The More You Know

The More You Know
Production company(s)	General Electric, NBC Universal, Comcast
Release
Original network	Networks of NBC
Original release	9 September 1989 – present
Chronology
Preceded by	One to Grow On (1983–1989)
External links
Website

The More You Know is a series of public service announcements (PSAs) broadcast on the NBC family of channels in the United States and other locations, featuring educational messages. These PSAs are broadcast regularly during NBC's programming in primetime, late night, and Saturday morning.

The spots feature personalities from various NBC shows. Tom Brokaw was the first person to do a The More You Know spot; it aired on NBC in September 1989 (these replaced the One to Grow On PSAs that were used from 1983 to 1989).

A senior executive at NBC, Dr. Rosalyn Weinman, developed the campaign and wrote most of the on-air PSAs after putting an advisory council together. She ran the campaign for ten years.The first 'comet trail' star logo was designed by Steve Bernstein and later produced by Paul Johnson on an animation stand using a slit scan technique at R/Greenberg Associates (now R/GA Digital Studios) in Manhattan. They were later updated using three-dimensional computer graphics.

In 2010 and 2011, US President Barack Obama participated in the campaign, encouraging parents to be more involved in their children's education.^[1][2] Several past presidents have also participated, including President Bill Clinton and President George H. W. Bush.^[3]

"El Poder de Saber" (The Power of Knowledge) is The More You Know's sister campaign on Telemundo.^[4] While the other U.S. broadcast networks have similar campaigns, namely CBS Cares^[5] and Disney-ABC's Be Inspired,^[6] The More You Know is likely the most well known.

On February 24, 2016, NBC announced that it would launch a new Saturday morning E/I block named after the campaign, programmed by Litton Entertainment and replacing its in-house NBC Kids block.^[7]

Parodies

The campaign has been widely parodied, with references in The Penguins of Madagascar, Surviving the World (a webcomic), Will & Grace, 30 Rock, Family Guy,^[8] Drawn Together, Scrubs, an America-themed episode of X-Play, recurring parodies on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, a running segment on The Daily Show called "The Less You Know," parodies on The Showbiz Show with David Spade, and an April 2006 series of NBC-produced mock PSAs starring the cast of The Office. A sketch on Saturday Night Live portrayed the sometimes-fatal effects of CPR.^[9] A parody was also on MADtv mentioning the "[nonexistent] danger of conga lines", and another one which spouted random obvious facts. Spliced has a parody of public-service announcements in general (and The More You Know in particular), in brief segments called "Knowing is Growing". The campaign is also featured on many podcasts including The Florida Project.

During the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show (which itself was broadcast by NBC), performer Katy Perry closed the performance with a rendition of "Firework" while riding on a shooting star; following the show, comparisons were drawn to the former logo of The More You Know, as captured by user-created edits of photos from the scene.^[10]

See also

• CBS Cares, a currently running CBS PSA campaign
• Read More About It, a PSA campaign created by a joint venture between CBS and the Library of Congress

References

External links

• "The More You Know" site
• The More You Know at the Internet Movie Database
• NBC.com - The Office PSAs