Important things that happened when I was five years old: I became a big sister, I lost my first tooth, I went to Kindergarten, I had the chicken pox, and I found out the guy from Star Trek and the guy from Reading Rainbow were the same guy. It was a very formative year for young me.
The first episode of Reading Rainbow’s fifth season, The Bionic Bunny Show, first aired in August 1988. The Summer of '88 was for me the transition time between kindergarten and first grade and I watched Reading Rainbow on my local PBS affiliate, WHYY. It was a part of the greatest children's programming block in the history of public television, along with Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood (and if you are a certain age, you might argue for the inclusion of the short-lived and delightfully bizarre Zoobilee Zoo).
In this episode, host LeVar Burton took viewers behind the scenes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to explain how television shows are made. The episode begins with a reading of the book The Bionic Bunny Show by Marc Brown, a behind-the-scenes tale of a TV show that is in-universe with Brown’s other books about Arthur the aardvark. Hey kids! Superheroes aren’t real, they’re just people like you and me. It's a solid message for a five-year-old, especially five-year-old me, who had a hard time reconciling animation as something separate from reality (big imagination that really, really wanted to visit the land of My Little Pony).
Cut back to the set of Star Trek, and Burton takes us to a rehearsal for the cast. He is literally wearing a Starfleet uniform and I know my young mind failed to make the connection. I’d like to believe that I thought he was a guest star or just trying it on for fun, but I was just not smart like that! I know this because the Ah-Ha! moment that happens next is seared in my memory.
LeVar Burton takes a seat after finishing his make-up and pulls Geordi’s visor over his eyes. Thunder crashed in my brain! It’s like catching Clark Kent changing into Superman, only cooler. LeVar Burton is both the host of Reading Rainbow and Geordi LaForge! The shock of this discovery is still fresh in my mind after 33 years.
Of course, the reason this moment has stayed with me is because LeVar Burton was a pivotal figure in my childhood viewing. As a librarian-in-training, I can easily cite Reading Rainbow as influential. Reading Rainbow cultivated an appreciation of and, for many of us in my generation, a love of reading. It stoked our curiosities and taught us that reading was the gateway to information. It showed us that language can be more than simple communication, it can be art. Many in my generation grew to revere the written word, and we in turn continue to spread that love. Reading Rainbow was the first book blog. Without it there is no BookTok, no Goodreads, and none of the Book Blogs like this that fight to break through the sometimes-questionable information dumps of the internet.
And then there was Star Trek: The Next Generation. The future of humanity is so close to utopian according to Star Trek. We are exploring the stars, letting go of the conquering and imperialistic sins of our forbearers. And everyone is invited on the adventure. Burton’s representation as Geordi LaForge, chief engineer of the Enterprise, combated the stereotypes of that era on television both in terms of race and being differently abled. And he was as cool as the guy who hosted Reading Rainbow.
As a more cynical adult, I know I’ll never get to see humanity reach the potential of Star Trek, but I have hope that future generations will get there. And I learned early on from Reading Rainbow that education and equal access to books and learning are some of the key tools to get us there.
For those wondering why I wanted you read my long ode to LeVar Burton, Reading Rainbow, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, it is because, duh, LeVar Burton should be hosting Jeopardy! Unlike other pretenders to the throne, he has more than earned the crown through his charity work, good nature, and by being the guy who significantly encouraged all of today’s Jeopardy! contestants to read and learn more when they were young. He influenced a generation by making intelligence cool, and there's nothing cooler than being on Jeopardy!
(Follow me on Twitter if you want to hear my less polite thoughts on Jeopardy! hosting debacle)
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