Great Minds Think 4 Themselves (known in a working title as Genie's Great Minds) was an educational short series that aired between cartoons such as Disney's Doug and Recess. It was hosted by the Genie from Disney's Aladdin, voiced by the late Robin Williams (reprising his role from the film). It was broadcasted on ABC (part of Disney's One Saturday Morning) and Toon Disney, and produced by Walt Disney Television Animation.
Summary[]
The series consisted of several 5-minute shorts on Disney's One Saturday Morning which ran from 1997 to 2002, where Genie teaches about important scientific, societal, and cultural figures throughout history, and the difficulties they often dealt with in their time. The series is generally presented in humorous cutout animation, mixed with traditional animation of Genie.
Episodes[]
Episodes included Albert Einstein and his invention of the theory of relativity, George Washington Carver, an African-American scientist who discovered numerous industrial uses for peanuts, Barbara Rose Johns, the young civil rights activist who helped to end segregation in schools, and Barbara McClintock, a scientist who made groundbreaking research in genetics in the 1950s, but was not recognized in her time due to women not being taken seriously in the field until everyone saw the value of her research and she was the first woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1983.
Other episodes focused on Benjamin Franklin, Caesar Chavez, Clara Barton, Jackie Robinson, John Muir, Sequoya, Louis Armstrong, Sojourner Truth, and Susan B. Anthony.
The series intended to teach children about significant periods in history, and also to show that many important people were thought of as odd or harshly criticized at the time, but went on to make significant change.
Videos[]
