The WORST episodes of Reading Rainbow
Every episode of Reading Rainbow ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Reading Rainbow!
Host LeVar Burton shepherds children through the exciting world of books with celebrity guest narrations, youth book reviews, and relevant cultural tie-ins.
#1 - And Still the Turtle Watched
Season 11 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/21/1993
LeVar discusses how people can help to preserve animals and plants in nature that are in danger of extinction. Stories profiled include scientists working to improve the bald eagle population by raising chicks and re-releasing them into the mountains, and an elementary school class that decides to plant trees in their neighborhood. Michael Ansara narrates an unusual story, told from the viewpoint of a turtle sculpture carved in a rock, and how he wishes to preserve the history of Manatoo native Americans, despite being vandalized and thought to be ignored by later generations after he was carved.
#2 - Berlioz the Bear
Season 10 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/16/1992
LeVar cruises the musical realms of New York in a program featuring the Boys Choir of Harlem. James Avery narrates the tale of Berlioz the Bear, a story about a bass-playing bear who gets in a jam. His animal friends who play music help him out, but all fail until a bee from inside Berlioz's bass saves the day.
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#3 - Amazing Grace
Season 11 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/11/1993
LeVar visits a theater to discuss acting and how pretending to be someone else sometimes helps people express themselves in different ways. He also visits with his friend, Whoopi Goldberg, who was launching her own talk show, and discussed how her unique look has sometimes helped, and hindered her career as an actress/comedienne.
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#4 - The Furry News
Season 11 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/12/1993
As LeVar discusses his favorite parts of a newspaper and interviews other people for different viewpoints, other functions of a newspaper staff are explored. Cartoonist Ray Billingsley, who draws Curtis, shows how he illustrates a comic, and a high school newspaper staff is profiled making a weekly publication.
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#5 - Mrs. Katz and Tush
Season 11 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/13/1993
LeVar pays a visit to a family friend, who is Jewish, to learn how to prepare special foods served during a Seder dinner, like Challah bread and potato latkes. Reizyl Bozyk and Rick English read the featured story of an elderly Jewish lady and how she befriends her neighbor's young son after she is widowed and he gives her a pet cat to keep her company.
#6 - The Salamander Room
Season 11 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/14/1993
LeVar explores the rain forest and animals in their habitats by visiting a park that recreates the rain forest environment artificially to make the animals comfortable. This episode also includes a film of scientists who study the region's animals from above by climbing inside a tree's canopy. Lynne Thigpen reads The Salamander Room, about a little boy who finds a small newt while on a nature walk, and all the rationalizing he does to convince his mother to let him keep the salamander as a pet by turning his bedroom into a model rain forest.
#7 - Silent Lotus
Season 11 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/15/1993
This episode takes a look-in at deaf culture. LeVar discusses forms of communication that doesn't involve words, like hand signals, mime, and gestures, like in charades. He also asks a friend who is a deaf actress to teach him some sentences in sign language. Lea Salonga reads the featured story of a shy young girl in Cambodia, whose parents realized her lack of communication was due to being a deaf mute, but in noticing her natural talent for dancing, approached the king to request that their daughter be allowed to join the royal dancing troupe.
#8 - Follow the Drinking Gourd
Season 11 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/18/1993
LeVar reflects on a time when Africans were brought to America as slaves. He talks about how African-Americans risked their lives for freedom, and discusses how the music from slavery times effected the African culture. Keith David reads the featured story, which explains that the African-American folk song, "Follow the Drinking Gourd," was in fact a coded message to slaves giving them instructions on how to take the Underground Railroad north to states that abolished slavery.
#9 - If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Season 11 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/19/1993
One thing leads to another in this episode, with LeVar in a bowling alley, showing how certain actions lead to consequences. Included is a piece on an expert at domino displays and domino art. Beth Howland reads "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," the tale of a little boy who offers a cookie to a mouse, and all the events that occur afterwards as a result.
#10 - Is This a House for Hermit Crab?
Season 11 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/20/1993
LeVar sets out to build a bird house, prompting an examination of animal habitats. Eartha Kitt reads the story of a growing hermit crab, who is now too large for his current shell, and all the difficulties he has trying to find a new place to live, all the while trying to avoid predators who want to eat him.
#11 - Through Moon and Stars and Night Skies
Season 10 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/15/1992
What is it like to be adopted? In what may be the high point of the 10th season, this show has a lengthy sequence about adopted children in families. Andrew Lei narrates Through Moon and Stars and Night Skies, a story about a boy who was adopted by a pair of parents who wanted a child very much.
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#12 - June 29, 1999
Season 11 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/22/1993
What's fact and what's fiction? What's the truth and what's absurd? LeVar looks into unusual stories and tries to distinguish the actual news from fabrications. Charles Kimbrough reads a story (set in the future from the time the show was originally broadcast) about a young girl's science experiment to grow vegetable seeds in space, and how weeks later the country was inundated with giant plants falling from the sky.
#13 - Nosey Mrs. Rat
Season 12 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/3/1994
Observing people is the theme of the day, as LeVar finds himself with time to kill before a business meeting and chooses to watch children at a playground while he waits.
#14 - Summer
Season 12 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/5/1994
In this episode of Reading Rainbow, Levar shows the kids the different sights and sounds of Summer. The different wildlife of Summer, and how they live. Also, there are segments on the different seasons and how they effect different parts of the country. The featured book is "Summers" written by Ron Hirschi, and read by Ossie Davis.
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#15 - Once There Was a Tree
Season 12 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/6/1994
There is still use to a tree stump, as the feature book entails. Eli Wallach reads the story about the lifetime of a tree, and how different animals and people made use of the tree during its many stages, from sapling to tall tree to a cut down stump.
#16 - Appelemando's Dreams
Season 12 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/7/1994
Creativity is the theme as LeVar spends the day painting a mural and other artwork. Michael Learned tells the story of Appelemondo, a boy whose daydreams were so vivid that they could be seen developing above his head, and how his friends learned how to capture the dreams to make beautiful paintings to decorate their town.
#17 - The Lotus Seed
Season 12 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/10/1994
Young people who emigrated to the United States from Asian countries are interviewed and discuss having to learn a new language and fitting in with other children their age while dealing with language and cultural barriers. Rona Figueroa reads the story of The Lotus Seed, about a woman who flees her native country during wartime and manages to save only one memento, a lotus seed given to her by her mother from the garden she tended for the emperor.
#18 - Hail to Mail
Season 12 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/11/1994
LaVar explains the postal service and shows how important mail as a form of communication.
#19 - Stellaluna
Season 12 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/12/1994
LaVar discusses bats and the importance of sleep. The featured story is of a bat who is separated from her family and adopted by a bird.
#20 - My Shadow
Season 12 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/13/1994
In this episode of Reading Rainbow: Levar shows the kids how shadows and lights make up our everyday lives. Andrea Davis is featured as a photographer who shoots different parts of the city and develops the pictures in her own studio. Also, the children review the books SHADOWS AND REFLECTIONS I HAVE A FRIEND and SHADOW GRAPHS.
#21 - The Lady with the Ship on Her Head
Season 9 - Episode 8 - Aired 9/25/1991
Turning even crazier, the show plays with our heads in more ways than one. LeVar is the "Head reporter" of a mock-news program called "HEADline News Report" and "reports" on a truly head-spinning array of all things ridiculous about the head. Included is a "Head-to-Head" interview with The Grateful Head, a fictitious musical group of singing heads...no necks, just heads. They sing a song called, "I Ain't Got No Body." Marilyn Pasekoff reads the featured story of a vain French woman, trying to win a fancy hat contest, unwittingly has a miniature sailing ship land on her head, and wins the contest when the judges mistake the boat for her head ornament.
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#22 - Florence and Eric Take the Cake
Season 8 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/13/1990
LeVar visits a famed wax sculpture museum, where an expert wax artist makes a statue of him. Julia Child reads the story of two children helping their grandmother plan a party, and how they accidentally mistake a fancy decorated hat for a cake decorated in the same way.
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#23 - Sunken Treasure
Season 8 - Episode 5 - Aired 9/14/1990
A hurricane of the coast of Florida in 1662 caused the Atocha, a Spanish galleon to sink. This book describes the many-years-long search for the treasure believed to be on it. Also contains The Atocha, The Titanic and book reviews for The Titanic: Lost... and Found, A Day Underwater and What's in the Deep? An Underwater Adventure.
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#24 - Alistair's Time Machine
Season 9 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/16/1991
LeVar goes to a totally-fictitious spot to find inventors from all eras. True to form, these inventors come from the distant past, Reading Rainbow's near-present, and the future. Arnold Stang narrates Alistair's Time Machine, the story of a boy who invents a machine that takes him centuries back in time.
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#25 - The Adventures of Taxi Dog
Season 9 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/17/1991
LeVar is a taxi driver in New York for a day, but the focus of this show soon lands on the subject of a service dog as well as how dogs are such good pets to us. Vincent Gardenia reads the story of an adopted stray dog who helps his new owner, a cab driver, get better tips when he entertains the customers on rides.
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