View source for Free to Be... You and Me

{{Short description|1970s US children's entertainment project}}
{{Redirect|Free to Be You and Me|the ''Supernatural'' episode|Free to Be You and Me (Supernatural)}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2022}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{Infobox album
| name       = Free to Be... You and Me
| type       = cast album
| artist     =
| cover      = Free to Be... You and Me (album cover).jpg
| alt        =
| released   = November 1972
| recorded   = May–July 1972
| venue      =
| studio     = 
*[[Mediasound Studios|Mediasound]], [[New York City]] (music)
*[[CBS Studios|CBS]], New York (vocal overdubs/spoken word)
| genre      =
| length     =
| label      = [[Bell Records]] (original issue)<br>[[Arista Records]] (reissue)
| producer   = [[Carole Hart]], [[Stephen J. Lawrence]], [[Bruce Hart (songwriter)|Bruce Hart]]
| prev_title =
| prev_year  =
| next_title =
| next_year  =
}}

'''''Free to Be... You and Me''''' is a children's entertainment project, conceived, created and executive-produced by actress and author [[Marlo Thomas]]. Produced in collaboration with the [[Ms. Foundation for Women]],<ref name=NPR-MorningEdition-40th-2012>{{cite news|last1=Martin|first1=Rachel|title=40 Years On, 'Free To Be' Still Resonates|url=https://www.npr.org/2012/12/09/166735512/40-years-on-free-to-be-message-still-resonates|access-date=October 19, 2014|work=[[Morning Edition]] |publisher=[[NPR]]|date=December 7, 2012|format=Audio interview}}</ref> it was a [[record album]] and illustrated book first released in November 1972 featuring songs and stories sung or told by celebrities of the day (credited as "Marlo Thomas and Friends") including [[Alan Alda]], [[Rosey Grier]], [[Cicely Tyson]], [[Carol Channing]], [[Michael Jackson]], [[Roberta Flack]], [[Shirley Jones]], [[Jack Cassidy]], and [[Diana Ross]]. An [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] television special, also created by Thomas, using poetry, songs, and sketches, followed sixteen months later in March 1974. The basic concept was to encourage post-1960s [[gender neutrality]], saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with one's identity. A major thematic message is that anyone—whether a boy or a girl—can achieve anything.

In 2021, the album was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the [[Library of Congress]] and selected for preservation in the [[National Recording Registry]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Schuessler |first=Jennifer |date=March 24, 2021 |title=Janet Jackson and Kermit the Frog Added to National Recording Registry |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/arts/music/national-recording-registry-janet-jackson.html |access-date=March 24, 2021}}</ref>

== Overview ==
The original idea to create the album began with [[Marlo Thomas]],<ref name=Makers-Birth-FTBYAM>{{cite web|last1=Thomas|first1=Marlo|title=Birth of 'Free to Be... You and Me'|url=http://www.makers.com/marlo-thomas/moments/birth-free-be%E2%80%A6-you-and-me|website=[[Makers: Women Who Make America|Makers]]|access-date=October 19, 2014|format=Video interview}}</ref> who wanted to teach her then-young niece Dionne (née Gordon) Kirchner.<ref name="978-0807837559">{{cite book |last1=Rotskoff |first1=Lori |title=When We Were Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children's Classic and the Difference It Made |date=2012 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |url=https://academic.oup.com/north-carolina-scholarship-online/book/17098 |access-date=6 October 2025 |language=en |location=Chapel Hill |isbn=9780807837559 |edition=1st}}</ref><ref name="hcy.2014.0014">{{cite journal |last1=Pike |first1=Kirsten |title=When We Were Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children’s Classic and the Difference It Made ed. by Lori Rotskoff, Laura L. Lovett (review) |journal=The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth |date=December 2014 |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=174–176 |doi=10.1353/hcy.2014.0014 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/536568 |access-date=6 October 2025|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="slate/free-to-be-40">{{cite news |title=Free To Be ... You and Me Turns 40 |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/10/free_to_be_turns_40_how_marlo_thomas_and_friends_pulled_off_a_feminist_children.html |access-date=6 October 2025 |work=Slate Magazine |date=23 October 2012}}</ref> about life, in particular that it is acceptable to refute or reject the gender stereotypes expressed in children's books of the period. In an Emmy Legends interview Thomas explains:

<blockquote>I told my sister Terre "it would take Dionne 30 years to get over it [stories featuring traditional gender roles], the same as it took all of us. We need to find her some different books to read," and she said, "You go and find 'em."

Well there weren't any. And not only weren't there any, I was in the bookstore one day looking around and found this one (picture book—''I'm Glad I'm a Boy! I'm Glad I'm a Girl!'' by [[Whitney Darrow Jr.]]) that showed a pilot on one page and a stewardess on a facing page (with a caption) that said "Boys are pilots, girls are stewardesses." Well I nearly had a heart attack right there in the bookstore. So I said "I'll make a record for Dionne. I'll ask everybody to donate their talents and it'll be fun."<ref name="marlosthomas"/></blockquote>

Produced by [[Carole Hart]], with music produced by [[Stephen J. Lawrence]] and [[Bruce Hart (songwriter)|Bruce Hart]], with stories and poems directed by [[Alan Alda]], the title has never been out of print.

Proceeds went to the [[Ms. Foundation for Women]]. The album was originally released on [[Bell Records]] in 1972 and, since 1974, has been available on [[Arista Records]] cassettes and CDs.

Well-known songs include "It's All Right to Cry," sung by football hero [[Rosey Grier]]; the title track by [[the New Seekers]]; "Helping," a [[Shel Silverstein]] poem performed by [[Tom Smothers]]; "Sisters and Brothers" by the [[Voices of East Harlem]]; and "When We Grow Up" performed by [[Diana Ross]] on the album and by [[Roberta Flack]] and a teenage [[Michael Jackson]] on the special.

Other sketches, some of them animated in the television special, include "Atalanta," co-narrated by Thomas and Alda, a retelling of the ancient [[Greek mythology|Greek legend]] of [[Atalanta]]; "Boy Meets Girl" with Thomas and [[Mel Brooks]] providing the voices for puppets, designed, performed and manipulated by [[Wayland Flowers]], resembling human babies, who use cultural gender stereotypes to try to discover which is a boy and which a girl; "[[William's Doll]]", based on [[Charlotte Zolotow]]'s picture book about a boy whose family resists his requests for a doll until his grandmother explains that William wishes to practice being a good father; and "Dudley Pippin" with [[Robert Morse]] and [[Billy De Wolfe]], based on stories by Phil Ressner.

A number of pieces from the record did not make the special, most for lack of time, although "Housework" was left off due to the somewhat condescending tone it lent to its description of domestic workers.

Thomas says in the Emmy Legends 40th anniversary interview:

<blockquote> In among all the praise we got for the project as a whole, we kept getting all these letters and phone calls talking about the track sounding as if it wasn't normal to be fond of cooking and cleaning and caretaking etc. So we left that off the special for that reason.<ref name="marlosthomas"/></blockquote>

The children pictured on the original LP jacket were schoolmates of Abigail, Robin, and David Pogrebin, children of [[Letty Cottin Pogrebin]], then editor of ''[[Ms. (magazine)|Ms.]]'' Most of the children attended Corlears School.

"[[Marlo Thomas]] and Friends" followed ''Free to Be... You and Me'' with a 1988 sequel, ''[[Free to Be... a Family]]'', the first primetime variety show created and produced in both the United States and the Soviet Union.

== Reception ==
{{Album ratings
| rev2 = ''[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies|Christgau's Record Guide]]''
| rev2Score = A−<ref name="CG">{{cite book|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|year=1981|title=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies|publisher=[[Ticknor & Fields]]|isbn=089919026X|chapter=Consumer Guide '70s: T|chapter-url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_chap.php?k=T&bk=70|access-date=March 16, 2019|via=robertchristgau.com|title-link=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies}}</ref>
}}
Reviewing the LP in ''[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies]]'' (1981), [[Robert Christgau]] wrote: "I've been giving this high-minded [[feminist]] [[children's music|kiddie record]] to various young Americans on the theory that it is not necessary, or easy, to like the [[New York Dolls]] at age five. I figured it would be good for them, like baths. Surprise number one is that they all love it, to a person. Surprise number two is that I myself would much rather listen to [[Carol Channing]] on housework than to [[Robert Klein]] on dope."<ref name="CG"/>

According to Thomas, "[[Larry Uttal]] at [[Bell Records]] told me, this kind of record might sell 15,000 copies tops. Well it went [[RIAA certification|Gold]] right away, went Platinum within two years and went Diamond in under ten years. EVERYBODY was amazed it had touched such a nerve. It's still in the top 100 albums of all time over 40 years later."<ref name="marlosthomas">{{cite web|url=https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/marlo-thomas|title=Marlo Thomas|website=Television Academy|date=October 22, 2017 |access-date=March 16, 2019}}</ref>

''Free to Be'' faced backlash from some conservative religious leaders, including [[Evangelicalism|Evangelical]] author and psychologist [[James Dobson]].<ref>Rotskoff, Lori; Lovett, Laura (2012). ''When We Were Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children's Classic and the Difference It Made''. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. {{ISBN|978-1-4696-1905-7}}.</ref>

In her 2010 memoir, ''Growing Up Laughing'', Thomas reflected on the astonishing impact the Free to Be projects had on the culture.

<blockquote>The show won an Emmy and a Peabody, the book became number one on the ''New York Times'' best-seller list and the record went gold. We were floored by the impact it all had. My little message for Dionne had gone straight to the hearts of moms and dads and aunties and uncles and, most of all, teachers, who embraced it as a way to teach the kids in their lives a new way of thinking about themselves.</blockquote>

==Television special==
A [[television special]], produced by [[Marlo Thomas]] and Free to Be Productions, in association with [[Jimmy Murakami|Teru Murakami]]-[[Fred Wolf Films]], Inc. and cosponsored by the Ms. Foundation, first aired March 11, 1974, on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]. The broadcast earned an 18.6 [[Nielsen ratings|rating]]/27 share and went on to win an [[Emmy Awards|Emmy Award]]. 16mm prints were also struck, and some schoolchildren from the 1970s and 1980s remember seeing the television special, or the filmstrip based on the special, at school during the era.

The special appeared occasionally on [[HBO]] throughout the 1980s, and was released on [[Videocassette|VHS]] and [[Betamax]] videotapes through [[Vestron Video]] subsidiary [[Children's Video Library]] in 1983. It also aired on cable channel [[TV Land]].

A [[DVD region code#Region codes and countries|Region 1]] DVD was released in November 2001, and in 2010, a newly remastered version was issued featuring a number of new extras, including a [[deleted scene]] showcasing [[Dustin Hoffman]].

===Cast===
{{div col|colwidth=15em}}
* [[Marlo Thomas]]
* [[Alan Alda]]
* [[Harry Belafonte]]
* [[Mel Brooks]]
* [[Jack Cassidy]]
* [[Carol Channing]]
* [[Rita Coolidge]]
* [[Billy De Wolfe]]
* [[Roberta Flack]]
* [[Rosey Grier]]
* [[Dustin Hoffman]]
* [[Michael Jackson]]
* [[Kris Kristofferson]]
* [[Robert Morse]]
* [[The New Seekers]]
* [[Tom Smothers]]
* [[Cicely Tyson]]
* [[Voices of East Harlem]]
* [[Dionne Warwick]]
{{div col end}}

===Summary===
#As a group of children frolic on a carousel, the titular song by the New Seekers plays in the background.
#In a hospital, infant depictions of Thomas and Brooks debate their genders.
#Flack and Jackson perform "When We Grow Up" while enacting children playing.
#Baby Thomas and Brooks watch adults and discuss them.
#Thomas and Belafonte take on various jobs performing "Parents Are People."
#Thomas tells a story about a pretty girl who always goes first, until she gets eaten by tigers.
#During a bath, Thomas and Brooks overhear a grown-up doing [[baby talk]].
#Thomas, Morse, and De Wolfe talk about how [[Dudley Pippin]] got in trouble but ended up getting cheered up by the principal.
#Grier performs "It's All Right to Cry" while many people crying is shown.
#Thomas and Alda sing about [[William's Doll|a boy named William who wants a doll]].
#Thomas and Brooks sing a song about babies after they don't like the lullaby.
#A retelling of [[Atalanta]] performed by Alda and Thomas.
#Warwick sings "The Sun and the Moon" with many paintings of the sun and moon shown.
#Hoffman reads compositions by [[Jules Siegel]].
#Smothers sings "Helping", a poem by [[Shel Silverstein]].
#Thomas talks to children about having a sibling, then the Voices of East Harlem perform "Sisters and Brothers."
#Tyson reads "Three Wishes" by [[Lucille Clifton]], a folktale about a girl who gets three wishes after finding a penny with her birth year on New Year's Day.
#Thomas, Kristofferson, and Coolidge sing "Circle of Friends" with their friends.
#Baby Brooks and Thomas bid each other farewell as they are taken away to live their own lives.
#The children on the horses return to the carousel as the reprise to the title track plays along. The camera zooms out of the carousel, showing first the whole park, then Manhattan, encompasses Greater New York, the US and finally the world as the song ends, similar to [[The Big Blue Marble]] title sequence.
#A brief one line reprise of Sisters and Brothers.
#End-title/exit music featuring a montage of themes from the special.

== Track listing (New York cast album) ==
Some material here is left out of the TV special, and vice versa, while other material appears only in the accompanying hardcover book.

=== Act One ===
<!-- Note: Please don't change the LP/CD performers' credits based on the TV show -- different performers were used for some of the TV selections. -->
# "Free to Be... You and Me" – Music by [[Stephen J. Lawrence]], lyrics by [[Bruce Hart (songwriter)|Bruce Hart]], performed by [[the New Seekers]]
# "Boy Meets Girl" – Written by [[Carl Reiner]] and [[Peter Stone (writer)|Peter Stone]], performed by [[Mel Brooks]] and [[Marlo Thomas]]
# "When We Grow Up" – Music by [[Stephen J. Lawrence]], lyrics by Shelly Miller, performed by [[Roberta Flack]] and [[Michael Jackson]] on the special and [[Diana Ross]] on the Original Cast CD.
# "Don't Dress Your Cat in an Apron" – Written by [[Dan Greenburg]], performed by [[Billy De Wolfe]]

=== Act Two ===
# "Parents Are People" – Music and Lyrics by [[Carol Hall]], performed by [[Harry Belafonte]] and [[Marlo Thomas]]
# "Housework" – Written by [[Sheldon Harnick]], performed by [[Carol Channing]]
# "Helping" – Written by [[Shel Silverstein]], performed by [[Tom Smothers]]
# "Ladies First" – Performed by [[Marlo Thomas]], based on the [[Shel Silverstein]] poem of the same name.
# "Dudley Pippin and the Principal" – Written by Phil Ressner, performed by [[Billy De Wolfe]], [[Robert Morse|Bobby Morse]], and [[Marlo Thomas]]

=== Act Three ===
# "It's All Right to Cry" – Music and Lyrics by [[Carol Hall]], performed by [[Rosey Grier]]
# "Sisters and Brothers" – Music by [[Stephen J. Lawrence]], lyrics by [[Bruce Hart (songwriter)|Bruce Hart]], performed by [[The Voices of East Harlem]]
# "William's Doll" – Music by [[Mary Rodgers]], lyrics by [[Sheldon Harnick]], performed by [[Alan Alda]] and [[Marlo Thomas]] (based on the [[William's Doll|children's book of the same name]])
# "My Dog Is a Plumber" – Written by [[Dan Greenburg]], performed by [[Dick Cavett]]

=== Act Four ===
# "[[Atalanta]]" – Written by Betty Miles, performed by [[Alan Alda]] and [[Marlo Thomas]]
# "Grandma" – Written by Carole Hart, performed by [[Diana Sands]]
# "Girl Land" – Music by [[Mary Rodgers]], lyrics by [[Bruce Hart (songwriter)|Bruce Hart]], performed by [[Jack Cassidy]] and [[Shirley Jones]]
# "Dudley Pippin and His No-Friend" – Written by Phil Ressner, performed by [[Robert Morse|Bobby Morse]] and [[Marlo Thomas]]
# "Glad to Have a Friend Like You" – Music and lyrics by [[Carol Hall]], performed by [[Marlo Thomas]]

=== Epilogue ===
# "Free to Be... You And Me" – Reprise

=== Bonus tracks ===
'''Different performances from those included in the film – and not included on the original LP or CD'''
# "Let's Hear It for Babies" – Words and music by [[Edward Kleban]] – Performed by Marlo Thomas and Mel Brooks
# "The Sun and the Moon" – Words by [[Elaine Laron]], music by [[Stephen J. Lawrence]] – Performed by [[Dionne Warwick]]
# "Circle of Friends" – Music by [[Stephen J. Lawrence]], lyrics by [[Bruce Hart (songwriter)|Bruce Hart]] – Performed by [[Kris Kristofferson]], [[Rita Coolidge]] and cast

== 40th anniversary ==
In March 2014, [[The Paley Center for Media]] hosted an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of ''Free to Be'', co-moderated by [[Marlo Thomas]] and [[Gloria Steinem]], which included many of the participants in the original project.<ref name=Paley-40th-2014>{{cite web|title=The Paley Center Celebrates: Free to Be…You and Me at 40|url=http://www.paleycenter.org/2014-free-to-be-you-and-me-at-40|publisher=[[The Paley Center for Media]]|access-date=October 19, 2014|format=Video - moderated panel|date=March 11, 2014}}</ref>

=== Book ===
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original project, a book called ''When We Were Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children's Classic and the Difference It Made'' was published.<ref name="Slate-40yrs-2012">{{cite news|last1=Kois|first1=Dan|title=Free To Be: Forty years ago, a bunch of feminists made an album. They wanted to change ... everything.
|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/10/free_to_be_turns_40_how_marlo_thomas_and_friends_pulled_off_a_feminist_children.single.html |access-date=October 19, 2014|work=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |date=October 23, 2012}}</ref><ref name=HuffPo-40th-2013>{{cite news|last1=Thomas|first1=Marlo|title=Free to Be... You and Me -- Forty Years Later|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marlo-thomas/free-to-be-40-years-later_b_2206066.html |access-date=October 19, 2014|work=[[The Huffington Post]]|date=January 30, 2013}}</ref><ref name=CNN-40th-2014>{{cite news|last1=Gumbrecht|first1=Jamie|title=Remembering 'Free to Be... You and Me,' 40 years later|url=http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/living/free-to-be-you-and-me-40-years/|access-date=October 19, 2014|publisher=[[CNN]]|date=March 11, 2014}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Mickenberg, Julia L., and Lynne Vallone. ''The Oxford Handbook of Children's Literature''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. {{ISBN|978-0-195-37978-5}}. {{oclc|608034148}}.
** Paris, Leslie. "Happily Ever After: Free to Be ... You and Me, Second-Wave Feminism, and 1970s American Children's Culture". pp.&nbsp;519–538. 
* Rotskoff, Lori, and [[Laura L. Lovett]]. ''When We Were Free to Be... Looking Back at a Children's Classic and the Difference It Made''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. {{ISBN|978-0-807-83755-9}}. {{oclc|819070475}}.
* Thomas, Marlo. ''Free to Be—a Family''. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1987. {{ISBN|978-0-553-05235-0}}. {{oclc|16089376}}.

== External links ==
* [http://www.freetobefoundation.com/ Free to Be Foundation]
* [https://www.youtube.com/user/ftbfoundation FTB Foundation] on [[YouTube]] - videos available for viewing
* {{IMDb title|qid=Q112351613}}
* {{Discogs master|124538|Free to Be... You and Me|type=album}}

{{Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program}}
{{Michael Jackson}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Free To Be... You And Me}}
[[Category:1970s American television specials]]
[[Category:1972 soundtrack albums]]
[[Category:1974 television specials]]
[[Category:Arista Records soundtracks]]
[[Category:Atalanta]]
[[Category:Bell Records albums]]
[[Category:Book soundtracks]]
[[Category:Children's music albums]]
[[Category:Feminism and society]] <!-- In lieu of a Feminist music category -->
[[Category:Musical theatre television specials]]
[[Category:Peabody Award–winning broadcasts]]
[[Category:Television soundtracks]]
[[Category:United States National Recording Registry recordings]]