In the 1970s, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown composer Clark Gesner made a series of found signage-based videos for PBS’ The Electric Company. The song above is our favorite because of the nonsensical lyrics, but the two below, the original Sign Song (later used for Sesame Street) and Office Sign Song are also ever-catchy, still great for reading comprehension, and are now 40-year-old culture and technology time capsules:

Watch more typography, more PBS, and more videos from the 1970s.

Which tire will roll down the ski jump fastest and jump the farthest? A Formula One tire? An enormous bulldozer tire? The smallest tire? This clip from Japanese television has made the rounds in years past, but the video source disappeared. We watched it again when it reappeared on Metafilter. Gotta love the lab coats, white gloves, and the surprising last jump.

So which of these six tires would you guess makes the biggest jump? And why?

In the archives, more physics of falling and jumping: domino chain reaction, 2,000 ping pong balls and 30 teachers in zero-g, a cat landing on its feet, and the jumping sand flea robot.

We love Rube Goldberg machines, and have posted about these short films from Japan’s NHK educational TV show, Pitagora Suitchi (PythagoraSwitch) before, so it’s no surprise that this 20 minute video collection of their Pitagora devices had the kids completely thrilled and mesmerized. The kinetic chain reactions were designed by a team from Keio University’s Masahiko Sato Laboratory. Watch them online while you can!

Related great fun: Joseph Herscher’s The Page Turner.

Thanks, @990000.

For the two adults in our house, this music brings back some rowdy cartoon cat and mouse tv memories from childhood. For the two kids in our house, it’s an orchestra playing energetic, jazzy music. And happily it’s super entertaining, energetic, jazzy music with slide whistles, hootin’, and hollerin’ to boot. 

This is the John Wilson Orchestra playing an arrangement of composer Scott Bradley's ’40s and ’50s Tom and Jerry cartoon music. It was recorded for the 2013 BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall.

And if you’re looking for a Tom and Jerry episode to provide some context for this video, here’s an old favorite from 1952: The Two Mouseketeers.

In the archives: more orchestras.

via Cartoon Brew.

Julie Andrews and Gene Kelly play The Tapping Game… and they sing and dance, because when you have Julie Andrews and Gene Kelly on stage together, that’s what happens. This clip is from a 1965 Thanksgiving weekend variety special called The Julie Andrews Show.

The Tapping Game has proven useful for waiting rooms, grocery store lines, rainy days, and the like. Related watching: pen drumming, playing the river like a drum, and objects falling to make rhythm.

Bonus: Fred Astaire dances with drums and Gene Kelly sings and dances in the rain.