Music like Schoolhouse Rock

Schoolhouse Rock! is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films (and later, videos) that aired during the Saturday morning children's programming block on the U.S. television network ABC. The themes covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics. The series' original run lasted from 1973 to 1984; it was later revived with both old and new episodes airing from 1993 to 1996. Additional episodes were produced in 2009 for direct-to-video release.

The series was the idea of David McCall, an advertising executive of McCaffrey and McCall, who noticed his young son was struggling with learning multiplication tables, despite being able to memorize the lyrics of every single Rolling Stones song. McCall then hired musician Bob Dorough to write a song that would teach multiplication, which became "Three is a Magic Number." Tom Yohe, an illustrator at McCaffrey and McCall, heard the song and created visuals to go along with it. Radford Stone, who was in charge of ABC, suggested they pitch it as a television series, which caught the attention of Michael Eisner, then vice president of ABC, and cartoon director Chuck Jones.