Selects: How Schoolhouse Rock Rocked: Featuring Bob Nastanovich of Pavement  ## Metadata - Author: [[Stuff You Should Know]] - Full Title: Selects: How Schoolhouse Rock Rocked: Featuring Bob Nastanovich of Pavement - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/8c6c6b1e-6cee-42c0-9d7f-1968cdb19709 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Music Plus Visuals Made Learning Stick** - Schoolhouse Rock combined catchy pop music with simple animation to teach kids complex concepts. - The creators treated children respectfully and avoided talking down, which made learning stick. Transcript: Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Probably. Josh Clark I'm not joking. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I'm a fan of 60s, 70s, and 80s. It'd be tough for me to decide. Josh Clark The 60s were a little too hippie for me. Oh, yeah? Love the 70s, though. I mean, I love the 70s. And not even as a golden age, there was a lot wrong in the 70s. Nixon was president during the 70s, okay? Lots of stuff were wrong in the 70s. But something about that decade just hit all the boxes. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah. Josh Clark I just love it. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I do too. And it reminds me of my childhood, which is great because, you know, I had a good childhood. It was fun. We talked about that in the nostalgia episode on how nostalgia is the correct path in life. Yeah. Even though John Hodgman doesn't think so. Josh Clark Yeah. Nothing to that. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So early 70s, there was a gentleman named David McCall, and 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, remembering specifically multiplication tables. Yeah, no matter how much he yelled at him every night, he couldn't get multiplication. But they were in the car, and this kid was singing, as the story goes, Rolling Stones, a Rolling Stones 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. Josh Clark I don't think so. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant 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 to sing song. Right. And turning learning into not only just music, because that's not a new thing. People have been doing that forever. Right. But popular sounding music. Right. Josh Clark And like pairing them with concepts to teach. Right. Yeah. To make kids understand difficult concepts. Right. And it's so weird now, especially in the post schoolhouse rock world. Yeah. That, yeah, of course people do that. Like that's a technique that you use to teach kids. But apparently no one else is doing this at the time. Yeah. Let's make learning fun. This was a pretty interesting idea. And it really 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 doing the same thing but getting you to buy something. Yeah. He was saying, 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. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant 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. Josh Clark Right. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant But you could also buy stuff. Josh Clark If you learn enough stuff, you can buy even more stuff. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So he went to one of his, I think he was a creative director, a 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 one of their writers. They had jingle writers on staff, or at least working with them. And they said, go write something. 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. They never would have had Schoolhouse Rock. Josh Clark But this person went down in history as the contributor to Schoolhouse Rock who didn't make it. Yeah. Sad. Or the person who almost killed Schoolhouse Rock. I guess so. But McCall was like, no, this idea is too good for this. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, which is really 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 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 93-year Mr. Doro. I don't know how I lucked out. Apparently they tried other songwriters, but most of them wrote down to kids. When I met Macaulay, he said, here's my idea. Give it a try, but don't write down to the kids. And when he said that, I got to chill. I have a high opinion of children. And that was sort of the key right there. They weren't songs like written in a remedial way because it was children. Right. Josh Clark Itsy Bitsy Spider. Give me a break. Oh, that's a classic. 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. Yeah. Things are starting to, like, happen. It's basically the hand of the almighty at work here. That's right. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So Doro goes home. He has a daughter. Gets out her 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 McCall's son. Josh Clark This this composition that he came back with three is a magic number um it's uh i 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 really Figure something out from this oh 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. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Well, it's one of my favorites. That's great. Because it dealt with multiplication. And not only that, but like you said, got a little trippy with the symbolism. Faith, hope, and charity, heart, and mind, and body. Right. It was about—and I've wanted to do a podcast on three, the number three, because it's very special. It is very special. We did one on zero. Josh Clark Why not three? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Oh, man, I forgot about that. Josh Clark Remember? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I think my brain melted a bit there. Josh Clark That's a good one. It's tough. Zero's tough. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant It is tough. And not at all magic, right? Josh Clark Not really. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So regardless, if you would have been working there, you would have been like, meh, and everyone else enjoyed it. You'd be like, I'm going to go get a bagel. Josh Clark I'm going to go work on this processed cheese account. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I did think of Mad Men quite a bit when I was researching this. It was sort of that same time period. Yeah. Or I guess toward... No, Mad Men didn't make it into the 70s, I don't think. Josh Clark Yeah, I thought he did because wasn't he supposed to be D.B. Cooper at the end? And that was the 70s. Right, which is not true. Yeah. Or early. I guess it was 71. I ([Time 0:05:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0e513c05-eb30-416b-b120-7ec0a558e9e7)) - **Advertising Tools Built The Format** - The show's origin came from an adman wanting jingle-level memorability applied to education. - That advertising craft shaped Schoolhouse Rock's concise, earworm songwriting and curriculum focus. Transcript: Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant 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. Josh Clark Right. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant But you could also buy stuff. Josh Clark If you learn enough stuff, you can buy even more stuff. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So he went to one of his, I think he was a creative director, a 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 one of their writers. They had jingle writers on staff, or at least working with them. And they said, go write something. 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. They never would have had Schoolhouse Rock. Josh Clark But this person went down in history as the contributor to Schoolhouse Rock who didn't make it. Yeah. Sad. Or the person who almost killed Schoolhouse Rock. I guess so. But McCall was like, no, this idea is too good for this. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, which is really 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 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 93-year Mr. Doro. I don't know how I lucked out. Apparently they tried other songwriters, but most of them wrote down to kids. When I met Macaulay, he said, here's my idea. Give it a try, but don't write down to the kids. And when he said that, I got to chill. I have a high opinion of children. And that was sort of the key right there. They weren't songs like written in a remedial way because it was children. Right. Josh Clark Itsy Bitsy Spider. Give me a break. Oh, that's a classic. 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. Yeah. Things are starting to, like, happen. It's basically the hand of the almighty at work here. That's right. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So Doro goes home. He has a daughter. Gets out her 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 McCall's son. Josh Clark This this composition that he came back with three is a magic number um it's uh i 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 really Figure something out from this oh 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. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Well, it's one of my favorites. That's great. Because it dealt with multiplication. And not only that, but like you said, got a little trippy with the symbolism. Faith, hope, and charity, heart, and mind, and body. Right. It was about—and I've wanted to do a podcast on three, the number three, because it's very special. It is very special. We did one on zero. Josh Clark Why not three? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Oh, man, I forgot about that. Josh Clark Remember? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I think my brain melted a bit there. Josh Clark That's a good one. It's tough. Zero's tough. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant It is tough. And not at all magic, right? Josh Clark Not really. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So regardless, if you would have been working there, you would have been like, meh, and everyone else enjoyed it. You'd be like, I'm going to go get a bagel. Josh Clark I'm going to go work on this processed cheese account. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I did think of Mad Men quite a bit when I was researching this. It was sort of that same time period. Yeah. Or I guess toward... No, Mad Men didn't make it into the 70s, I don't think. Josh Clark Yeah, I thought he did because wasn't he supposed to be D.B. Cooper at the end? And that was the 70s. Right, which is not true. Yeah. Or early. I guess it was 71. I think it did crack into the 70s. Not like Boogie Nights did. That was all 70s. Into the 80s? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant No, that's right. It cracked into the 80s. Yeah. With that, geez, that... Josh Clark That song you recorded? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Well, no, I was... Well, yeah, that for sure. But I was thinking about when the party, the New Year's Eve party... Oh, with Roller Girl?...celebrating 1980 with Bill Macy. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Josh Clark What a great movie that was. That was wonderful. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, the movie's almost like 20 years old. Josh Clark I believe it. We're old, Chuck. I know. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant But those pop culture references are the ones that really hit home for me. Josh Clark What, the ones from the 70s? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant 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 20th anniversary. I see what you mean. I'm like, what? Or like when I see an athlete's son or daughter. Yeah, it's weird to see the— Is playing the same sport. Josh Clark The rookies are now like the old coaches and managers in the sports now. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Man, it's bizarre. So everyone's impressed at McCaffrey and McCall. Then they did a pretty smart thing. They went to—McCall was on the board of the Bank Street College of Education 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? They used it, played it for the students, and they were like, this is awesome. They're responding. Josh Clark Again, I'm not putting that one. He's just sitting there with his arms crossed. He's scowling. I've never seen him so mad before. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So the students liked it. The agency liked it. So they knew they were on to something. They got their art director, Tom Yohe. Y-O Oh, you're going with Yo? I'm going all out with Yohe. Okay. Tom Yohe. And said, put some animation to this. Draw out some storyboards. Because that was the beauty of Schoolhouse Rock to me was it was a combination of everything. It wasn't just the song. The songs are great. 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. Josh Clark Yeah, the songs on their own would have stood up on their own. Oh, yeah. And initially, they planned to just release an album of cool songs like this, Yeah. But it was when Yohe started sitting there, like drawing some of this stuff out. I mean, Schoolhouse Rock is not one or the other. It's the combination of those two things. They play off each other so well. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Agreed. So they took, now they have these storyboards. ([Time 0:08:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/444ffbb5-a390-4ad8-8d99-50cd0bb29d65)) - **Standout Songs Became Cultural Anchors** - Each themed season produced at least one standout song that entered broader culture. - Songs like "Conjunction Junction" and "I'm Just a Bill" became the series' primary cultural icons. Transcript: Josh Clark The people involved stayed on for basically the whole run, the initial run, from 73 to 85. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant 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 VH1 special, like the dark side of the Schoolhouse Rock years. So they move on to, I don't know which one is my favorite, Grammar Rock or History. But they moved on to Grammar Rock next. Yeah, that was season two. Yeah, 73 to 74. Josh Clark And we should say, I don't think that these were, like, I don't think there were breaks in the season. I get the impression that from 1973 till 1985, when they had enough episodes, They were just running them like every Saturday morning during cartoons. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, I certainly don't remember like breaks. Yeah. Like it just seems like every week they were there. Right. So 73 and 74 you have Grammar Rock which debuted some people will probably say the biggest of all time, Conjunction Junction. Josh Clark Yeah, that's the one everybody knows. It's a great, great song. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Song, as he sang many others, including my all-time favorite, which I'll get to later. Josh Clark Okay. But I know what it is. I bet you don't. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant He was Merv Griffin's trumpet player, Jack Sheldon, who just had this voice that's just like... Josh Clark It's the conjunction junction voice. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, it's unbelievable. Yeah. Very unique guy. And he kind of looked like Will Ferrell to me. Like, you should play him if they did a movie about... They should do a movie about the whole thing, if you ask me. About Schoolhouse Rock. Josh Clark Yeah, I think that'd be interesting. Well, there's no controversy or conflict. It's just two hours of everybody getting along, doing great stuff. Who wants to see that. Right. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So Jack Sheldon came along, sang Conjunction Junction. Josh Clark And did you go back and listen to that for this? Oh, yeah. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I listened to a lot of these. Josh Clark So that is a sophisticated song. Yeah. If you listen to like the – remember our poetry episode? Yeah. If you listen to like the meter and the, um, the rhyming pattern, the rhyme scheme and the slant rhymes they use. Yeah. Like for something that's made for kids, it is not just rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, you know, like it's a sophisticated song. Um, and it's pretty, pretty cool. Yeah. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I think that's, I mean, I think it worked. That was the secret. Josh Clark I guess it's not talking down to kids. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, and the music was good. Right. Like if you listen to, I mean, those are a little sing-songy, but some of them were like pop music at the time, like the Verb song. That's one of the funkiest songs I've ever heard. ([Time 0:22:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8c3bedcb-cd76-44c9-b3b0-887f511b2375)) - **90s Tribute Gave Bands Creative License** - The 1990s tribute album Schoolhouse Rock Rocks featured contemporary artists covering classics, including Pavement. - Pavement intentionally "pavementized" their cover, adding idiosyncratic elements and deep‑voice rants by Steve West. Transcript: Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Rocks? I think so. Schoolhouse Rock Rocks. Yeah. Where they got contemporary artists to cover these songs. And did you ever listen to that? Josh Clark I listened to the Pavement one today. Oh, man. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So I emailed Bob Nastanovich today from Pavement. Because as I said in the previous episode, I tricked him into being my email friend. And I said, hey, dude, I would love to hear if you have any thoughts on No More Kings, how you guys were approached, if there are any stories, what it meant to you, what it didn't mean, whatever. Let me know. Crickets. No, no, no. He emailed back. And then I said, I'll call you on my way to work. Called on the way to work. Crickets. Yeah, got his voicemail. And then as I was coming in the studio, he called and left the voicemail saying he was in his minivan rocking out, and he didn't hear the phone ring. Josh Clark Oh, that's funny. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Which is very funny to me. But 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. Josh Clark Man, we're going to have to record it after this. Well, yeah, or if— Maybe it can be like a listener mail. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, like if I can get him on tape, then we'll tag it at the end. Okay. If not, if it ends up being an email version or something, I'll just maybe recount it in my own dumb words. Josh Clark Or you could ask him if we could read the email and make a listener mail. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Oh, for real? Yeah. Josh Clark Like a real listener mail? All right. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant It's not a bad idea. So anyway, so listen up for the end for Bob Nastanovich's story about No More Kings. Because if you listen to that CD, it's like the Lemonheads and Ween. It's a super 90s CD. Yeah. Moby. Moby. And they're all, most of them are pretty straight ahead until you get to the pavement song. And it's just all pavement. Like Malcolm has changed his words. There's like laser guns at the end. And it's just wonderfully pavement. Yeah. Like quintessentially pavement. Yeah. Like leave it to them to just kind of throw it all out the window and do their own thing. Yeah. I liked it a lot. ([Time 0:29:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/06c346fe-e78b-4264-b685-6e510ac25715)) - **Creative Control Drove Quality; Execs Hurt It** - When executives imposed topical computer episodes, the show's creative-first formula broke down. - Timely tech subjects dated fast and the forced process produced weaker episodes in 1985. Transcript: Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, and they would, pretty cool, they would get them vetted by that Bank Street School of Education. Yeah. So they would make sure everything was like, you know, was right. Josh Clark Yeah. And then ABC would be like, oh, let me say it. And then they'd say, oh, I guess it's fine. And then they'd start to storyboard it once they had the lyrics set in stone, right? That was the first four seasons. The fifth season, they said, die, creativity, die. And they reversed the process. And they said, hey, here are your assignments now we we think kids should know more about computers so we're going to just screw this whole thing up okay yeah this is a part i don't get it Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Says the abc program exec uh squire rushnell commissioned this because there was the idea that children were afraid of computers i guess i don't remember anything but there being 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 herein lies the problem with season five. Josh Clark So we should say season five, too, if you notice, we jumped quite a bit from 1979 to 1985. 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. Yeah, the classics. 1985, Squire Rushnell says, give me four episodes or six. Is it four or six on computers? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, and we're going to call the season Computer, and Mr. Josh Clark Chips. What do you think of that? So it's what, like a computer with a bag of chips? It's like, no, Mr. Chips is a computer. Well, what's Scooter, Computer? He's just a kid. And there you have it. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant And they said, well, what about the Goodbye, Mr. Chips, that great book? And he went, no one's ever read that. What's a book? So it was a little confusing. We have 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? Sure. Like an executive takes over the creative, and it just goes downhill. Josh Clark That's usually how it happens. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant And I do feel a little bit bad because, you know, the originals were still involved. They got Mr. Doro back on board. Yeah. And I think they did the best they could, but I think one of the issues is all the other seasons, you know, math and science and history, it's all civics. It's all baked in. Like, that stuff is classic and didn't change. When you're writing songs about data processing and basic computer language, a couple years later, it's not relevant anymore. Right. You know? Yeah. So it's sort of, that's why no one's ever heard of it. ([Time 0:38:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a40a6ca2-b2f7-4e46-9609-39f4e4090564)) - **Live Stage Revived The Brand** - Schoolhouse Rock Live began in a Chicago basement and grew to off‑Broadway and long touring runs. - The stage show and 1990s resurgence kept the series culturally relevant into later decades. Transcript: Josh Clark Yeah, that 90s thing created a bit of a resurgence of it. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah. A resurgence in popularity for sure. Boy, that Blind Melon, Three is a Magic Number was great. Yeah. Yeah, Shannon. I didn't hear that one. Josh Clark Did you like them? Yeah. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I think Soup, their second album, is one of the great underrated records of the 90s. Josh Clark I don't recall that one. Man, it was good. I think I only heard their first album. That was good, too. I think they made 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. There was a lot more to them. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant No Rain song and the catchy video with the little girl and everything. Yeah, Soup was good, man. You should check that out. I will. It's very good. Very sad. What happened to him? Josh Clark Yeah. He OD'd and they didn't find him for a while, right? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I don't remember that part, but maybe. Josh Clark I think, I think they, no, nobody missed him for a little while or something like that. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant What a waste. Yeah. Um, in 1993 though, there was another resurgence. I guess that 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 sort of a basement black box theater In Chicago. And it just grew from there to eventually an off-Broadway run. Josh Clark 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? But yeah, it made it onto Off-Broadway. Yeah, it ran for four solid years, and then they had a touring version. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant 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 I had no money at the time. Josh Clark I think you still might be able to catch it. There's a group called the Theater Bam Chicago. Theater Bam Chicago. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant And they're still doing shows? They're still touring. Josh Clark As far as I know. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I need to do my Free to Be You and Me live show. That's one of my dreams. I've talked about that before. Josh Clark Isn't that Rosie Greer one? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah. 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, yeah, that was another, like, that one hits me square in the face still. Yeah. From childhood. Josh Clark Right in the bread basket. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Right in the bread basket. In 97, they had a 25th anniversary package of VHS tapes. Josh Clark Yeah, so think about this. Like, it goes off the air in 1985, then all of a sudden, 93, 94, 96, 97, there's, like, schoolhouse rock everywhere. It will never die. ([Time 0:43:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1563cf07-79e0-4f60-8430-714cb9a72760)) - **Historical Episodes Reflected Their Time** - Some History Rock episodes reflected the era's whitewashed narratives and avoided complex truths. - Modern listeners critique episodes like "Elbow Room" for omitting Native American perspectives. Transcript: Josh Clark Ran across a little bit, as great as Schoolhouse Rock is, I actually ran across criticism of it. What? Yeah. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Oh, boy. Are you going to – should I just leave the room? Maybe. Josh Clark 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. Awesome ways. And when you're coming at them with multiplication or grammar, whatever. Sure. 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? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Got to get you some Elbow Room. Josh Clark Right. Where it's about there's so many white settlers that we just got to spread westward. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Oh, okay. I see where this is going. Josh Clark Not a single Native American is shown in this westward spread. Yeah. They actually mentioned that it's God's will manifest destiny. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, yeah, yeah. Josh Clark 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. Yeah. Very few people are. But there is criticism of schoolhouse rock in that it really kind of fed american children this the the popular line on things yeah and it was just exactly the kind of stuff where when You grow up you're like wow i was really misled right this was first explained to me as a child yeah yeah so well we talk about that a lot too about how schools, especially in like the seventies Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant And eighties, uh, whitewashed a lot of stuff. And 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. Josh Clark You know, which is why, you know, I think that they, that these creatives were like, we can't say this to kids. Right. You know, I think that there's definitely been more of an awakening in recent years. There wasn't a trailer to your song, in other words. Right, yeah. And this is another name for what they were talking about. Like forced removal was turned into, got to get some elbow room. Right. You know? Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant So catchy, though. Josh Clark I want to know, Chuck, because I'm not in school and I don't have a child in school. I don't have a child at all. Well, 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, sixth, seventh, eighth grade, because that's when 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. Right. And then it just got a little more legitimate. So I want to know. Teachers out there, let us know. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I bet the answer we'll get is that we've come a long way, and it probably depends on your district. Josh Clark Oh, yeah. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant And maybe even your teacher. Josh Clark Yeah, I can see that. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant I bet there's not like one sweeping answer for that one. But there's definitely been progress, you know. Josh Clark I would guess. You know who would let us know is Tyler Murphy. Yeah, Murphy. He would know. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Let us know. Well, I know what he's doing. He's doing all the right things. Josh Clark Oh, yeah. He's up on the desk. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Yeah, yeah. Josh Clark Opening minds. Great stuff. ([Time 0:49:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e3f538d3-7297-468e-8df6-816baf984cc8)) - **Pavement's One‑Take Schoolhouse Session** - Bob Nastanovich recounted Pavement recording "No More Kings" quickly in Memphis using leftover Silver Jews studio time. - The Pavement take was mostly the three band members and was recorded in one instrument take with some vocal overdubs. Transcript: Bob Nastanovich We were in Memphis. We were supposed to be making a Silver Juice record. And 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 then subsequently, Stephen and myself and Steve West were unceremoniously fired from Silver Juice. That's beside the point. We were kind of like, I had all the studio time that David was supposed to pay for. So to bail him out, Pavement sort of took that and made a record. So Stephen thankfully had three songs, and we made a specific trim EP, but I guess most significantly in regards to this project, Jackie Ferry, a dear friend of ours, was supervising The Schoolhouse Rock population. And she gave us our choice of songs, and it was fairly obvious to us that No More Kings had a lot of appeal. It was always our favorite one. We were kids, Boston Tea Party theme. We were able to use the vocal stylings of Steve West to our advantage, I believe, for the first time in band history. What did he do for that song? And it all turned out to be, we were very pleased with it. In fact, we were very pleased with all of it. And I think that it's an outstanding compilation. It's one of those things in pavement's time that I feel like we actually did a good job on. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Now, what did Steve West do for that one? Bob Nastanovich He played drums and then 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 150 feet away. Right. With a wind. He's got a beautiful deep voice. He's doing all the ranting and raving. It was all pretty jubilant. We had a good time. It was the only time the three of us ever recorded together as payment. But I feel like we made a good choice, and we just loved that song. It was one take. Oh, really? It was an overdub. Yeah, one take on the instrumental and just some vocal dubbing. Probably took eight minutes. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Wow, and it was just the three of you? Oh, yeah. Bob Nastanovich Yeah, just the three of us. We were the only ones there because we thought it was going to be Silver Shoes, and that wasn't Silver Shoes. ([Time 0:55:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9b90498d-95b9-49dc-8e61-ee31f30c7c9f)) - **Friendship Linked Bands To The Project** - Jackie Ferry, a friend and project supervisor, invited Pavement to contribute to the tribute and oversaw the compilation. - Ferry later worked with Nirvana members and battled cancer for years, keeping the sweater from MTV Unplugged. Transcript: Bob Nastanovich And she gave us our choice of songs, and it was fairly obvious to us that No More Kings had a lot of appeal. It was always our favorite one. We were kids, Boston Tea Party theme. We were able to use the vocal stylings of Steve West to our advantage, I believe, for the first time in band history. What did he do for that song? And it all turned out to be, we were very pleased with it. In fact, we were very pleased with all of it. And I think that it's an outstanding compilation. It's one of those things in pavement's time that I feel like we actually did a good job on. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Now, what did Steve West do for that one? Bob Nastanovich He played drums and then 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 150 feet away. Right. With a wind. He's got a beautiful deep voice. He's doing all the ranting and raving. It was all pretty jubilant. We had a good time. It was the only time the three of us ever recorded together as payment. But I feel like we made a good choice, and we just loved that song. It was one take. Oh, really? It was an overdub. Yeah, one take on the instrumental and just some vocal dubbing. Probably took eight minutes. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Wow, and it was just the three of you? Oh, yeah. Bob Nastanovich Yeah, just the three of us. We were the only ones there because we thought it was going to be Silver Shoes, and that wasn't Silver Shoes. So Canberra and Eibold were at home and um i don't even know if they were contacted we made that pacific 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 no schoolhouse rock was uh this kind of thing in my mind like well we have anything to do? And it seems like I got this one song. It's like, well, we have to do this thing for Jackie. We have to do this thing for Jackie. We're probably sort of planning on doing it anyways. But Jackie at the time was a BJ on MTV. And she later became our, she was the nanny for Courtney and Kurt for Francis Bean Cobain. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Oh, wow. Bob Nastanovich And then she was the tour manager for Haven. In fact, she's been battling cancer for over a decade. The only artifact that she owns is the actual cardigan, button-up cardigan sweater that Kurt Cobain wore in the famous MTV Unplugged performance. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Oh, wow. Holy cow. Bob Nastanovich Character um but it was it was her project and um you know she was a good friend and and um we wanted to do the best we could for her and didn't really care about anything else we didn't realize We didn't know whether it was a good tiny thing like a limited edition of like 200 or whatever but yeah funnily enough my wife that was the first Payment song she ever heard because her Sister. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant Oh, really? Bob Nastanovich Yeah. Her sister bought the Schoolhouse Rock thing when her sister was like 14, and when my wife went would have been about 10, and she heard that. It was the first time she ever heard Payment. Charles \\Chuck\\ Bryant That's pretty funny. ([Time 0:56:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/53df4c67-1b72-45a9-968f-c3aff79a0e65))