Picture a sad little scrap of paper, the word 'Bill' written across the front, sitting, rather dejectedly on the steps of Capitol Hill.

He sings, "I'm just a bill, yes, I'm only a bill and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill."

If you're smiling, nodding and singing along, you're no doubt of the generation that spent Saturday mornings with "Schoolhouse Rock!"

The live stage version of the cartoon classic opens this week at the Grand Theatre, featuring 21 of the greatest educational rock songs.

"I think there were 46 when the show was all said and done, but the musical is the top 21 hits — all the familiar ones," said director, Robin Wilks-Dunn. "It's how I did so well on my SAT test, Schoolhouse Rock!"

The six-person cast features a young teacher who is nervous on his first day of school. "In order to calm down, he turns on the TV and the 'Schoolhouse Rock!' cartoons are on," Wilks-Dunn said, "The other five characters are parts of his head, his memory, leading him through the songs."

Some of the featured tunes are, "A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing," "Elbow Room," "Interplanet Janet" and "Three is a Magic Number."

"As kids we were exposed to the cartoons so often, they played between every cartoon," she said. "The songs are so catchy. But, it's more than just a kid's show. Anyone who grew up with the cartoons will get a kick out of it."

Wilks-Dunn and the design team have tried to capture a '70s feel. "It's really a flashback," she said, "in costuming, in the colors, the design. It's really a look into the cartoon world."

The cartoons, which ran originally from 1973-1986 (and again from 1993-1996) were the brainchild of David McCall, whose son was having a hard time remembering his multiplication tables but knew all the words to his favorite rock songs.

McCall's idea landed in creative hands that turned the school lessons — everything from government and math to grammar and science — into short, three-minute cartoons.

ABC cut three minutes out of each of their regular 30 and 60 minutes shows to make room for "Schoolhouse Rock!" And the rest is animated history.

With a cast fresh out of college, "most of them were young when it went off the air, and they don't remember the original cartoons," Wilks-Dunn said.

As rehearsals got under way, most of the cast was learning the classic tunes for the first time. "Our first read-through was just magical. We watched all the songs in the order they are in the show and they loved it," she said of the cast seeing the cartoons for he first time. "I watch them watch these cartoons and realize how much fun this music is. It was great."