Schoolhouse Rock - Pirates and Emperors

This parody of Schoolhouse Rock is perhaps a more accurate depiction of the US government than the original America Rock series:

I wish I had been taught that as a kid instead of this malarkey:

But the music was wonderfully written, wasn't it? Very catchy indeed.

I thought that a couple of those cartoons actually helped me, specifically to memorize the multiplication table, very catchy indeed.

I lived in Detroit back then and remember another cartoon from the Canadian Film Board called, "John Law and the Mississippi Bubble" from 1978. It was so much the style of School House Rock, I never realized it was actually from Canada until I looked it up later in life. It's about 10 minutes long, but it had some real content that totally hits home in today's economy.

In this animated short, Richard Condie offers up a history lesson about one of the most sensational get-rich-quick schemes that took place in France over 200 years ago. With economist John Law at the helm, the plan was to open a bank and exchange bank notes for gold at wildly inflated share prices to mask the fact that the country's gold had been depleted in the building of Louis XIV's palace. When the inevitable rush to cash in the notes takes place, poor John Law is left broke and broken-hearted.

www.nfb.ca...