It’s early Saturday morning. You don’t need an alarm clock to wake up. It’s 1981, and you are six.

You’re watching cartoons, and all of a sudden you’re learning about the function of conjunctions, bills becoming laws, the magic of multiplication and even the preamble to the Constitution.

It’s your favorite schoolhouse — “Schoolhouse Rock!”

And now it’s back. Thanks to ISU Theatre, you can relive “Conjunction Junction” and “Preamble” live at Fisher Theater.

“Schoolhouse Rock Live!” is the story of a first-time teacher’s morning before the first day of school. Tom, the new teacher, is nervous about teaching, so he flips on the TV to find “Schoolhouse Rock” on. To help Tom prepare for his first day, the characters come out of the TV and give him teaching ideas.

“We’re kind of like his brain. We’re helping him remember ways to teach class and remember what things are to help him out on his first day,” said Cindy Gryte, a sophomore in liberal arts and sciences.

Gryte, along with half of the cast, was also in last spring’s Stars Over Veishea performance “Bye, Bye Birdie,” the last musical done at Iowa State.

Marguerite Bennett Folger, associate professor of theatre and veteran director of musicals, is directing “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” She said this is a fairly new musical — it opened in Chicago in 1993 — and that it hasn’t been on Broadway, but has been very popular at the high-school level.

Bennett Folger chose to direct the musical for audience appeal, the music and the way “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” allows her to be creative.

“The songs are fun. It’s something I also grew up with, even though I was older I knew the songs — it was fun; they’re lively, they’re upbeat,” she said.

“We, as a department realized that ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ was becoming a sort of new trend. [It’s been] very trendy in the last year — there are T-shirts, hats, mugs, magnets for your refrigerator. It’s making a comeback and it’s very popular,” she said.

Gryte enjoys acting in “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” for some of the same reasons.

“It’s so cartoonish. It’s bang, bang, bang, one song after another. There’s not much narrative, not like other musicals where you have a lot of talk and then a song here and there,” she said.

When Gryte tells people she’s in the show, she said even some adults will sing back the words to her. She hopes they’ll do the same at the show.

Matt Sobaski, a sophomore in apparel merchandising, design and production, is also part of the cast.

“It is a great show. It brings back a lot of childhood memories because it was on when we were kids,” he said.

Although “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” was originally scripted for six, Bennett Folger decided on a cast of 10 instead.

“I expanded the cast to 10 to give more people an opportunity to shine on their own so I don’t have to do a lot of overlapping, and it works very well with a cast of 10 as far as the numbers go,” she said.

The cast has been challenged by the amount of music in “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” There are 21 musical numbers with very little dialogue to let them catch their breaths.

“It’s hard to get the songs going and get the choreography going at the same time. There are moments where we’re like, ‘What song are we in now?'” Gryte said.

The play will have a special 11 p.m. performance on Saturday, which will be the first time ISU Theatre has ever had a performance this late, said Greg Henry, head of Iowa State’s theatre department.

“We thought it would be kind of a fun opportunity to do a midnight-madness, late-night kind of thing where we relive our childhoods in front of the TV set,” Henry said.

“In my mind it’s a great opportunity to try something different. ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ has a crazy kind of little mini-cult around it — I mean everyone can sing ‘Conjunction Junction,’ you know?”

“Schoolhouse Rock Live!” will be at Fisher Theater tonight at 7:30. Other performances are Saturday at 11 p.m., Dec. 4-6 at 7:30 p.m. and Dec. 7 at 2:00 p.m.

Tickets can be purchased the night of the performance or in advance all TicketMaster outlets.

Costs are $10, $9 for seniors or $6.50 for students and children.