Tag Schoolhouse Rock

2 Funny: “Electricity”

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For no particular reason today’s 2 Funny focuses on electricity.

First up, another installment of The Funny Company. (We like this cartoon. Deal with it.) The club’s resident genius Jasper N. Park…

Philip_J__Fry

“I get it!”

…Edutains us on how power works, in a short titled appropriately, “Electricity”.

 

You know, it’s a good thing this is a cartoon, otherwise the landscape would’ve been peppered with Belly Laguna Paprika, aka a new paint color named Hint of Dork.

Comic_Book_Guy

“Worst. Cartoon. Villain. Ever.”

While we’re on the subject of electricity and edutainment, here’s a bonus track: the band Goodness performing “Electricity, Electricity” from the album Schoolhouse Rock Rocks!.

 

-Say, how about a dose of Debbie Gibson’s “Electric Youth” while we’re at it?

How About No

-Yeah, probably best to leave it there.

 

Talkin’ Nerdy: The Power of Three

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Can I ask you all a question?

“You just did.”

OK, here’s another one. Have you ever noticed how the magic number for kids’ cable channels and program blocks always seems to be three?

You have the Holy Trinity of kid-vid cable/satellite channels:

Nickelodeon

 Disney Channel

and Cartoon Network

Every so often, some company or studio tries to turn the Trinity into a Quartet by launching a new kids’ entertainment channel (not including the offshoots of 1 of the existing channels such as Boomerang or Nicktoons), but they never last long and it always reverts back to the original 3. 20th Century Fox tried it with Fox Family, which was launched in 1998, but came to an end in 2001 when the channel was purchased by Disney and was renamed ABC Family. Hasbro and Discovery tried this with The Hub, which was launched in 2010, but came to an end in 2014.

This even seems to be the case with kids’ programming blocks. In the beginning, there were the main broadcast networks, ABC, CBS and NBC (it’s 4 if one counts PBS, but that’s public broadcasting, so I’m not counting it), and each network had it’s own Saturday morning program block. Then the FOX network was launched in 1985 which begat it’s own SatAM block, Fox Kids in 1990, but then NBC dropped out of the Saturday morning race, cancelling it’s all of it’s cartoons in favor of teen oriented programming (TNBC) 2 years later.Then Kids’ WB! was launched in 1995, only for CBS to stop programming it’s own SatAM programming 2 years later.

It seems as though no network, company or studio seems to be able to permanently make the Big 3 into a Big 4 for very long. No matter what, the number always seems to revert to being 3. Could it simply be a case of it being part of some cosmic plan where the number must always be 3?

Or could it be true what was once said that 3 is indeed a magic number?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU4pyiB-kq0

..or it’s possible that I just don’t have enough to occupy my mind, but still, it’s something to think about.