Ride on the Magic School Bus is the theme song of the Magic School Bus franchise. It was sung by Little Richard in the 1994-97 series, and by Lin-Manuel Miranda in The Magic School Bus Rides Again. The song is in the key of E major, and a key change to F major happens at the end. The tempo is at 113 BPM.
Lyrics
Original
Italic indicates speaking
- Professor Valerie Frizzle: Seatbelts, everyone!
- Arnold: Please let this be a normal field trip.
- Wanda and co.: With the Friz—no way!
- Arnold: Uhh!
- (song begins)
- Cruising on down Main Street, you're relaxed and feeling good (Yeah!)
- Next thing that you know, you're seeing (Wa-ha-ha-hoo!)
- An octopus in the neighborhood?
- Surfing on a sound wave, swinging through the stars
- Take a left at your intestine, take your second right past Mars
- On the Magic School Bus, navigate a nostril (Achoo!)
- Climb on the Magic School Bus; spank a plankton too (Take that!)
- On our Magic School Bus, raft a river of lava
- On the Magic School Bus, it's such a fine thing to do! (Whoa!)
- So strap your bones right to the seat; come on in and don't be shy
- Just to make your day complete, you might get baked into a pie (on the Magic School Bus)
- Step inside, it's a wilder ride!
- Come on, ride on the Magic School Bus
Rides Again
- Ms. Fiona Frizzle: Seatbelts, everyone!
- Arnold: Please let this be a normal field trip.
- Dorothy Ann and co.: With the Friz—no way!
- Arnold: Uhh!
- (song begins)
- Cruising on down Main Street, you're relaxed and feeling good (Yeah!)
- Next thing that you know, you're seeing (Woohoo!)
- What? An octopus in the neighborhood?
- Surfing on a sound wave, swinging through the stars
- Take a left at your intestine, take your second right past Mars
- On the Magic School Bus, navigate a nostril (Achoo!)
- Climb on the Magic School Bus; spank a plankton too (Take that!)
- On our Magic School Bus, raft a river of lava
- On the Magic School Bus, it's such a fine thing to do! (Whoa!)
- (Strap, strap) So strap your bones right to the seat; come on in and don't be shy
- Just to make your day complete, you might get baked into a pie (on the Magic School Bus)
- Step inside, it's a wilder ride!
- Come on, ride on the Magic School Bus
Trivia
- Most of the original series' closed captions (Warner's captioning) misspell "Friz" as "Frizz". In the DCMP captions, it says "Friz".
- In the Rides Again version, most of the scenes are ripped directly from "Monster Power", "The Magnetic Mambo", "Carlos Gets the Sneezes", and "The Tales Glaciers Tell".
- Shots of the theme in the 2020 art style are used as the end credits in "Kids in Space".
- A rock cover plays in the 2002-05 DVD menus, the ending credits for "A Magic School Bus Halloween" and the first airing of the Holiday Special. A different rock cover plays in the ending credits for the main 26 episodes of the Rides Again series, and the menu for the "Blast Off" DVD.
- The Bus' parachute and raft are orange in the theme song, and yellow in "Monster Power".
- In most dubs of Rides Again, the "Octopus in the neighborhood" line is sung rather than spoken. The tune that it is sung in stays the same throughout each dub.
- An instrumental version of the theme (without guitar) plays in the TLC airings during the original end credits.
Differences between The Magic School Bus and The Magic School Bus Rides Again
- In the original version, Wanda says "With the Friz?". In the main Rides Again opening and the ending for Kids in Space, Dorothy Ann instead says the line, probably due to her absence in the original "no way!"
- During the line "Navigate a nostril", Ralphie sneezes in the original version. Carlos sneezes in the Rides Again theme. (probably due to them sneezing in their titular episodes)
- During the line "Surfin' on a sound wave", Liz spins a turntable in the Rides Again version, and a guitarist plays an electric guitar in the original theme.
- In the original, Wanda says "Take that!". In the Rides Again version, Jyoti says it instead.
- In the Rides Again version, the lines "Strap your bones right to the seat/come on in and don't be shy" have a different melody than in the original version.
- During the line, "You might get baked into a pie", the Bus emerges from the baker's pie in the 1994 version, from a school secretary's pie in the Rides Again opening, and from a Walkervillian woman in her kitchen in the ending for "Kids in Space".
- In the original series, a title card appears at the end of the theme song that reads the episode's title. Title cards for the episodes don't appear in Rides Again. However, in the Greek dub of Rides Again, an announcer reads the episode title.
Goofs (1994 version)
- When Ms. Frizzle is driving into the ocean, the Bus' tires change colors slightly.
- When Ms. Frizzle pulls the lever in the bus, Ralphie is shown in the background.
- When the close up of the Bus is shown during the line "Next thing that you know, you'll see an octopus in the neighborhood", Ralphie is not inside. In fact, only Arnold, Phoebe, and Keesha are on the Bus, the rest of the class isn't there.
- During the line "Navigate a nostril", the Bus' back wheel flickers when it is inside the nostril. This is because the wheel is missing in a few frames, and then visible in the next.
- During the line "Surfing on a sound wave", Carlos is missing in one frame.
