Schoolhouse Rock "Conjunction Junction"

It's a late-'70/early-'80s Saturday morning.

You're a kid. You have a bowl of sugary cereal. You turn on the television to watch cartoons.

Mom and dad are sound asleep. There is no school. Thus, you don't have to worry about super-poopy grownups trying to teach you things.

... unless those things come with a rocking arrangement!

Schoolhouse Rock is one of the most ambitious -- and arguably successful -- educational tools in modern history. It was the brainchild of an ad executive who wanted to teach his kid multiplication tables but expanded into many other areas, including civics.

I was one of those children who unknowingly learned a lot from Schoolhouse Rock, and as a writing professor, I use "Conjunction Junction" as part of what I like to call "Punctuation and Grammar Boot Camp." Despite the fact the series is decades older than most of my students, most of them light up when the portly conductor pops up on the overhead each semester. However, at least some of those faces turn to looks of self-disappointment when they realize they forgot how to use conjunctions -- and perhaps other things they should have learned from the series.