'Reading Rainbow' project becomes most-backed Kickstarter of all-time

[Shawn Knight]

Actor LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow and Star Trek fame launched a Kickstarter campaign in late May. He initially set out to raise $1 million to help bring the children's television series to more platforms, develop a version of Reading Rainbow that teachers can use in the classroom and be able to give it to low-income schools free of charge.

The campaign spread across the Internet like wildfire and within the first day, backers shattered the primary $1 million goal. The project continued forward with numerous stretch goals and when it finally came to an end on Wednesday afternoon, more than $5.4 million had been pledged.

In the process, Burton's Kickstarter earned the distinction of becoming the most widely-backed campaign of all-time.

Reading Rainbow originally aired on PBS from 1983 through 2006 with Burton hosting the show throughout its entire run. Reruns aired until 2009 and after it all came to an end, Burton purchased the rights to the show and launched a tablet app in 2012.

Even still, Burton realized that his work was far from over as not all families have access to tablets. Most families do, however, have access to the Internet in some fashion, hence the Kickstarter campaign.

In an effort to garner some last-minute pledges, Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane agreed to match up to $1 million in pledges over the $4 million mark. It would seem that McFarlane is now on the hook as donations climbed above the $5 million mark.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/57303-reading-rainbow-project-becomes-most-backed-kickstarter-all-time.html

 

[davislane1]

Where's his visor?

 

[misor]

Where's his visor?

replaced by an ocular implant.

if I were a 'corny joker', I'd say this:

...backers shattered the primary $1 million goal by a very close one cent.

seriously, more children's tv shows are needed to combat the effects of violent-oriented 'mainstream' tv shows.

Philippines has a tv show for children in the past. (I don't know its status now.)

During around 1994 and when Batibot ran, ABS-CBN's ETV (Educational Television) showed some educational shows to children. Namely, Sineskwela- a Science show about the young gang traveling anywhere in order to discover about Science. I only know about few characters of Sineskwela like Atom( a young boy with green suit and had an ability to shrink in order to discover anything small like particles, insects,etc.), and teacher Wacky (a bumbling professor in Science who owns a flying jeepney in the Season 3). Then, another ETV show debuted was Hiraya Manawari-tells about different characters with different moral values in every episode.
Bayani- about two kids travel in time from the old woman's ancient book that contains the details about the different Philippine heroes like the famous Jose Rizal, Bonifacio, Lapu-lapu and others. What's great about Bayani is that the Philippine heroes were portrayed by different famous actors and actresses like Eric Quizon who played as Jose Rizal. Followed by another ETV show Math Tinik-tells about a woman who is the owner of her laboratory,teacher and has magic about Math in order to help kids with their Math problems in every episode. Lastly, Epol Apple- tells about learning English with the help of the man portrayed by Bodjie Pascua, the man who worked in Batibot. All ofthe shows were shown in ABS-CBN every mornings in different schedules until 2003 The ETV shows were pretty hit for children especially for elementary students. ETV released also different volumes of all of the ETV shows in VHS tapes and even they gave it to many public and private schools in the Philippines. Thus, the shows from ETV were available in Knowledge Channels in order to help students in learning lessons in each subject. As of now, I never heard anything about Knowledge Channel nor about the ETV shows. I even manage to watched some of it's shows but only Sineskwela and Math Tinik were available in Studio 23 last year.

source: sketchpride blog.

 

[Hexic]

This is one Kickstarter that I will happily donate to. It's a great cause, and it's disappointing to see that so many programs such as this have died out since the 90's.

 

[Guest]

*LeVar

 

[cliffordcooley]

Loved the ending of the video.

Where's his visor?

He did show the visor in the video. He must keep on hand it in a box for hard times.

 

[Guest]

Most backers, not most money raised. Still, it's a good cause. I still remember the show's theme song from when I watched it as a kid twenty years ago.