The Magic School Bus
“Seatbelts, everyone!”
These two immortal words indicated you were in for an enjoyable day of science class in elementary school.
The Magic School Bus served as a classroom and Saturday morning staple and introduced a generation of schoolchildren to the eccentric Ms. Frizzle, her fantastical bus and curiosity about the sciences.
The series ran only from 1994 to 1997, but its legacy extended well beyond those years. For kids growing up early in the new millennium, The Magic School Bus was unavoidable, whether it was on PBS or a VHS tape. How would you learn about germs without the episode where the gang shrinks down and travels inside sick Ralphie? And how many children were introduced to the solar system through The Magic School Bus’ field trip to outer space?
Based on a book series written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen, The Magic School Bus on PBS rated highly with school-age children. The show used celebrity talent like Lily Tomlin (I Heart Huckabees) as the voice of Ms. Frizzle and Malcolm-Jamal Warner (Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, always and forever), who handily wrapped up the teachings of each episode as The Producer.
But the show’s success mainly relied on a mix of kid-friendly education and an entertaining cast of characters. For a ’90s show, The Magic School Bus was surprisingly diverse, with a classroom of children representing Jewish, Asian and Hispanic cultures, among others. Each character possessed a distinct personality, like Carlos the class clown or worrywart Arnold, who would constantly utter how he “should’ve stayed home today.”
The Magic School Bus presented a classroom in which anything was possible on a given day and learning was always the ultimate objective. It was the perfect ideal for elementary school kids, making its audience just as eager to learn as the children on the show. Even on Saturday mornings, the series was by no means a chore to watch;I was always excited to wake up and check in with everyone’s favorite bus with a face.
The popularity of the series has not diminished two decades after its premiere; Netflix even plans to revive the show in 2016 with a CG-animated show called The Magic School Bus 360°.
This demonstrates how The Magic School Bus resonated with so many people beyond the series’ original run in the ’90s. Now, any show that doesn’t conclude with Warner giving a helpful summary is disappointing by comparison. And only Bill Nye the Science Guy is comparable in making children across the country excited to learn about and explore science.
The Magic School Bus is an eminent reminder of those days when your elementary school teacher’s lesson plan included a VHS tape — and you definitely didn’t want to stay home that day.
