Bob Dorough created the music for popular ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ shorts such as ‘Conjunction Junction.’

Bob Dorough, the musician behind the Schoolhouse Rock series of popular animated shorts that aired on ABC from 1973-1985, died April 23 at his home in Mount Bethel, Pa. He was 94.

A jazz musician born in 1923 in Cherry Hill, Ark., he came up with the first Schoolhouse Rock tune in the early 1970s after meeting a New York ad man who wanted a song that could help his kids learn multiplication. That lead Dorough to write “Three is a Magic Number,” which was put to animation and lead to Schoolhouse Rock.

Dorough wrote and performed many of the songs in the series, which gave kids catchy tunes they used to remember lessons about math, grammar, science and civics.

Source: Deadline