Tuesday, Feb. 24, 1998

`Schoolhouse Rock' revived for TV, stage

By DEBORAH MARTIN
Staff Writer

   Something insidious happened in the United States on Saturday mornings from 1973 to 1985.
   The programmers who scheduled children's shows for ABC actually snuck some educational stuff in between the cartoons. The brain-enhancers, titled ``Schoolhouse Rock,'' served up three-minute lessons in grammar, multiplication tables, science and American history. The information they imparted - that interjections show excitement or emotion, for example - was folded into songs so catchy that they lingered in memories for years after they aired.
   Remember?
   ``Conjunction Junction, what's your function?''
   ``Zero, my hero, how wonderful you are...''
   ``I'm just a bill, yes, I'm only a bill...''
   Poke around in the minds of most 20- and 30-somethings, and those words are in there, forever lodged between the ``Brady Bunch'' theme song and a Josey and the Pussycats tune or two.
   For the past few weeks, the words have been haunting Pam Pailes Earley's dreams.
   Pailes Earley, 28, is directing ``Schoolhouse Rock Live,'' a musical revue that ties together most of the songs from the series. She's heard them so many times now, she confessed, ``I woke up the other day singing `Mother Necessity.' ''
   She was whiling away her Saturday mornings in front of the television the first time she heard those immortal words, ``Mother Necessity, where would we be, without the inventions of your progeny.'' She remembers humming the music for ``The Preamble'' to get through a history exam.
   Her cast, which ranges in age from 7 to 19, has similar tales. Only a few in the cast are old enough to have seen the cartoons the first time around; others have been watching them these past few months since ABC brought them back to the airwaves. The actors speak of ``Schoolhouse Rock'' with a zeal normally reserved for tent revivals.
   They've passed math exams, gotten bonus points because they knew the preamble to the Declaration of Independence and finally figured out that a noun is nothing more than a person, place or thing - all because of those snappy little ditties.
   That doesn't surprise Robin Pollock, who teaches English to seventh- and eighth-graders at Rockport Fulton Junior High School. She started using a videotape of the ``Grammar Rock'' cartoons in her classroom this year.
   ``It's an excellent way of introducing the concepts. People don't always learn by reading the information; sometimes it helps them to have a visual element,'' she said.
   It has worked even better than she anticipated.
   ``It hooks the kids in and they get excited. They're a little more open to learning,'' she said. ``As soon as they hear that first note, everybody is fixated on the video, and singing out loud, even the grumpiest ones. It seems to lighten them up.''
   When she heard that the Harbor Playhouse would stage ``Schoolhouse Rock Live'' for schools, she made a reservation for her students right away.
   ``Everybody knows the words. When I went in to ask my principal about the field trip, he started singing `Conjunction Junction,' '' she said, laughing.
   Naturally, ``Conjunction Junction'' is in the show. But some devotees might be troubled to find a few omissions. ``Electricity'' and ``The Shot Heard 'Round the World'' are two that aren't included. Some numbers are just too tough to sing, so arranger Scott Ferguson left them out. As it is, some that made the final cut had to be slowed down a bit so the performers could get all the words out.
   Even without ``Electricity,'' Pailes Earley is pretty sure the show will be a hit with both nostalgic Generation Xers and little ones who are just now being exposed to ``hooking up words and phrases and clauses.''
   ``It's one of those things that you had grown up with that kind of disappeared. This is an opportunity to bring it back for kids today. And there's something wonderful about the generational bridge,'' she said.
   `SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK LIVE'
   What: Live production of ``Schoolhouse Rock'' ditties
   When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through March 8
   Where: Harbor Playhouse, 1 Bayfront Park
   Tickets: $10; $6 for students on Sundays
   Reservations: 882-5500