Back in the heyday of Disney's One Saturday Morning, which was a block that dropped all the cartoons aired in favor of a block that aired mostly new cartoons made by Disney, it actually had some shorts that aired in between shows, from the slapstick comedy of The Monkey Boys to gags like How Much Stuff Could An Elephant Crush. Great Minds Think for Themselves is one of those shorts, as it, alongside Science Court, were made to help ABC get the required amount of E/I programming required by the FCC.
So the short starts with a narrator saying "Great Minds Think Alike" with the phrase in some form, only for the Genie from Aladdin (voiced by the late Robin Williams) to correct them with the show's title, and proceed to tell of a famous person from history whose way of thinking helped changed the world, despite the harsh criticism they got during their life. From John Muir and his crusade to save the forests, to Clara Barton who treated wounded soldiers on the battlefield during the Civil War, to Jackie Robinson and how he changed the game of baseball, the episodes never twist the story. However, to keep kids from being bored, they had Genie do some improv that added comedy to the educational segments, and the shorts even added caricatures of the historical figures to help tell their story. It was one of the good shorts One Saturday Morning had, and it was indeed educational.
So the short starts with a narrator saying "Great Minds Think Alike" with the phrase in some form, only for the Genie from Aladdin (voiced by the late Robin Williams) to correct them with the show's title, and proceed to tell of a famous person from history whose way of thinking helped changed the world, despite the harsh criticism they got during their life. From John Muir and his crusade to save the forests, to Clara Barton who treated wounded soldiers on the battlefield during the Civil War, to Jackie Robinson and how he changed the game of baseball, the episodes never twist the story. However, to keep kids from being bored, they had Genie do some improv that added comedy to the educational segments, and the shorts even added caricatures of the historical figures to help tell their story. It was one of the good shorts One Saturday Morning had, and it was indeed educational.
