well, and they just had one a couple of years ago on that it wasn't homage. I'm just a bill that was pretty great too. Yeah, this was better. You gotta see it, man. Yeah, I have a feeling I have and I just don't know it. He nailed it. I'll let you know all text you and say I have seen it, and you'll say,

who's this. I don't have your number. So I actually ran across a little bit as great as Schoolhouse Rock is. Actually ran across criticism of it. What yeah, boy, are you gonna should just leave the room. Maybe I'm about to get angry. You might want to, all right. So they were teaching very broad concepts to kids in ways that kids could understand, and when you're when you're coming, when you're coming at them with multiplication or grammar whatever.

But apparently especially with the History Rocks or America Rock Season, depending on what you want to call it, that's where the criticism tends to come out. So there's one called elbow Room. Did you remember that one? Got that got to get you some elbow Room where it's about there's so many white settlers that we just got to spread westward. Okay, I'll see where this is going. Not a single Native American is shown in this westward westward spread. They actually

mentioned that it's God's will manifest destiny. So the whole thing kind of I don't want to say it came under fire because it's not like everybody's like, oh yeah, elbow Room forget Schoolhouse Rock. Very few people are. But there's criticism of Schoolhouse Rock and that it really kind of fed American children. This the the popular line on things, and it was just exactly the kind of stuff where when you grow up you're like, wow, I was really misled.

This was first explained to me as a child. Ye. So well, we talked about that a lot too, about how schools, especially in like the seventies and eighties, uh, whitewashed a lot of stuff. So this was part of that. I can see that. I mean it was and I'm not justifying it, but it was definitely of the times for sure, you know, which is why you know, I think that they that these creatives were like, we can't say this to kids, you know. I think that there's

definitely been more of an awakening in recent years. But I was right, yeah, and this is another name for what they were talking about, Like forced removal was turned into get you gotta gives some elbow roof. You know though, I want to know, um chuck, because I'm not in school and I don't have a child in school. I don't have a child at all. I have a four legged child. But are they still misleading kids like they

did when we were young? Do we just assume now that we know the deal that they don't do that any longer or are they still doing it? So any history teachers out there that are like fifth six seventh grade, because that's what I remember really being just overtly lied to. And then as we got a little past that, they started to be like, well, maybe the Native Americans didn't really want to leave, and then it just got a little more legitimate. So I want to know, teachers out

there let us know. I bet the answer will get is that we've come a long way, and it probably depends on your district. Oh yeah, and maybe even your teacher. Yeah, I can see that. Um. I bet there's not like a one sweeping answer for that one, but there's definitely been progress, you know, I would guess, yeah, who would let us know? As Tyler Murphy let us know. Well, I know what he's doing. He's doing all the right things. Oh yeah, he's up on the desk opening minds. Uh

so you're ready for my favorite? Uh rufus Xavier Sasaparilla. What was that one about? Oh yeah, I have a hard time expressing how much joy this song brings me. Still, Yeah, I listened to it a lot. If I'm ever down, that's the song that's pretty great. It's amazing, it's the word play is unbelievable, and it's another Sheldon song. Uh like how it's it's very fast. How he like every Uh. I looked up to see if people did it live and stuff, and everyone always slows it down because nobody

can fast. Well, it's just very complex, and the whole idea of the song is is the complexity of all these nouns that you can replace with pronouns. I got a friend named Rufus Xavier Sasaparilla, and you know, they go to the zoo and there's an art vark and and armadillo and all these big words. He's like, I could say that, or could say he did this and we did that, and she said this. Uh yeah, it's a word that takes the place of a noun like kangaroo.

Can we play it? You know what? We wouldn't because of law. They should make an actually want about copyright infringement. It was started out as a bill. Yeah, so we probably can't play enough of it to do with justice. So I just say, go and listen to that song in full, because it's delightful. All right, I'll do that. Man, they go to the zoo, there's animals. I'll pile on a bus. They Yeah, this girl in Rufus Xavier Sasparilla. They yeah, exactly, it's a place now. Uh you got

anything else? No, but there there probably will be a tag on this one with Mr Nastanovich or or with me just recounting his tail of No More Kings. So, uh, if you want to know more about Schoolhouse ROCKO read

this article on how Stuff works dot com. And since I said that, it may be time for listener and mail with Bob nistan Bits, all right, So uh now, as promised or as hope fully promised, we have via telephone in the studio Mr Bob Nastanovich, who um is actually a member of two of my favorite bands of all time, both Pavement and Silver Jews, And um, it's a real treat to have you here, Bob. We did a show on Schoolhouse Rock and talked kind of at

length about pavements efforts toward that. Uh. I guess late nineties, uh c D and got in touch with you and you said you had a couple of stories to tell. It was a we were in Memphis, we were supposed to be making a Silver Jews record, and um, the singer of Silver Juice, David Berman, decided he did not want to make the record. And he went home and we'd already booked a week of studio time Silver Juice had and UM. Then subsequently we were Stephen and my

health and Steve West were unceremoniously fired from Silver Juice. UM. That's beside the point. We were kind of like at all the studio time that David was supposed to pay for it, so to bail him out, Pavement sort of took that and made a record so Stephen, Stephen thankfully had three songs and we made a specific trimmy p But I guess most significantly in in regards to this project, Jackie Ferry and dear friend of ours, was supervising the

Schoolhouse Rock not Blation and Um. She gave us our choice of songs, and it was fairly obvious to us that no More King's you know um had a lot of appeal. It's always our favorite one kids Boston Tea party being UM kind of we were able to use the vocal style links of Steve West to our advantage, I believe, for the first time in band history, and it all turned up to be. We were very pleased

with it, were very pleased with all of it. But and I think that it's an outstanding compilation and it's one of those things in pavements time that I feel like we actually did a good job on. Now, what what did Steve West do for that one? He played drums and then um all the deep voice rambling in the background, mostly him. He's got an incredible voice, speaking voice. He's one of the people that you can hear from a hundred and fifty feet away and with a win,

we've got a beautiful deep voice. So um we he's doing all like the ranting and raving. Um, it was all pretty jubilant. We had a good times. Only time the three of us ever recorded together as Pavement, and but um, I feel like we made a good choice and we just loved that song. And it was one take over, yeah, one take on the instrumental and just

um some vocal dubbing. Probably took eight minutes wow. And it was just the three of you, oh yeah, yeah, just the three of us real, the only ones there because we thought it was gonna be Silver Jooes and that that was in Silver Jooes. So Camberg and I Bold we're at home and I don't even know if they were contacted. We made that specific trim ep that song Give It a Day during the same session, and a couple other songs are on the B side of

that thing. But um, now the school House Rock was the kind of thing pop mind like, well, we have anything to do, and seems like I got this one song. He's like, well, you have to do this thing for Jackie. We have to do someings jack We probably sort of planning on doing it anyways. But Jackie at the time was a BJ at MTV. Then she later became our um so she was she was the nanny for Courtney and Kurt, for Francis Bean Cobain, and then she was a tour manager for Pavement. In fact, she has she's

been battling cancer for over a decade. Um but um. One interesting artifact that she owns is the actual Cardigan Cardigan's um button up cardigan sweater that Kurt Cobain wore it in the famous MTV Unplugged performance. So yeah, she's quite a character, but it was it was her project, and you know, she was a good friend, and um, we want to do the best we could for her. I didn't really care about anything else. We didn't even realize We didn't know whether there was a good tiny

thing like a limit edation of like whatever. But yeah, funnily enough, my wife that was the first Payment song she ever heard because her sister, Yeah, her sister bought the school Loss rock thing when her sister was like fourteen, and but what my wife went would have been about ten, and she heard that is the first time she ever

heard Payment. That's pretty funny. It We were talking a little bit about, um, just your take and kind of just the different takes of all the artists on that compilation and a lot of more pretty straightforward, and um, I think I really like the Pavement one the most because it was it was kind of the perfect mix of very straightforward at times and then just totally pavement pavementized at times. Yeah. Very Um, we don't I mean we'd be straightforward. I don't think we're kind of good

enough to do things straightforward. Like like I think it's like you think of like a band like Nickel Creek covering our songs been on a stranger they can and they kind of American at it or whatever. But like in order to do like straight things, you've gotta be you gotta be good or else you're gonna come of humiliate yourself, like for example, like are am doing like

Pylon is crazy? They could do that pretty straight because they have that sound they just you know, but I think that like I've heard a lot of cover songs where it's like a great song and like a somebody with a great voice, you know, usually like a female will we'll sing it pretty straight. And just the fact that it's a somebody with a gorgeous voice, you know, preferring a classic, it sort of works. But now we're none of us are none of us are good enough to do that. We had we had to devise our

own take on it. You know. Well, I thought it totally worked. Was the Schoolhouse Rock? Um? I mean, was that something that you guys were into or was there much decision I mean, besides the fact that it was your friend asking was it something that you thought was kind of cool or did you feel like you should do it? Yeah, it was a great idea. At the time,

we thought it was a great idea. And at that point in our lives, Um, I'm guessing it was like somewhere in there we've forgotten you know, you like that point where you know that we hadn't seen or heard any of that. The only one that I can really remember off the top of my head at the time was the conjunction Junction. You know, yeah, of course, what's

your function? But like you know, those are the some of the first songs when we were little kids, like under ten years old that got stuck in our head. So yeah, I just thought it was I mean, if anything, the only negative I thought it might be a little bit childish and corny. Um. But you know, then as it came together, um, it just seemed like a very worthwhile project to me. And you know, she was pretty earnest Jackie, and and I'm happy it all worked out.

I kind of I think it's actually become like sort of a one of the more significant things that Payment ever did, sort of outside the realm of Pavement. Um, I'll still being Pavement, Like you know, I don't I don't even know. I'm the kind of person in regards to that band that would find out about things to last. So because I lived in Louisville and I was always at the race track, and and you know, people would say, hey, you know what, you're gonna be making a new album

like two months. I wouldn't know anything about it or like you know, you're going on tour, you're starting in London, I would like you know, I just wouldn't even know. And like so anything that rolled through the door there like request to do stuff, I never knew about him, you know, unless we're gonna knew him, you know, so you can see where I was on the pavement A payment totem pole. Well man, I always call you pavor

payment secret weapon. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that was something about your addition to the band that really just sort of mixed everything up, whether it was you know, the percussive elements are just you coming in uh with your your unique take on backing vocals. Yeah, no, I um, I think I presented the element really not entirely knowing

what I was doing, and that was true. And the funny thing about it is like even at this point in my life and people who are completely unaware of pavement, mostly from this industry, the horse racing industry, like heard I was was in a band or even a successful band, They can't even they just didn't make any sense to them. And then they'll also, um, you know, and they'll have to like look it up on Google or whatever to realize that, yeah, we were actually like a band that

made records and stuff. And then um, and then the funny thing is it's always asked me that, you know, if it's musico types or something. I'm like, one thing I'm really sort of unaware of in the human race. I have no feel for people that like kind of collect musical gear and take music really really seriously, like playing music really seriously and like jam and like or just really like have this incredibly dry approach to like like gear heads, like really really serious and like people

ask me to jam and I don't. I mean my idea of I don't. I don't jam. I mean I can't imagine jamming, Like what does that even mean? Like, um, really awkward, Like it's always awkward, Like people asked me to do something, and then I'll be like, oh, man, like uh, you know, like I gotta figure out a way to get out of this, you know, because like a my skills like they're not gonna really not gonna

believe them in a band. Went like once I show up with like whatever, I have two drums or whatever and start hitting and they're gonna be like, there's no way this guy was in a band like this is a fake you know, so very strange, very strange. Well you just gotta say no, man, I'm the secret weapon, and the secret weapon doesn't Yeah, like this like the spice and like some sort of bowl of burgoo or something. I don't even know. It was just like the whole

experience was pretty magical. Um, it still doesn't really make that much sense to me, you know, I just I really enjoyed it, for sure. But in regards to that that specific project, that's something that went like really smoothly, like it never got to the point. I mean it was literally like Stephen I'm sure probably worked on it that morning or something. But when when they press record on that lost Rock thing, that thing was a humbling or it was in and out the door, Doug Easy.

It's like that's good, you know, like, yeah, that's probably a good approach for something like that because you don't want to overthink it and then it becomes a thing and it's stressful. Perhaps, so I think that approach to just get in there and like knock it out was probably the way to go. It certainly worked out in this case. Yeah, And it's a song that has no

history within the context of the band. You know, it's not like something that we've been working on or something have been sitting there or something that have been played live or you know. I mean I think that we had to you know, pavement ize it and give it a bit of an original spin because that's the only way that we can really do it. I mean, like, you know, like we were talking about with a straight thing,

you know, you can't. You gotta have significance. Um. Yeah, not that, like you know, Steven and Steve West aren't talented. I'm not gonna like those guys are great, but like, in fact, the fact that they're able to like throw, improvise, um, something like that's pretty cool. So I remember being really really happy that Steve West, who had never really been used, um in payment outside of just playing drums, um, that he was but he sort of fit fantastically on that recording.

So I sort of loved that about no Marketings. I love hearing him in there. All right, Well, thanks Bob. I appreciate your telling us these stories, and um, I'm gonna think of about a hundred more reasons to have you on in the future. Yeah, anytime, all right, man, thanks a lot for more on this, and thousands of other topics because it how stuff works. Dot com