With 73 years of experience under its spangled belt, Radio City Music Hall’s “Christmas Spectacular” knows pretty much exactly what it takes to keep kids enthralled and parents pleased. The three dozen Rockettes are as leggily precise as ever, director John Dietrich keeps the action chugging along, and the glut of toys screeches to a halt with a glut of adoring shepherds (and their sheep) for the living nativity.

An opening 3D movie starts things off with an unfortunate splash of commercialism, filling Times Square with billboards of the show’s sponsors and making a gratuitous swing past Madison Square Garden, which has the same corporate owner as Radio City. After that, though, Mr. Dietrich confines the hard sell to the lobby, which is stuffed with dozens of souvenirs, from snow globes to Santa Claus crazy straws to the “3 Kicking Rockette Ornament – With Bonus.” (These efforts could per haps be extended to some of the current Broadway offerings: “Seascape” sand globes! “Sweeney Todd” crazy straws! Or perhaps not.)

Labor difficulties resulted in more than two weeks of prerecorded music, but all appears to be forgiven between the ownership and the musicians: The 36-piece Radio City Orchestra sounded effortlessly plush and gave most of the show’s corny orchestrations an agreeable polish. The same cannot be said, unfortunately, for the singing efforts of David Chase and Grant Sturiale’s treacly vocal arrangements. In fact, the vocals overall are negligible, although Becky Barta is an underused powerhouse as Mrs. Claus.

At one recent weekend show (the third of the day and 14th of the weekend, mind you), the live donkeys and camels looked as invested in the living nativity as could be expected, young Angelica Generosa danced splendidly in the “Nutcracker” sequence, and the snowflakes landed on the audience right on cue.

Most important, the 36 Rockettes were kicking as high as ever. Their routines make “Riverdance” look like something you’d see in a fourth-floor walk-up in the East Village. Still, those inexhaustible dancers made it look like there’s nothing they’d rather do than negotiate the “March of the Wooden Soldiers” yet again.

A new song for Santa (the robust Charles Edward Hall) and the company, called “I See Christmas Everywhere,” is a bit of a chore, and the North Pole sequence could stand to lose a good 10 minutes. Not even Linus Van Pelt could manage the whiplash-inducing veer from the cute dancing reindeer to a somber salute to the Bible (the world’s “greatest source of history – and of prophecy”) and the livestock-heavy living nativity that follows.

But like those wooden soldiers, who buckle and strain and finally collapse as the Rockettes lined up in front of them topple backward, not many will be able to resist the mix of gloppy sentiment and drill-sergeant precision here. Technically, 1 million audience members a year could be wrong, but they have the right idea this time.

Until January 2 (1260 Sixth Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets, 212-307-1000).