Free to Be... You and Me

Overview

The original idea to create the album began with Marlo Thomas, who wanted to teach her then-young niece Dionne 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:

I told my sister Terre `it would take Dionne 30 years to get over it (traditional stories) 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 that, I was in the bookstore one day looking around and found this one (picture book) 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 `We'll make a record for Dionne'.

Produced by Carole Hart, with music produced by Stephen J. Lawrence and Bruce Hart, with stories and poems directed by Alan Alda, the album sold nearly a half a million copies right away after label executives had an original sales expectation of maybe selling 15,000 copies tops. Since then, the title has nearly doubled that figure and is well on its way to being a platinum seller as of 2016 according to Soundscan. It 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 1983 has been available on Arista Records. The album sold nearly 500,000 copies right away.

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 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.

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. 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.

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

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.

Television special

The television special, produced by Marlo Thomas and Free to Be Productions, in association with Teru Murakami-Fred Wolf Films, Inc. and cosponsored by the Ms. Foundation, first aired March 11, 1974, on ABC. It earned an 18.6 rating/27 share and went on to win an Emmy. 16-mm prints of the special were also struck, and some schoolchildren from the 1970s and 1980s remember seeing the television special, or the filmstrip based on the special, in their school during that period.

The special appeared occasionally on HBO in the 1980s. It was released on VHS through Vestron Video subsidiary Children's Video Library in 1983. It was also seen on the cable channel TV Land, yet has not been aired on any network since.

A Region 1 DVD of the television special was released in November 2001, and in 2010, a newly remastered version was released featuring a number of new extras including a deleted scene showcasing Dustin Hoffman.

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

1. "Free To Be... You And Me" – Music by Stephen J. Lawrence, Lyrics by Bruce Hart, Performed by The New Seekers
2. "Boy Meets Girl" – Written by Carl Reiner and Peter Stone, Performed by Mel Brooks and Marlo Thomas
3. "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.
4. "Don't Dress Your Cat In An Apron" – Written by Dan Greenburg, Performed by Billy De Wolfe

Act Two

1. "Parents Are People" – Music and Lyrics by Carol Hall, Performed by Harry Belafonte and Marlo Thomas
2. "Housework" – Written by Sheldon Harnick, Performed by Carol Channing
3. "Helping" – Written by Shel Silverstein, Performed by Tom Smothers
4. "Ladies First" – Performed by Marlo Thomas (based on a Shel Silverstein poem about a girl whose insistence on always getting to "go first" simply because she is a girl ends up making her the chosen meal of hungry tigers)
5. "Dudley Pippin And The Principal" – Written by Phil Ressner, Performed by Billy De Wolfe, Bobby Morse, and Marlo Thomas

Act Three

1. "It's All Right to Cry" – Music and Lyrics by Carol Hall, Performed by Rosey Grier
2. "Sisters and Brothers" – Music by Stephen J. Lawrence, Lyrics by Bruce Hart, Performed by The Voices of East Harlem
3. "William's Doll" – Music by Mary Rodgers, Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, Performed by Alan Alda and Marlo Thomas (based on the children's book of the same name, about a boy whose family is perplexed by his desire for a doll to care for)
4. "My Dog is a Plumber" – Written by Dan Greenburg, Performed by Dick Cavett.

Act Four

1. "Atalanta" – Written by Betty Miles, Performed by Alan Alda and Marlo Thomas
2. "Grandma" – Written by Carole Hart, Performed by Diana Sands
3. "Girl Land" – Music by Mary Rodgers, Lyrics by Bruce Hart, Performed by Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones
4. "Dudley Pippin And His No-Friend" – Written by Phil Ressner, Performed by Bobby Morse and Marlo Thomas
5. "Glad To Have A Friend Like You" – Music and Lyrics by Carol Hall, Performed by Marlo Thomas

Epilogue

1. "Free To Be... You And Me" – Reprise

Bonus Tracks

Different performances than those included in the film – and not included on the original LP/CD

1. “The Sun And The Moon” Words by Elaine Laron. Music by Stephen J. Lawrence. – Performed by Dionne Warwick
2. "Love Goes Around in a Circle" INCORRECT TITLE. CORRECT TITLE: "Circle of Friends." Music by Stephen J. Lawrence. Lyrics by Bruce Hart. – Performed by Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge & Cast

40th Anniversary

The Paley Center for Media hosted an event that was co-moderated by Marlo Thomas and Gloria Steinem, and included many of the participants in the original project.

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.

Criticism

Free to Be faced backlash from some conservative religious leaders, including Evangelical author and psychologist James Dobson. Kyle Smith from the New York Post claimed the project emasculated men. A rebuttal to the claim was posted to The Daily Beast.