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Fictional Women Around the World: Ms. Frizzle · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and smithamok of Stuff I Ever
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  Speaker 1: Told You production of iHeartRadio, and today for another sub
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  Speaker 1: sub sub subsegment of fictional women around the world, we
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  Speaker 1: here talking about the iconic professor Valerie Felicity Frizzle, PhD
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  Speaker 1: from The Magic school Bus, more commonly known as Miss
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  Speaker 1: Frizzle or Frizz. I loved The Magic School Bus when
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  Speaker 1: I was a kid. Did you watch it at all?
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  Speaker 1: I remember clips of it. I don't think I fully
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  Speaker 1: watched it. I feel like I was out of that
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  Speaker 1: age range, but I knew who she was for sure.
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  Speaker 1: She was like hugely popular. The show was really really popular.
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  Speaker 1: I read a quote that I think was joking but
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  Speaker 1: maybe semi serious that said it was as cool as
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  Speaker 1: Caprice Son at the time in the nineties. So Miss
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  Speaker 1: Frizzle was a third and fourth grade teacher at Walkerville
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  Speaker 1: Elementary and later became an independent researcher and professor. Her
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  Speaker 1: sister Fiona took over the position. We're going to talk
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  Speaker 1: about that more in a second. The first book, because
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  Speaker 1: the show is based off the book series featuring Miss Frizzle.
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  Speaker 1: The Magic school Bus at the Waterworks, came out in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, and then the animated PBS show and
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  Speaker 1: Microsoft game debut in nineteen ninety four. The show was
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  Speaker 1: sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation. It was
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  Speaker 1: one of eight shows I believe that got some of
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  Speaker 1: that funding. It ran until nineteen ninety seven. Lily Tomlin
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know largely provided the voice, and she she
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  Speaker 1: won a Daytime Emmy for it. Okay. There have also
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  Speaker 1: been audiobooks and cassettes, and the theme song was sung
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  Speaker 1: by Little Richard by the I Know, Yes, Yes, they
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  Speaker 1: were really fun. The books were illustrated by Bruce Degan
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  Speaker 1: and written by former grade school teacher Joanna Cole, and
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  Speaker 1: they sold upwards of ninety three million books before her
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  Speaker 1: death in twenty twenty. She wrote the books at the
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  Speaker 1: request of then vice president of Scholastic Craig Walker, who
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  Speaker 1: had heard from teachers wanting more illustrated science books for kids.
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  Speaker 1: And he got this idea for like an illustrated eccentric
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  Speaker 1: field trip type thing, and he approached Cole with it,
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  Speaker 1: and he also had this he wanted it to be
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  Speaker 1: more diverse than a lot of the other stuff that
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  Speaker 1: was being offered at the time. She and Degan found
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  Speaker 1: inspiration in teachers and classmates from their own lives and
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  Speaker 1: put that in there. When the Magic School Bus Books
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  Speaker 1: first came out, one of the things that made them
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  Speaker 1: stand out was their approach to sharing knowledge with kids,
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  Speaker 1: and Foster string a curiosity to learn by combining humor, fantasy,
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  Speaker 1: realistic fiction, and nonfiction because she has a Magic school
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  Speaker 1: Bus but is teaching science. In the beginning, this combination
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  Speaker 1: worried editors who thought that it might be a hard
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  Speaker 1: sell for teachers and librarians unused to this multi cross
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  Speaker 1: genre type of medium. Like at the time, it's a
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  Speaker 1: fantasy book, it's a science book, it's this one thing,
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  Speaker 1: but here comes this series that's all kinds of things.
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  Speaker 1: They're also full of jokes and puns, of illustrations and
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  Speaker 1: speech bubbles. I've never read the books, but they sound
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  Speaker 1: really fun. I'm kind of determined to see if I
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  Speaker 1: can get my hands on one. Yeah, the books tackled
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  Speaker 1: big topics like climate change too, and Cole has an
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  Speaker 1: interesting interview where she says, essentially, I didn't think it
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  Speaker 1: was going to be that controversial, and look here we are,
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  Speaker 1: all these years later, people feel mad about it. Also,
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  Speaker 1: the show wasn't necessarily based completely on the books because
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  Speaker 1: the show sort of outpaced the books, so some of
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  Speaker 1: some of the episodes were based on them and some
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  Speaker 1: of them weren't. The show featured a fun bit after
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  Speaker 1: the episode, but before the credits, where the producer would
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  Speaker 1: answer questions from callers who had they had questions about
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  Speaker 1: the topics covered, and the producer would explain the ways
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  Speaker 1: that they had taken liberties with the science in question,
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  Speaker 1: usually due to time constraints. You know, we only have
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  Speaker 1: this fush time. The producer was voiced by Malcolm Jamal Warner. No, yeah, yep.
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  Speaker 1: And the show boasted massive cameos too, like a huge list.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them that stuck out to me was Dolly
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  Speaker 1: Parton and Tom Cruise as himself. I don't remember the episode, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I don't. Okay, interesting, but I'll that to say it
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  Speaker 1: was very popular. This was a popular show, and so
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  Speaker 1: much so. In twenty seventeen, Netflix released the animated follow
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  Speaker 1: up series Magic School Bus Rides Again, which I understand
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  Speaker 1: is pretty divisive. I've found I found myself on a
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  Speaker 1: lot of teachers' blogs where they are arguing back and
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  Speaker 1: forth about it. And as of twenty twenty six, Elizabeth
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  Speaker 1: Banks is still set to play Miss Frizzle and a
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  Speaker 1: live action adaptation. And I say still because I think
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  Speaker 1: it's been delayed for a long time. But she's still
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  Speaker 1: on board. So all of that brings us to Miss Frizzle.
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  Speaker 1: Miss Frizzle is a whimsical, passionate, strange teacher, as she's
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  Speaker 1: often called, who wore subject themed shirt waist stresses that
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  Speaker 1: glowed and changed throughout the lesson. It's iconic. It's so
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  Speaker 1: good that it's so perfect. Yes, you recognize it immediately, immediately,
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  Speaker 1: immediately brings joy to your heart. It's a big it's
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  Speaker 1: a big cosplay at Dragoncommon. The show largely follows her
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  Speaker 1: taking her students on an informal field trip on the
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  Speaker 1: Magic school Bus. Sometimes these field trips go awry, but
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  Speaker 1: she always uses them as learning and teaching experiences, a
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  Speaker 1: curious soul herself, giving space for the students to arrive
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  Speaker 1: at the answers themselves, so she doesn't come in and
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  Speaker 1: explain so much as she's like patient with them and
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  Speaker 1: lets them arrive at the answer. And yeah, she's really kind,
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  Speaker 1: she's very exuberant. Yeah, she's just even thinking back, I'm
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  Speaker 1: like just smiling. Apparently, she's very athletic too, and she
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  Speaker 1: has great lines. Perhaps the most well known one is
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  Speaker 1: take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. According to the show,
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  Speaker 1: she gave up a music career with the Frizzlettes, which
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  Speaker 1: she also toured with singer Molly cle Yes see you
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  Speaker 1: can see ride up your Alley, but she she wanted
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  Speaker 1: to teach instead. Primarily, she focuses on her students, her
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  Speaker 1: lizard Liz, and the Magic school Bus, which itself is
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  Speaker 1: a shape shifting bus that seems to do as it
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  Speaker 1: will sometimes. And yeah, if you haven't seen the show,
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  Speaker 1: it basically follows Miss Frizzle and her students taking your
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  Speaker 1: ride on the Magic school Bus to learn something. I
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  Speaker 1: particularly remember the one about smell. I remember how the
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  Speaker 1: like smell molecules were animated. It's just lives in my
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  Speaker 1: brain forever. It was kind of haunting because it was
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  Speaker 1: a bad smell and it was like really chartouse like
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  Speaker 1: grating color of green like little molecules, and I just
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  Speaker 1: remember it and it got stuck in the nostrils. Yeah, okay,
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  Speaker 1: but they also go into space inside bodies. They go
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  Speaker 1: back in time to the time of the dinosaurs, all
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  Speaker 1: in the name of education and its Frizzle doesn't panic
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  Speaker 1: when things go wrong. She's a source of calm. She's
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  Speaker 1: never worried about seemingly anything she really isn't. Yeah. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: she was mysterious and fun and the best part of
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  Speaker 1: field trips and classroom experiments. When I think back on
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  Speaker 1: why I loved it so much, that's when you had
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  Speaker 1: a good class with the science experiment. Those were so
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  Speaker 1: fun to me. Those were so exciting. So I think
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  Speaker 1: that that feeling is what the show really encompassed, and
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  Speaker 1: the animation was pretty eye catching for the time as well.
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  Speaker 1: A character like this has quite a legacy for sure,
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  Speaker 1: and some things I wasn't expecting, although I guess I'm
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  Speaker 1: not super surprised. One of them is Miss Frizzle is
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  Speaker 1: viewed as a gay icon. A lot of the internet
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  Speaker 1: and amateur critics view Miss Frizzle as a lesbian. Here's
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  Speaker 1: a quote from auto Straddle about it. While Miss Frizzle's
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  Speaker 1: sexual and romantic leanings aren't revealed in the series, the
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  Speaker 1: woman who played her, Lily Tomlin, has left her own
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  Speaker 1: orientation no mystery. In twenty thirteen, her orientation was publicly
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  Speaker 1: confirmed when it was announced that, at age seventy three,
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  Speaker 1: she would marry her longtime partner, writer Jane Wagner, seventy
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  Speaker 1: seven at the time same year. For decades, Tomlin has
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  Speaker 1: battled the expectations placed upon women by the media and
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  Speaker 1: public alike, famously making Johnny Carson's audience uncomfortable by stating
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  Speaker 1: that she didn't want to have children in nineteen seventy five.
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  Speaker 1: The same year, Time magazine tried to bribe her into
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  Speaker 1: coming out. In their attempt to be the first to
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  Speaker 1: reveal a much roomored part of her they dangled a
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  Speaker 1: juicy carrot in front of her face, her face actually
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  Speaker 1: on the cover of the magazine. I never did not
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  Speaker 1: come out, she told The Washington Post. I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: be acknowledged for my work. I didn't want to be
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  Speaker 1: the gay person who does comedy. So that's very interesting.
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  Speaker 1: I think this is especially since we just did our
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  Speaker 1: episode on like lavender marriages and beards and all that
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  Speaker 1: kind of all those expectations in old Hollywood. Yes, related
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  Speaker 1: fan theory is that she is a sorceress, and there's
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  Speaker 1: I've heard this. I've heard this actually, yes, and it's
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  Speaker 1: related because people have written a lot about it, but
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  Speaker 1: essentially because whiches are often assumed to be lesbians, or
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  Speaker 1: in a lot of media they are. So that's a
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  Speaker 1: popular fan theory that if you want to learn more about,
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  Speaker 1: the Internet has got you covered. Another reason that this
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  Speaker 1: has a lasting legacy is that at the time, oh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, seeing a woman being a science teacher that
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  Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily something people saw very often. And she was
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  Speaker 1: a teacher that was much beloved and was very knowledgeable.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that the magic of teachers, of a
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  Speaker 1: good teacher, a teacher who gives stints room to grow,
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  Speaker 1: that does make a whole world of difference. I think
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  Speaker 1: for a lot of us we can remember the teachers
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  Speaker 1: that stood out and really maybe shifted our lives or
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  Speaker 1: our understanding of things. And there are some really sweet
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  Speaker 1: blogs and essays about how this show and this character
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  Speaker 1: in particular inspired kids to get into science later, something
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  Speaker 1: that they pursued in their adult lives, which really cute.
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  Speaker 1: She was strange, she didn't conform, and she was fun
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  Speaker 1: and her fashion was great. Yes, I'm very glad to
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: have revisited The Magic School Bus in Miss Ristle brought
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  Speaker 1: back a lot of good memories for me.
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  Speaker 2: The good old days, the good old days. Yeah, Well, listeners.
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  Speaker 2: If you have any thoughts, if you have read the books,
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  Speaker 2: please let us know.
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  Speaker 1: You can email us at Hello at stuffhanever told you
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  Speaker 1: dot com. You can find u on Blue Sky at
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: one ever told you. We're also on YouTube. We have
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: some merchandise at comm Bureau, and we have a book
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: always to our super ducer, Rima and our executive produce
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and Maya, thank you and thanks to you for listening.
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