Perfect convergence

Sometimes two elements come together to create something new – a glorious synthesis – Gilbert and Sullivan, Tracy and Hepburn, Lennon and McCartney, “Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wizard of Oz”.

OK, maybe not that last one. But you get the idea.

And every once in a while you get a third element – like George Martin becoming the Beatles’ producer – that makes this synthesis even more powerful.

Yesterday I watched the synthesis of Animaniacs and YouTube. At a family gathering, I looked on in awe as nieces and nephews discovered Yakko’s World on YouTube. Originally broadcast in 1993 in the second episode of the animated series, this song written by Roger Rogel was the first of what would become an entire menagerie of educational Animaniacal songs.

The idea of the song is so simple. Yakko is a rather manic cartoon character who sings a song with lyrics that consist of the names of all of the countries in the world – or at least, all of the countries that existed around 1992 (modulo a few mistakes, such as leaving out Wales and Northern Ireland) – to the tune of “The Mexican Hat Dance”.

It’s one thing for kids to see this on a TV broadcast. It’s something very different for them to be able to watch it over and over and over on YouTube. To witness the power of this combination is quite something. I watched as first the kids gathered around the computer and watched the song – perhaps ten times or so back to back. Then they all started singing along to it. Then they all printed out copies, one for each child, and they spontaneously made up a game to see who could sing the entire thing through – first while looking at the print-out, and then trying to get through more and more of the song without looking. They were all still completely absorbed in the project even as their parents were trying to herd them out the door at the end of the evening.

Personally, I find the video utterly mesmerizing. It’s not just the cleverness of it, but also Yakko’s almost insanely high-energy cheerfulness, all perfectly calibrated to appeal to restless young minds.

In this sense it’s both progeny and evolution of Danny Kaye’s performance of Gershwin and Weill’s Tschaikowsky (And Other Russians), as well as Tom Lehrer’s The Elements.

Kids are also fascinated by those older list-songs, but not nearly as much as they are by watching Yakko jump around like an animated maniac, rattling off countries. I think there is something about the inclusion of a manic cartoon character to act it all out that makes everything come together. It seems that the Trinity of:

YouTube

Manic cartoon character

Song containing exhaustive list

creates a perfect convergence – an utterly irresistible educational formula that has kids climbing all over each other in their eagerness to learn.

Hmm … there could be a real educational opportunity here.

Maybe we should be taking notes.

8 thoughts on “Perfect convergence”

  1. I’ve often wondered what a current Schoolhouse Rock would look like. I never considered that youtube would play a role…
    I also think you’re right in that the element of “manic” and perhaps the of trivia seem to be key. Kids eat too much perceptual sugar nowadays 😉

  2. Yeah, it seems to be the combination of music and motion that gets (young) kids’ learning going. Isn’t that also how they often learn colors, numbers and the ABC?

    Singing and dancing, over and over again. They’re like Engergizer Bunnies 🙂

  3. Dude, that was awesome: always love a shout-out to 1990s-era TV animation. It’s nice to feel like you’re six again when you’re coming down with a wheezing cough and the authorities have got you to wear a surgical mask all day ;(

    Side note: they fit both Israel and Palestine in there…a possible nod to Oslo, which was happening at the same time? (Treaty signed: Aug 20, 1993. Rabin, Arafat, Clinton on the White House lawn: Sept 13, 1993. This episode aired: Sept 14, 1993.) Question is, was it technically feasible to change this ep in light of these developments? Do they keep a bunch of emergency in-betweeners around for this stuff? I really don’t know much about how this stuff was made back in the early 1990s (this was before outsourcing to Asia, right?) If the timeframe was too small, then this was even more daring, especially considering that this was broadcast by none other than FOX Kids 😉

    It’s nice to glean history out of these things- who says ‘adults’ (not including myself in that category…no) can’t learn a thing or two from these silly little songs?

    Oh, and yes – wackiness should absolutely be encouraged in new media/interactive educational games/programs/shows/whatever. But how does one not get tripped up in the education aspect? Were the Animaniacs people (read: Spielberg, and someone called ‘Randy Rogel’ who apparently wrote the song) just goofing around? Or was there some directive to fit this educational stuff in from the outset? Or can it not really be called educational back then because Youtube didn’t exist, and one really did need to find a CD or VHS to play it back, or tape it, thereby making this speculation irrelevant?

  4. Oh, y’all might enjoy this, too:

    http://www.rtl.nl/components/shows/ikweddatikhetkan/miMedia/2008/week21/za_anamaniacs.avi_plain.xml

    I don’t know what’s weirder: realizing that one can win a thousand euros for a really cool but useless talent on a Dutch tv show, or that fellow six year olds outside of America know and grew up with the same cartoons I did. (…or maybe they didn’t – she could have seen it on youtube! there’s no way to know.)

  5. Oh my god, thank you for that link. That is just so AWESOME!!!

    When she got to the end part – where it all speeds up like crazy – I was just grinning from ear to ear!

  7. Thanks Lisa. The subject matter is indeed compelling!

    Also, I think Anita Renfroe definitely qualifies as a compelling and high energy animated character. 🙂

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