Schoolhouse Rock! began as a commercial advertising venture by David McCall. The idea came to McCall when he noticed one of his sons, who was having trouble in school remembering the multiplication tables, knew the lyrics to many current rock songs. The first song recorded was “Three Is A Magic Number”, by Bob Dorough. It tested well, so a children’s record was compiled and released.

When a print workbook version fell through, McCall’s company decided to produce their own animated versions of the songs, which they then sold to ABC based on a demo animation of the original “Three Is A Magic Number” for its Saturday morning lineup. They pitched their idea to Michael Eisner, who was at the time head of ABC’s children’s programming division. Eisner brought longtime Warner Bros. cartoonist/director Chuck Jones to the meeting to also listen to the presentation.