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Schoolhouse Rock!, a series of educational shorts that taught kids concepts in math, grammar, science, history, civics and government, debuted on ABC’s Saturday morning lineup in January 1973 with the classic song “3 Is A Magic Number.” To celebrate the classic series’ 50th anniversary, Ryan Seacrest hosts a singalong special, where different artists sing and dance to classic tunes from the series, as clips from the original episodes are shown.

SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK! 50th ANNIVERSARY SINGALONG: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In the special, Julianne Hough sings “Interplanet Janet,” stars of Disney’s Broadway shows sing “A Noun Is A Person, Place Or Thing,” Raven-Symoné and Kal Penn sing “Interjections,” The Black-Eyed Peas sing both “3 Is A Magic Number” and “Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla,” Ne-Yo sings “Verb: That’s What’s Happening,” Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear sing “Unpack Your Adjectives” with the help of Fortune Feimster, Jason Biggs and Jenny Mollen sing “I’m Just A Bill,” Retta sings “Ready Or Not, Here I Come,” and Derek Hough and Hayley Erbert dance to “Figure Eight.”

There is some celebrity commentary interspersed, with Quinta Brunson and Lisa Ann Walter from Abbott Elementary and Shaquille O’Neal giving their memories of the show. Some of the participating artists also give their memories. Many cite “Conjunction Junction,” even though it’s not one of the featured songs.

What Series Will It Remind You Of?: As Seacrest points out when he “FaceTimes” with Derek Hough, the Schoolhouse Rock! 50th Anniversary Singalong is pretty similar to the numerous Disney Family Singalong specials, many episodes of which Hough has participated in.

Performance Worth Watching: Ne-Yo’s rendition of “Verb: That’s What’s Happening” hews closest to the original, and the clips that are shown with it convey how significant it was to have a Black superhero (Verb himself!) as the centerpiece of the episode.

Memorable Dialogue: Speaking of “Conjunction Junction,” Shaq trying to sing it is pretty damn funny.

What Age Group Is This For?: We’re not sure. Because it’s a singalong, the words are on the bottom of the screen, inviting us Gen Xers who watched the show as kids to bring our kids in on the fun. But we really don’t think kids of today will connect with Schoolhouse Rock! the same way we did, given that there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot else on during the show’s heyday.

Our Take: What we stated in the section above is the main issue we had with this special. As one of those aforementioned Gen Xers, we wanted to see the full songs as they aired at the time, not people singing and dancing to the songs at the sacrifice of most of the original animation. And without the animation, the songs aren’t going to bring in any youngs who might be watching.

One of the things that people forget about Schoolhouse Rock! was that it was both the music and the animation — as cheesy as it was at times — together that hooked us in. We’ve heard many of these songs modernized in the past — how many of us have the yellow CD case from Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks in our collections? — so hearing them being sung by a new group of people isn’t really all that novel for us.

So, why not show us the animation in full? Spruce it up if you need to in order to bring it up to HD standards. It would sure as hell be a lot more entertaining than watching, say, Jason Biggs dressed up as a bill. The songs that were the most faithful to the originals, like Ne-Yo’s and Retta’s, are the ones we actively sung along with.

One of the more interesting aspects of this special is that the songs are from the Multiplication Rock, Grammar Rock, and Science Rock subheadings. Only one of the songs, “I’m Just A Bill,” was from the America Rock subheading. We’ve talked about how, while those episodes about U.S. history and how our government functions taught us a lot, it also had some of the episodes that would be the most problematic for kids today. So it’s understandable why the producers stayed away from that sub-series.

Speaking of “Bill,” Seacrest mentioned that it’s been the most parodied song from the entire series, which just made us think of the way The Simpsons handled it…

Our Call: SKIP IT. Do yourself a favor and show your kids the originals on Disney+, and pop in Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks to satisfy your own need for nostalgia. The Schoolhouse Rock! 50th Anniversary Singalong is just going to frustrate both you and your kids, and no one wants that.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.