[2] The series follows the adventures of eccentric teacher Ms. Frizzle and her eight students as they explore the wonders of science on their exciting field trips.

The idea for the show was developed by Craig Walker (former Vice President and Senior Editorial Director of Scholastic).

The company's president Deborah Forte explained that adapting the books into an animated TV show was the opportunity to help kids "learn about science in a fun way".

[3] During this time, Forte had been hearing concerns from parents and teachers about how to improve science education for kids and minorities all across the globe.

The theme song, called "Ride on the Magic School Bus", was written by Peter Lurye and performed by Little Richard.

[4] The voice director was Susan Blu; two of the writers for the series were Brian Meehl and Jocelyn Stevenson.

In the United States, the original run of The Magic School Bus was broadcast on PBS from 1994 until 1997 as part of its daytime children's block.

Since 2005, Canada-based studio Nelvana Limited acquired the TV series and sold it to the Latin American versions of Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.

In a 2007 column for the online edition of The Wall Street Journal, Jason Fry expressed an overall appreciation for the series, but wrote that the episode "The Magic School Bus Gets Programmed" illustrated the rapid pace of technological change over the ten years since it first aired.

He explained the episode presented an old-fashioned "technology-gone-amok" story about the respective roles of programmer and machine that was no longer relevant to children growing up in 2007.

He suggested that an updated version of the episode would have focused instead on the perils of Internet searches and on network concepts surfacing at the time.

On June 10, 2014, a new series was announced by Netflix and Scholastic Media titled The Magic School Bus 360°.