| NOTICE! My Hero Zero was the November 2021 Article of the Month. |
| My Hero Zero | |
| Multiplication Rock!, Song 1 | | |
 | |
| Air date January 13, 1973 | |
| Written by Bob Dorough | |
| Episode Guide | |
| Production Order | |
| next Elementary My Dear | |
| Chronological Order | |
| previous Three Is a Magic Number |
next Elementary My Dear |
My Hero Zero is the first episode of Multiplication Rock, airing on January 13, 1973. It goes over the powers of ten, & multiplying by zero. A young boy portrayed as a superhero (later redesigned as Schoolhouse Rocky, the franchise's mascot), shows his doubtful older sister, Maggie the importance of the digit 0 as well as multiplication by powers of 10. This song was voted #11 on the 30th Anniversary DVD's Top 25.
Transcript[]
Maggie: Zero?
Narrator: Yeah, zero is a wonderful thing. In fact, zero is my hero!
Maggie: How can zero be a hero?
Narrator: Well, there are all kinds of heroes, you know. A man can get to be a hero for a famous battle he fought, or by studying very hard & becoming a weightless astronaut. And then there are heroes of other sorts like the heroes we know from watching sports. But a hero doesn't have to be a grown up person, you know; a hero can be a very big dog who comes to your rescue, or a very little boy who's smart enough to know what to do. But let me tell you about my favorite hero...
[Soundtrack includes this extra bit of dialogue]
Did you ever stop to think about zero? Zero is fantastic. Why, without the concept of zero, we'd never be able to multiply, divide, add, subtract, or even to count very high.
My hero, Zero, such a funny little hero,
But till you came along,
We counted on our fingers and toes.
Now you're here to stay.
And nobody really knows
How wonderful you are.
Why, we could never reach a star
Without you, Zero, my hero,
How wonderful you are.
Maggie: What's so wonderful about a zero? It's nothing, isn't it?
Narrator: Sure, it represents nothing alone.
But place a zero after one,
And you've got yourself a 10.
See how important that is?
When you run out of digits,
You can start all over again.
See how convenient that is?
That's why with only ten digits including zero,
You can count as high as you could ever go...
Forever, towards infinity...
No one ever gets there, but you could try.
With 10 billion zeroes,
From the cavemen till the heroes, who invented you,
They counted on their fingers and toes.
And maybe some sticks and stones.
Maggie: Or rocks and bones.
Narrator: Or their neighbors' toes.
And nobody really knows
How wonderful you are.
Why, we could never reach the star
Without you, Zero, my hero,
Zero, how wonderful you are.
Place one zero after any number,
And you've multiplied that number by 10.
See how easy that is.
Place two zeroes after any number,
And you've multiplied that number by 100.
See how simple that is.
Place three zeroes after any number,
And you've multiplied that number by 1,000.
Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad astra, forever and ever,
With zero, my hero, how wonderful you are.
Music Video[]
The Lemonheads (as well as Gibby Haynes, Melissa auf der Mar of Hole, and another Hole member, Patty Schemel) covered the song for Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks on track 8. The music video, being featured at the end on the America Rock tape, has one short clip from Lucky Seven Sampson (in which a certain cabbage truck passes said patch), containing anything from the least number of episodes. It also has the part where the boy throws a ball to a man who signs it put between the scene where the Dutch boy holds the water back & that where the boy gets in the telephone booth.
On the VHS that has the music video, the closed-captioning credits the voice that says, "Rocks and bones!" as if a boy did it.
Trivia[]
The girl was voiced by Bob Dorough's daughter, Aralee Dorough.
Despite being about the number zero, Three is a Magic Number was the first to air.