The very catchy Counting by Fives from Schoolhouse Rock!

The Old Mill, a Walt Disney Silly Symphonies cartoon from 1937.

Like many of the later Silly Symphonies, The Old Mill was a testing-ground for advanced animation techniques. Marking the first use of Disney’s multiplane camera, the film also incorporates realistic depictions of animal behavior, complex lighting and color effects, depictions of rain, wind, lightning, ripples, splashes and reflections, three-dimensional rotation of detailed objects, and the use of timing to produce specific dramatic and emotional effects. All of the lessons learned from making The Old Mill would subsequently be incorporated into Disney’s feature-length animated films, especially 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Schoolhouse Rock’s Unpack Your Adjectives. Fun! Catchy! Educational! Classic! (Updated video link.)

We aren’t using the telegraph as a metaphor anymore, but why aren’t we still teaching our kids about the central nervous system, peripheral nerves, the autonomic system in cartoons? Don’t our brains get email from our feet?!

Here’s the 1979 classic, Telegraph Line, from School House Rock. (Updated video link.)

To Spring, made in 1936. I loved this cartoon when I was a kid. The colors. The rhymes and music. The saga. Time to pass it along…