"Free To Be" is not just an ad campaign.

[gigglingkat]

It has come to my attention that Kripke and I are old and that "Free to Be You and Me" is not an elementary school staple these days.

Click to view

If this is what sparked the title, this is the segment. I encourage you all to you tube the rest. It was created by Marlo Thomas to teach her niece that it was ok to break the gender roles she was taught.

Comments

[gekizetsu]

::is old with you and Kripke::

<333333333

[gigglingkat]

Dude. This is hysterical. The whole CW ad campaign when they launched! It was all about breaking out of the "I'm a WB show, you're a UPN show" mold and was based on this...

...except apparently their ENTIRE demographic? Has never HEARD of "Free To Be" and just thought the campaign was random and very green...

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA... The CW - failing to connect to their demographic since 2006.

[setissma]

I'd watched a bunch of it, but not that one, so meanwhile I was all, "Is this somehow linked to Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack...?"

[gigglingkat]

Yeah - the MJ segment is just tragically ironic. "I can't wait to grow up and we don't ever have to change".

OW.

[missyjack]

Oh thank you so much for this! I didn't knwo about this show - and how perfect is this segment?

[gigglingkat]

See but you have an excuse. You're an Aussie and we don't inflict our educational films on countries we like!

It was a little bit of an eye opener last night when I was in chat and realizes HOW MANY people didn't get the reference.

And not just to the show. Apparently the entire PREMISE of the CW's launch campaign was lost on their demographic!!!

Oh show.

[missyjack]

Yes my only reference was the CW campaign - obv they aimed a generation to old with that! And don't worry we get plenty of US stuff - although prob less kids stuff than you might expect as thats always been the most actively locally produced TV (and still is!)

[gigglingkat]

The segment itself is hilarious to relate to the show.

"Do you ever TELL your brother that you love him?"
O.O ... Oh, nooooooooooooo....
"Why not?"
... cause

Would you like another brother?
No. We want a doggie.
(I've read that fic!)

And "Sometimes you're good to me, sometimes you're bad, but I LOVE YOU"

We need to make the boys t-shirts.

[atthebeachgirl]

It was great when they'd break out the movie projector and show us these films instead of doing schoolwork.

I looked at another one of videos--"Breastfeeding at 8" (!) I honestly don't know what to say to that...

[gigglingkat]

EEP! Glad I didn't get curious!

[fuzzybluemonkey]

We didn't watch the films, but my sister and I had a CD/book combo from that franchise(? I'm gonna call it a franchise). The main things I remember from it are the song (we're free to be/you and me/and you and me/we're free to be a family), a story called "The Day Dad Made Toast" (read by Robin Williams on the CD), a story about how it's okay to be adopted because Superman was adopted, and something with talking babies.

[gigglingkat]

I love the various vague memories of this. It definitely made an impact. Slightly more surreal than I think they'd hoped - but still...