George Newall

George Newall enrolled at Florida State University in 1955 after spendingtwo years in the Army’s 11th Airborne Division Band at Fort Campbell,
Kentucky. He studied composition with John Boda, winning FloridaComposers League awards in 1958, 1959, and 1960. After graduation, Newallmoved to New York City and took a $50 per week job in the mailroom of anadvertising agency. Shortly afterward, he became a copywriter starting anadvertising career that would span almost forty years. His agency experienceincludes stints at Ogilvy & Mather, McCaffrey & McCall, Wells RichGreene, and Grey Advertising.

While Co-Creative Director of McCaffrey & McCall, Newall "invented" HaiKarate, an off-the-wall spoof of cliché after shave lotion advertising. HaiKarate became the most successful men's toiletry introduction of the sixties.In 1970, Newall became the catalyst in the creation of ABC's SchoolhouseRock. The McCaffrey & McCall President, David McCall, asked him to helpdevelop the concept of setting rote learning to rock music. Newall found
Bob Dorough, a composer of uniquely eccentric jazz tunes and lyrics andintroduced him to McCall and Newall's creative partner, Art director cartoonistTom Yohe. Later that year, the group took their educational ideato Disney CEO Michael Eisner, then Director of Children's Programming atthe ABC Television Network. Eisner immediately bought the idea and in1972, 3-minute Schoolhouse Rock! segments starting running on ABC seventimes each weekend.

In 1978, Newall left McCaffrey & McCall with his Co-Creative Director,Tom Yohe, to start Newall & Yohe, Inc., intent on producing animatededucational programs for commercial television. In addition to winning four
EMMY's for Schoolhouse Rock!, Newall & Yohe also won an EMMY for
Drawing Power, a Saturday morning educational series they created for
NBC. Newall & Yohe won numerous other awards for its work, includingEMMY nominations for its Nutrition Spots for ABC, The Metric Marvelsfor NBC, "When You Turn Off Your Set, Turn On a Book" for NBC, and anAction for Children's Television Act Award for (in the words of thecitation): "Cartoons with a Conscience," animated segments in "DrawingPower," which prove that cartoons can be nonracist, nonsexist,informative... and funny."

In the mid eighties, Newall returned to advertising at Wells Rich Greenewhere he added to the long list of movie and television personalities hecreated commercials for by writing twenty-two spots for Alan AIda extollingthe educational virtues of Atari Computers.

In 2002 The Walt Disney Company released a Schoolhouse Rock! 30thAnniversary Edition DVD featuring the complete library of episodes.Newall composed a new song for the event, I’m Gonna Send Your VoteCollege, an explanation of the electoral college. Disney filmed the recordingsession for the new song for inclusion in the “behind the scenes” sectionthe two-disk set. Over one million copies of the DVD were sold over theChristmas holidays.

Despite not having been on the air since the mid-nineties, Schoolhouse Rock!remains a nostalgic staple for Generation X’ers and their children. It alsocontinues to garner critical acclaim including: a “Kids First” Award fromThe Coalition for Quality Children’s Media, being selected as one of “100Musical Moments that Rocked TV” by VH-1 2003, one of “Best 100 DisksEver” by CD ROM Today and “One of the 50 Greatest Cartoons Ever”
TV Guide Magazine.

Newall now presents educational seminars entitled Schoolhouse Rock!:Lessons Learned for the Web Generation with composer Bob Dorough andeducational Consultant Dr. Odvard Egil Dyrli. He is a member of ASCAPand The Directors Guild of America. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudsonwith his wife, Lisa Maxwell, and stepson, Lake Wolosker.
Newall, George