[October 29th would have been the iconic Bob Ross’ 80th birthday. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Ross and four other figures who have helped make PBS the cultural and educational force it is!]
On why the
host of another iconic PBS show was as important as the content.
The first
two posts in this series have focused on figures connected to the two
longest-running PBS children’s shows, Sesame
Street and Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood; the third longest-running was Reading Rainbow,
which aired from July
1983 to November 2006 (and has since been reborn as a very
successful app). I’m not sure how many of those episodes this young
AmericanStudier actually watched—ours wasn’t a household where the TV was on
every afternoon after school by any means—but it was enough that the phrase “If
you want to know the rest, read the book!” has become thoroughly ingrained in
my consciousness (and has made it onto
this blog at least once and into my teaching way more than that). Obviously
for the voracious young reader that I was (I may have been known, and indeed
known all too well, to wander the halls of my middle and high school with my
nose in a book), it was the books at the center of Reading Rainbow that made it so memorable. But in looking back, I
think nothing about Reading Rainbow was
more memorable and meaningful than the show’s host (and executive producer), LeVar
Burton.
Burton had
been acting in films and TV shows for nearly a decade by the time he landed the
Reading Rainbow gig, and would
continue to do so throughout his run as host; probably his best-known role, as Geordi on Star Trek: The Next Generation
(1987-1994), not only coincided with some of the early years of Rainbow but was even featured on an episode
of the PBS show! But while Geordi might be Burton’s most prominent role, as is
often the case when even the most established actors venture into the Star Trek universe, it was definitely
not his most influential: that title would have to go to just his
second screen performance, as the young Kunta Kinte in
the TV miniseries Roots (based on Alex
Haley’s 1976 book of the same name). Roots
debuted in 1977, when Burton was
just 20 years old, and he would be nominated for an Emmy for his compelling
performance as the lead character in that sweeping, multi-generational,
historical and historic, truly groundbreaking and important cultural work. In
an era when we’ve finally started to see a wide
variety of cultural representations of slavery (and many other too-long-underrepresented
histories), it might be difficult to recognize just how significant Roots was in the 1970s (and into the 80s
and 90s). But
it was, and Burton was at the heart of it.
That is of
course an argument for remembering Burton well beyond Reading Rainbow (or Star Trek,
for that matter). But it’s also an argument for kind of the opposite point:
that the choice of Burton in 1983 (just six years after Roots) to host Reading
Rainbow, to serve as the face of this iconic educational show for children
everywhere, was a genuinely striking and impressive one. Again, it can be hard
to look back on that moment without our hindsight being affected by just how
beloved Burton became and remains (just note the huge, viral
campaign to make him the new host of Jeopardy!
after Alex Trebek passed away in November 2020). But in 1983, he was simply an
African American actor, best known for his role in the most prominent cultural
representation of slavery specifically and African American history more
broadly (at least if we set aside really, really problematic
ones like Gone with the Wind) that
had yet aired in the United States. The choice of that actor and performer,
that artistic figure, to host a PBS children’s show about the importance and
pleasures of reading was, to my mind, one of the most inspiringly inclusive in
TV history, and one that clearly has echoed into the four decades since.
Next PBS
person tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other PBS people or shows you’d highlight?
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