Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Reading Rainbow
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2005 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
I should admit to you all that I've been deleting the Reading Rainbow episodes from the TiVo left and right. All that we've saved: the one with Star Trek bloopers and "Simon's Book" because it contains the great song "At the Bindery".
Right now I'm on a quest to watch two faintly-remembered episodes. The first-ever episode, "Tight Times", includes the song "Check it Out!" in which children and LeVar Burton sing and dance throughout a library. Maybe it was a pilot and I'll never get to see it in the course of reruns.
The second is more elusive. I dimly recall a scene where Burton considers dropping out of a biking or running race, and small devil/angel versions of Burton attempt to persuade him to take various courses of action. Even though Burton (of course) takes the right course of action, people summarizing this episode for the web seem reluctant to talk about airborne demons. So I must guess. It might be "Sports Pages" or "Knots on a Counting Rope," but I'm betting it's "The Tortoise and the Hare". Hey Leonard, a friendly tortoise!
