Schoolhouse Rock! creator Bob Dorough dies at 94
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Jazz musician turned Schoolhouse Rock! composer Bob Dorough died Monday at 94, WNEP reported.
And he was more than just a Bill … er, Bob.
Dorough kicked off his career in 1956 with an album titled Devil May Care. Miles Davis rerecorded the title track and turned it into a jazz standard, per NPR.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Despite that success, Dorough still had a day job at an advertising agency with a boss whose kids couldn't remember multiplication tables. Dorough's boss asked Dorough to set the math to music, and Schoolhouse Rock! was born.
After penning Three is a Magic Number and other multiplication hits, Schoolhouse Rock! was sold to ABC and Dorough stayed on to continue writing educational jams. He didn't love creating grammar songs, per NPR, but Conjunction Junction still became one of his most well-known tunes.
Celebrate Dorough's legacy with this live performance of Conjunction Junction in 2014. Kathryn Krawczyk
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
Political cartoons for February 22Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include Black history month, bloodsuckers, and more
-
The mystery of flight MH370The Explainer In 2014, the passenger plane vanished without trace. Twelve years on, a new operation is under way to find the wreckage of the doomed airliner
-
5 royally funny cartoons about the former prince Andrew’s arrestCartoons Artists take on falling from grace, kingly manners, and more
-
‘One Battle After Another’ wins Critics Choice honorsSpeed Read Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, won best picture at the 31st Critics Choice Awards
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
