4 ms·

That was a well done show for kids. LeVar Burton can read a book better than me, and I am not ashamed to admit it. He made learning accessible, fun, and cool.

twoodfin 1y ago
He also has that rare Fred Rogers-esque gift of talking in a way children understand without talking down to them. Not unheard of in today’s tap-obsessed world of YouTube Kids & streaming apps, but much harder to find.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  He’s a compelling speaker and onscreen talent, I agree. He’s using his superpowers for good, whatever they are. Being able to connect through a screen wasn’t normalized back then. Educational content needed that personal touch. I think it makes all the difference.
- dotancohen 1y ago
  Adults, too. I might not know what an inverse-tachyon pulse is, but thanks to his convincing demeanor I understand that it could cause a localized spatial distortion.
- chang1 1y ago
  As a child in the late 80s/early 90s, I remember watching Star Trek TNG as new episodes were coming out, and also watching Reading Rainbow (I loved both shows). The episode where Reading Rainbow visited the Star Trek TNG set was one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRz_qpgD-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRz_qpgD-0
  - Verdex 1y ago
    I've got some sort of weak facial blindness, so I did not connect that Burton and La Forge were the same person. As a child learning that two of your favorite people were in fact the same person was pretty mind blowing for me.
jimbob45 1y ago
I was bored to tears and I read more than the average kid. I liked the aesthetic though and I wanted to like it because it seemed wholesome. I’ve always suspected RR is one of those shows that everyone knows they should like so they all talk it up as if they did like it. Kinda like Rust.
- plemer 1y ago
  Or maybe many did genuinely enjoy RR but you just weren’t the target audience? If it was created to combat the summer reading slump, it likely wasn’t targeting already avid readers. FWIW, though, my experience was similar to yours: I read a ton and loved the feel of the show, but the actual content was a little slow.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    I agree that it’s the feel of the show. I grew up with 3 free to air channels, and one of them was a PBS station. The content was better than the competition or the VHS tape collection, or replaying one of the video games.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  I genuinely liked it even though I could read fine. It was an excuse to use the tv when I might not have a good reason to use it instead of someone else otherwise and I enjoyed the content well enough even if I was a couple years older than the intended audience. The public broadcasting shows of that era were weirdly good imo, with Mr Rogers and Shirley Lewis doing puppets, but wholesome too. Ghost Writer was ahead of its time and deserves a post of its own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_(1992_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_(1992_TV_series) > The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences. > Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs. His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost. Wishbone has costumes and a dog for your dramatic re-enactments of books with a dog actor in the lead role. This is crazy town, and I’m here for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_(TV_series)
monkeyelite 1y ago
> LeVar Burton can read a book better than me, and I am not ashamed to admit it. This is a weird comment. He’s a professional actor. I hope he does
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  He makes the hard thing look easy. This wasn’t a backhanded compliment but a genuine one. He isn’t acting per se, but he does voice act the stories. It was audiobooks and ASMR sorta before those things were cool. He does a fantastic job with the words on the page and also goes on-site to film IRL things from the books. It’s a simple premise and it works. It doesn’t have to be surprising to be enjoyable and engaging.
  - pfannkuchen 1y ago
    Why are you looking for a hyper stimulus? Man didn’t evolve in an environment where stories were told by people who’d won a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability. Stories were told by family. If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      > Why are you looking for a hyper stimulus? Man didn’t evolve in an environment where stories were told by people who’d won a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability. Stories were told by family. > If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present. Reading Rainbow is the opposite of a hyperstimulus compared to most tv programs, let alone “educational” tv programming. I wasn’t seeking a hyperstimulus. You don’t even know me. I could read and write before kindergarten, which was my first schooling outside the home.
      - pfannkuchen 1y ago
        > compared to most tv programs Modern media is so replete with hyper stimuli that it is often hard to see where the line is between what is evolutionarily congruent and what is greater. I don’t see how knowing you is relevant. This is my position on what most people do. Either you have a different viewpoint on this than the mainstream and yet arrived at the very same conclusions, or I essentially am familiar with your viewpoint in this area. What have I gotten wrong?
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Whatever works, I guess. It made a difference, although it was corny somewhere between `Punky Brewster` and `Captain Planet`. Vintage `Sesame Street` is legit cool.

twoodfin 1y ago

He also has that rare Fred Rogers-esque gift of talking in a way children understand without talking down to them. Not unheard of in today’s tap-obsessed world of YouTube Kids & streaming apps, but much harder to find.

aspenmayer 1y ago
He’s a compelling speaker and onscreen talent, I agree. He’s using his superpowers for good, whatever they are. Being able to connect through a screen wasn’t normalized back then. Educational content needed that personal touch. I think it makes all the difference.
dotancohen 1y ago
Adults, too. I might not know what an inverse-tachyon pulse is, but thanks to his convincing demeanor I understand that it could cause a localized spatial distortion.
chang1 1y ago
As a child in the late 80s/early 90s, I remember watching Star Trek TNG as new episodes were coming out, and also watching Reading Rainbow (I loved both shows). The episode where Reading Rainbow visited the Star Trek TNG set was one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRz_qpgD-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRz_qpgD-0
- Verdex 1y ago
  I've got some sort of weak facial blindness, so I did not connect that Burton and La Forge were the same person. As a child learning that two of your favorite people were in fact the same person was pretty mind blowing for me.

jimbob45 1y ago

I was bored to tears and I read more than the average kid. I liked the aesthetic though and I wanted to like it because it seemed wholesome. I’ve always suspected RR is one of those shows that everyone knows they should like so they all talk it up as if they did like it. Kinda like Rust.

plemer 1y ago
Or maybe many did genuinely enjoy RR but you just weren’t the target audience? If it was created to combat the summer reading slump, it likely wasn’t targeting already avid readers. FWIW, though, my experience was similar to yours: I read a ton and loved the feel of the show, but the actual content was a little slow.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  I agree that it’s the feel of the show. I grew up with 3 free to air channels, and one of them was a PBS station. The content was better than the competition or the VHS tape collection, or replaying one of the video games.
aspenmayer 1y ago
I genuinely liked it even though I could read fine. It was an excuse to use the tv when I might not have a good reason to use it instead of someone else otherwise and I enjoyed the content well enough even if I was a couple years older than the intended audience. The public broadcasting shows of that era were weirdly good imo, with Mr Rogers and Shirley Lewis doing puppets, but wholesome too. Ghost Writer was ahead of its time and deserves a post of its own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_(1992_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_(1992_TV_series) > The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences. > Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs. His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost. Wishbone has costumes and a dog for your dramatic re-enactments of books with a dog actor in the lead role. This is crazy town, and I’m here for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_(TV_series)

monkeyelite 1y ago

> LeVar Burton can read a book better than me, and I am not ashamed to admit it. This is a weird comment. He’s a professional actor. I hope he does

aspenmayer 1y ago
He makes the hard thing look easy. This wasn’t a backhanded compliment but a genuine one. He isn’t acting per se, but he does voice act the stories. It was audiobooks and ASMR sorta before those things were cool. He does a fantastic job with the words on the page and also goes on-site to film IRL things from the books. It’s a simple premise and it works. It doesn’t have to be surprising to be enjoyable and engaging.
- pfannkuchen 1y ago
  Why are you looking for a hyper stimulus? Man didn’t evolve in an environment where stories were told by people who’d won a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability. Stories were told by family. If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    > Why are you looking for a hyper stimulus? Man didn’t evolve in an environment where stories were told by people who’d won a massive intertribe tournament of story telling ability. Stories were told by family. > If child requires hyper stimulus to be engaged in this area, suspect other hyper stimulus present. Reading Rainbow is the opposite of a hyperstimulus compared to most tv programs, let alone “educational” tv programming. I wasn’t seeking a hyperstimulus. You don’t even know me. I could read and write before kindergarten, which was my first schooling outside the home.
    - pfannkuchen 1y ago
      > compared to most tv programs Modern media is so replete with hyper stimuli that it is often hard to see where the line is between what is evolutionarily congruent and what is greater. I don’t see how knowing you is relevant. This is my position on what most people do. Either you have a different viewpoint on this than the mainstream and yet arrived at the very same conclusions, or I essentially am familiar with your viewpoint in this area. What have I gotten wrong?

burnt-resistor 1y ago

Whatever works, I guess. It made a difference, although it was corny somewhere between `Punky Brewster` and `Captain Planet`. Vintage `Sesame Street` is legit cool.