LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow, Roots, and Next Gen ... Matt Groening on Huell Howser's retirement ... Gordon and the spider ...
LeVar Burton's Kickstarter campaign for Reading Rainbow is a runaway best-seller
UPDATE 5/29/2014: Reading Rainbow's Kickstarter campaign to get the long-running show on the web and into classrooms was an immediate success. As I write this, LeVar Burton's request for $1m in funding has been almost doubled.
First, not all families have access to tablets. Our goal is to cultivate a love of reading in all children, not just those that have tablets. To reach kids everywhere, we need to be everywhere: we need to be on the web.
Second, a resounding number of teachers have told me that they want Reading Rainbow in their classrooms, where they know it can make a difference. We will provide it, along with the tools that teachers need, including teacher guides, leveling, and dashboards. And in disadvantaged classrooms, we'll provide it for free.
-- Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign
I spoke with LeVar Burton in 2012, soon after he and business partner Mark Wolfe launched the Reading Rainbow app, and you can hear the passion in his voice as we talk about using books to connect kids with ideas and the world around them. We also spoke about "Roots," "Star Trek," and his childhood in Germany.
(Full disclosure: Off-Ramp believes reading is, as they used to say, fundamental.)
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"It must have been an incredible burden for you as an actor," I said, "to be the son of Richard Burton." Without batting an eye, LeVar Burton responds, "Well, he is what we referred to as the white sheep of the family, and so we don't talk about him."
But then, LeVar Burton goes immediately into a story about how, growing up without a father, he'd pretend his father was Peter O'Toole, one of those actors who at that time (the 1960s), embodied civilization.
Burton has added a lot to civilization. He played Kunta Kinte in Roots, the epic miniseries. He brought depth and humor to the role of Geordi LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But the thing he's most proud of is hosting Reading Rainbow for some 25 years, a show that's become a cultural touchstone for generations. It explored books and connected lit to the real world.
The show went off the air a few years ago, the victim, Burton says, of No Child Left Behind, which favored teaching the fundamentals over engaging them further in literature.
But Burton isn't wallowing in the past. Just as there probably won't be another Roots, a nation-uniting media event, he's embraced the idea that maybe Reading Rainbow can thrive best in the new media atmosphere. To that end, this year, Burton and business partner Mark Wolfe revived Reading Rainbow as an app, where it quickly became the fastest growing educational application.
In our wide ranging conversation, Burton and I talk about early influences, his respect for St Augustine, what he learned from comic books, and much more, including "Magical Negroes."
Gordon and the Spider, a cautionary tale
Last time we talked with KPCC's Gordon Henderson, it was about a giant snake.
This time, it's a giant spider.
Well, it seemed giant at the time.
A Charlie Brown Christmas almost didn't get aired
"Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel. I just don't understand Christmas, I guess." -- Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas
On December 12, 1965, a little boy with a round head walked onto more than 15 million American television screens, and became an instant success. But A Charlie Brown Christmas almost didn't air.
Charlie Brown and the gang from Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" had already been animated for TV commercials and titles, but this Christmas show established a pattern for "Peanuts" specials over the next four decades: intelligent stories, stylized animation, real children's voices and a stylish jazz score. Yet A Charlie Brown Christmas had been made quickly and on a minimal budget. Director Bill Melendez feared he'd ended Charlie Brown's TV career before it really began. CBS executives more accustomed to the madcap pace and slapstick humor of Hollywood theatrical cartoons dismissed it as "flat" and "slow." They only aired it because it was already scheduled and they had nothing to show in its place.
But A Charlie Brown Christmas beat Gomer Pyle, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Beverly Hillbillies in the ratings, won an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and made the half-hour animated special a staple of network television. Chuck Jones' adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas followed in 1966, and Rankin-Bass' Frosty the Snowman aired in 1969.
As an animation critic, I've sat through dozens of holiday jollifications over the years. The Chipmunks, the Flintstones, the Smurfs, Yogi Bear, He-Man and Fat Albert have all celebrated Christmas. Countless little animals and kids have "saved" Christmas and kept Santa from forgetting one kid or one town. Elves have reconnoitered houses for Santa's arrival, and reindeer noses have shown through snowy nights. Most holiday specials have been as saccharine and empty as a Twinkie. Only A Charlie Brown Christmas talks about what the holiday actually celebrates.
Bill Melendez told me that when he first read in the script that Linus would recite the Gospel according to St. Luke, he told Charles Schulz, "This is religion. It just doesn't go in a cartoon." Schulz looked at him very coldly and said, "Bill, if we don't do it, who will? We can do it."
And they could. Ironically, Linus' recitation -- one of the most memorable speeches in television history -- gives A Charlie Brown Christmas an honesty that appeals to people of all faiths - and no faith. Almost 50 years after its debut, it's a special that is actually special.
Charles Solomon is author of the newly published The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation: Celebrating Fifty Years of Television Specials.
Dylan Thomas and Dylan Brody, or "A Child's Secular Christmas in America"
A Christmas story from Dylan Brody, the playwright, humorist, author, and regular contributor to The Huffington Post. (The story was recorded at Friday Entertainment and The Improvisation in Hollywood, and appears on Brody's CD "True Enough.")
Simpsons' Creator Matt Groening on Huell Howser's retirement
Just last month, public TV host Huell Howser announced his retirement. You and I know him as the man who loves California more than any other TV personality. But did you know Matt Groening--the man who created The Simpsons--is one of Huell's biggest fans? In fact, he's had Huell on the show twice. Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson talked with Groening to hear more.
Matt Groening doesn't remember when he first saw Huell Howser. But the Portland-born, proud adopted son of California says it's always been a part of his TV watching since he moved to California. "Any time I come across an episode, I have to watch," said Groening.
Groening — who has TiVoed his favorite California's Gold episodes — says his favorite Huell moment is from an obscure episode about a giant catfish. "He follows a guy who bought a tiny fish at an aquarium store, and the fish grew way too big for his tank," said Groening. "And he finally, at the end of the show, donates this fish — which grew up be kind of a giant catfish — to the Self Realization Fellowship."
Groening said was so touched by the episode, he said, he's gone repeatedly to the garden to see the fish with his own eyes.
Behind the scenes at the Simpsons, Groening said, Huell enjoys the respect of the show's entire writing staff. In 2005, an effervescent, twang-y TV host named Howell Huser appeared on the show and name Springfield the "Worst Town Ever." The real life Huell was so delighted by the homage, he later played himself in a 2009 episode.
Groening is a fan of Howser because of his optimism, of course; that Howser can get genuinely and completely enthused by an artichoke festival. He loves the show's production requres minimal editing and even fewer cuts--a refeshing change. But most of all, said Groening, Huell is an irreplaceable California icon: "He's beloved. And people like to say that, 'yeah, he's beloved.' But he's even more beloved than that."
Watch Homer Simpson give a brief tribute to Huell Howser for his 25 years with KCET:
Rachel Bloom joins Mantle, Carolla, Poggioli and more in our All Star Night Before Christmas
Rachel Bloom of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" was in the The Frame studio today, and after she was done, I asked if she'd lend her voice to our annual audio holiday card to listeners, the All Star Night Before Christmas.
"I'd love to!" she said. "Our family reads this every year at Christmas!"
And thirty seconds later, she'd nailed:
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
And now Rachel joins the ranks of celebs and KPCC hosts who hammed it up for us, including A Martinez, Alex Cohen, Larry Mantle, John Horn, Adam Carolla, Salman Rushdie, Kathleen Turner, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, Ted ("Isaac" on the Love Boat) Lange, and John ("Q" on Star Trek) de Lancie. Patt Morrison specifically asked to read the reindeer names, so she say Donder, not Donner. (I'm sure she's right.)
The late great Steve Julian corralled many of the voices a few years ago in his local theater work, so of course I couldn't take his velvety voice out of there. And neither could I switch out Huell Howser, who closes out the poem in signature Huell fashion.
But there's no need. After all, it's at Christmas that we remember old and new friends, those with us in the flesh, and those with us in our hearts.