''The Metric Marvels'' is a 1978-1979 series of seven

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

educational

shorts Shorts are a garment worn over the human pelvis, pelvic area, circling the waist and splitting to cover the upper part of the legs, sometimes extending down to the knees but not covering the entire length of the leg. They are called "shorts" b ...

featuring songs about

meters The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...

liters The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...

, and

gram The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a Physical unit, unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one one thousandth of a kilogram. Originally defined as of 1795 as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure wate ...

s, designed to teach

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

children how to use the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the Decimal, decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in French Revolution, France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the d ...

. They were produced by Newall & Yohe, the same advertising agency which produced ABC's ''

Schoolhouse Rock! ''Schoolhouse Rock!'' is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films (and later, videos) that aired during the Saturday morning children's programming block on the U.S. television network ABC. The theme ...

'' series, and first aired on the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

television network in September 1978. The spots were shown three times each Saturday during the children's programming block for the 1978-79 season. Voices for the Metric Marvels shorts included

Lynn Ahrens Lynn Ahrens (born October 1, 1948) is an American writer and lyricist for the musical theatre, television and film. She has collaborated with Stephen Flaherty for many years. She won the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Awa ...

Bob Dorough Robert Lrod Dorough (December 12, 1923 – April 23, 2018) was an American bebop and cool jazz vocalist, pianist, composer, songwriter, arranger, and producer. Dorough became famous as the composer and performer of songs in the TV series ''School ...

Bob Kaliban Robert Dean Kaliban also known as Bob Kaliban (November 6, 1933 – December 12, 2020) was an American actor, singer, and musician. He was most known for being the president of the New York branch of SAG-AFTRA, voicing the police chief in Top Cat ...

, and

Paul Winchell Paul Winchell (''né'' Wilchinsky; December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, humanitarian, inventor and ventriloquist whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1950 to 1954, he hosted ''The Paul Winchell S ...

Origins

On December 23, 1975, President

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...

signed the

Metric Conversion Act The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 is an Act of Congress that U.S. President Gerald Ford signed into law on December 23, 1975. It declared the metric system "the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce", but ...

into law; this act gave official sanction for the United States to convert to the metric system of measurement. At the time the United States mainly used the

U.S. Customary system United States customary units form a system of measurement units commonly used in the United States and U.S. territories since being standardized and adopted in 1832. The United States customary system (USCS or USC) developed from English units ...

. Ford's presidential successor,

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

, began to implement this law in earnest, helping to set up the U.S. Metric Board as a task force to determine when and how the U.S. would convert to metric. The USMB suggested that the transition ought to be voluntary and gradual, taking place over at least a ten-year period. As part of this gradual transition, the USMB sponsored a number of

public service announcement A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. In the UK, they are generally called a public information film (PIF); in Hong Kong, ...

s on radio and television. ''The Metric Marvels'' was one such television PSA, aired during NBC's Saturday morning cartoons. The shorts featured four animated metric superheroes: Meter Man, Liter Leader, Super Celsius and Wonder Gram. Each superhero performed songs designed to teach children the difference between the old English system and the new metric system.

Episodes

# "Meet Meter Man" / Superhero Meter Man helps people convert length and distance to metric terms # "Mara-Mara-Marathon" / The difference between miles and kilometers # "I'm Your Liter Leader" / Superhero Liter Leader explains the difference between gallons and liters # "Eeny, Meeny, Miney Milliliters" / Liter Leader uses recipes to explain milliliters # "Super Celsius" / Superhero Super Celsius explains the Celsius temperature scale # "Wonder Gram" / Superhero Wonder Gram expresses her weight in grams # "Wonder Baby" / A young Wonder Gram converts pounds to kilograms

Legacy

The series shared the animation style, song quality and voice actors with the popular ''Schoolhouse Rock!'' on rival network

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

. Incoming NBC president

Fred Silverman Fred Silverman (September 13, 1937 – January 30, 2020) was an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at all of the Big Three television networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as '' ...

, formerly of ABC, may have thought to replicate the success of that show; Newall & Yohe also produced Saturday morning network IDs and the full-length ''Drawing Power!'' series for NBC. Despite this, the series was pulled from the air after a single seven-episode season. Being separated from ''Schoolhouse Rock!'' prevented the series from having an afterlife in

rerun A rerun or repeat is a rebroadcast of an episode of a radio or television program. There are two types of reruns – those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Variations In the United Kingdom, the word ...

s. Moreover, at the time NBC was ranked third place in viewership among the three dominant television networks. A deadline for metrication was never passed into United States federal law, and the push for metrication in the United States lost traction following the 1982 dissolution of the

United States Metric Board The United States Metric Board (USMB) was a United States government agency set up to encourage metrication. The United States Metric Board was commissioned by the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (15 U.S.C. 205d, enacted on December 23, 1975). The ...

under

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

. U.S. metrication is currently overseen by the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

, whose newer series '' League of SI Superheroes'' bears some similarities to ''The Metric Marvels'', including a character named Meter Man with many similarities to the identically-named character in the latter series.

Media

''The Metric Marvels'' was released on VHS for educational buyers only in 1979 by Newell and Yohe, Inc.; Center for Humanities Mount Kisco, NY. This release was in color and included one videocassette (approximately 17 min., 30 sec.) and seven teacher's guides, described as "seven 2 1/2 minute segments in which four animated superheroes explain the metric system" and carried the note "Previously issued as seven filmstrips by Xerox Films". The Xerox Films filmstrip release was described as "Elementary and junior high school, Filmstrip" and included seven 35 mm color filmstrips (approximately 200 fr.), seven audiocassettes and five teacher's guides. Xerox Films was a producer of films for schools and libraries, and was one of the 10 companies making up The Xerox Education Group at the time. ''New York Times'': "Xerox No Dropout" By William D. Smith, December 27, 1970, Page 103

References

External links

*
''The Metric Marvels - Filmstrip''
at

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

''The Metric Marvels - VHS''
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Metric Marvels, The 1970s American animated television series 1978 American television series debuts 1979 American television series endings American children's animated education television series American children's animated science fiction television series American children's animated superhero television series NBC original programming Metrication in the United States Science education television series