Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Schoolhouse Rock vs. Public Schoolhouse Rock

Today's post is a bit out of character for me (George Simmons of The B.A.D. Blog is better known for his weekly YouTube postings), but perhaps when you have a look, you may see my logic here.

Last night, I was watching the news and there was another story about yet another local school district trying to introduce "healthier" snack options by replacing sodas with (and the logic escapes me here) juice, which often contains as many calories and as much sugar as the so-called unhealthy beverages they are supposed to be replacing.

Bottled water IS healthier, but replacing sodas with juices that are often loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and other crap make the newly chosen beverages no better than the sodas which have been banned by many school districts across the country. I'm sorry, but if you're going to making these moves in the name of health, make sure we aren't just villanizing soda, then replacing it with another form of junk food with a nicer label. In addition, the food included in many public school lunches is equally bad (if not worse), yet entirely sanctioned by the USDA and the FDA. Shame on us! A better bet is to pack our kid's lunches ourselves!

Like many kids who grew up in the 1970's, I tend to view Schoolhouse Rock! cartoons with a sense of nostalgia. As Wikipedia notes, these educational cartoon shorts have become cultural icons, so much that they have been parodied on other television shows, including the likes of Saturday Night Live, MadTV and The Simpsons. It is for that reason I thought it might be appropriate to include clips from the original, followed by MadTV's parody, "Public School House Rock" to make my point. Watch them and see if you agree.

First, the original:
Followed by the MadTV version:

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Thanks for my laugh for the day!!!!!

Scott S said...

No problem! But you might like "Dysfunction Junction" a bit more, it targets big pharma's doping up our kids with drugs like Ritalin!