UPDATE: Looks like Reading Rainbow will be making a comeback, with LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter hitting its goal — and then some — within 24 hours of its launch Wednesday morning. After closing out its first day by hitting $1.5 million, by Thursday morning pledges had topped $1.6 million and climbing. Reading Rainbow joins Veronica Mars as the second Kickstarter ever to reach its goal on the same day it launched. Watch LeVar get emotional when they hit the million-dollar mark:
Long-running PBS educational series Reading Rainbow ended its 26-year run in 2009, but host LeVar Burton thinks the show’s goal of inspiring youngsters to read is more necessary than ever.
That’s why LeVar has launched a new Kickstarter campaign to revive Reading Rainbow online, and he believes the web is a natural home for the show when it comes to reaching his young target audience.
“You take advantage of where kids are,”; LeVar says in an interview with The Verge. “Back in the ’80s that was in front of the television set. Today, you have to have access to the web. Universal access is really what this effort is all about.”;
To accomplish this, LeVar’s Kickstarter is trying to raise $1 million in order to bring Reading Rainbow to the web, as well as creating a special version designed for teachers to use in classrooms. In addition, LeVar also wants to set up a non-profit organization that will distribute Reading Rainbo to low-income schools for free (schools and individual users will pay a subscription fee of about $60 a year).
To promote the Kickstarter campaign, LeVar produced this video (featuring a special cameo from one of his former Star Trek: The Next Generation cast-mates):
If LeVar does manage to resurrect the show, he should totally use Jimmy Fallon’s Jim Morrison-inspired version of the Reading Rainbow theme song:
