Title: Ready or Not, Here I Come
Music & Lyrics by: Bob Dorough
Performed by: Bob Dorough
First aired: 1973
My rank: #4

Bob Dorough does it again, creating a nearly perfect piece and this time landing in the number #4 spot for a song about counting by fives.

If there is a Schoolhouse Rock that comes into play several times a week in my head it’s definitely this one. Any time I find myself having to count by fives I hear Bob Dorough’s voice taking over my brain and counting them out – “5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100…ready or not, here I come!”

The music is fast paced, memorable and outright fun. The concept of the short is a guy counting to one hundred while his friends disappear to begin a game of hide and seek. In their standard three minutes, the Schoolhouse Rock creatives manage to completely teach children how to master their multiplication tables for fives. I’d be surprised if any child couldn’t count or multiply by five after watching this episode a few times. It’s a very effective teaching tool. Now I’m not sure if it has latched itself into others’ brains as strongly as it has mine, but I can’t fathom that.

When I went into creating my list I originally had this one pegged to land in the number one spot but it managed to only climb as high as the fourth spot on my top ten favorite Schoolhouse Rocks.

Favorite lines – Of course the counting but also Dorough shouting “Apples, peaches, pumpkin pie / Who’s not ready? Holler ‘I’!”

The lyrics:

Now everybody try to find a good hiding place. This ol’ tree is gonna be the base. I’m gonna close my eyes and hide my face and count to a hundred by fives.
Ready? Go!

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100.
Ready or not, here I come.

Apples, peaches, pumpkin pie,
Who’s not ready, holler “I” – (”I!”)
Oh, alright, I’ll count it again,
But you better get hid, kid.
Here we go.

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 105, 110, 115, 120. There!
A bushel of wheat and a bushel of rye,
Who’s not hid, holler “I.”
Twenty nickels makes a dollar!
I didn’t hear anybody holler.
Five times twenty is one hundred,
Everybody got to be hid.
All eyes open, here I come, whew!

Multiplying by five is a little like countin’ by five. In fact, if you counted along on your fingers as you counted out loud by fives, your fingers would tell you how many fives, you’ve got.

Ok, let’s count it together, now.
Count on your fingers…
One finger for each count out loud…
Get set. Ready? Go!

5, 10, 15, 20 – STOP!
Twenty.
You got four fingers, see, that means four times five is 20.
Let’s try another one.
Get set. Ready? Go!

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 – STOP!
Thirty-five.?
Seven fingers… that’s right,
Seven times five is 35.

Okay, let’s try a longer one. Now when you run out of fingers, at 50 – you see, because ten times five is 50 – then start over with the same fingers and remember that you owe 10 … Get set. Ready? Go!

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 – STOP!
Ten and two, right?
That’s twelve fingers.
Twelve times five is 60.
See how it works?

Now you may notice that if you multiply five by an even number, your product will end in zero; and if you multiply five by an odd number, your product will end in five.

Ok, now let’s do one more game of counting by fives on our fingers.
This is a long one.
Keep going.
Get set. Ready? Go!

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85 – STOP! Eighty-five. Seventeen fingers.
Look at that boy with seventeen fingers stickin’ up.
How d’ya do that, kid?
Anyway, five times 17 is 85.

See, that’s three fives short of a hundred. If you had three more nickels, 15 cents, then added the 15 to the 85, you’d get a hundred, right?

Cause five times 20 is 100.
Everybody got to be hid!

It’s 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100.
Ready or not,
Here I come!