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Friday, November 13, 2026Nov 13

Opinion: So long to a Saturday morning song-writing legend, Rodgers in the wrong, Ted Cruz is a goof

Jay Greeson cropped
Jay Greeson cropped Jay Greeson cropped

We normally share an obituary or two in this space on Saturdays, and almost always they come from the Times Free Press. Today, we reach a little broader.

Today we offer a too-late thank you to Dave Frishberg, a songwriter any of you close to my age will know even if you didn’t know his name.

Frishberg, you see, was part of the crew who penned a huge part of the Saturday morning soundtrack children growing up in the ’70s and ’80s heard. He is, in fact, the reason I know my conjunctions – and their junctions and functions – and still recite the preamble to our Constitution with an accentuated pronunciation of “tranquility.”

Frishberg was the lead writer for the “Schoolhouse Rock!” songs that came between cartoons on Saturday mornings – that glorious couple of hours when we all got a full block of uninterrupted viewing designed just for us.

He died Wednesday. He was 88.