Song of the Day 1/26: Tina Fabrique, “Reading Rainbow” theme

Voters scrubbed Meatball Ron DeSantis from the presidential race, but the residents of Florida have to put up with him for three more years. I’m sure he’s fuming inside his tiny shoes, and since I’m not a nice guy when it comes to dealing with assholes, I think people should push his buttons at every opportunity.

DeSantis has a documented hatred of children’s books and anything LGBTQ+, like rainbows. So I can’t think of anything that would piss him off more than something that combined reading and rainbows – like the old PBS children’s show “Reading Rainbow,” which debuted 40 years ago and got cancelled in 2006 because of the dreadful, Mike Castle-endorsed No Child Left Behind Act.

Here’s the Wikipedia account:

[U]nder the No Child Left Behind Act, this grant was focused much more narrowly toward programs that teach literacy skills, phonics, and spelling after 2005. Since Reading Rainbow was originally developed upon fostering a love of reading books, and not necessarily developing reading skills, the funding was redirected toward other programs.”

Yeah, like kids are going to learn more about phonics from a TV show than they will in their classrooms. That’s an idea stupid enough to earn Republican support. The show has been revived online, which is probably for the best – kids today watch their tablets a lot more than their parents’ TVs.

I watched “Reading Rainbow” with my kids when they were growing up, and I loved it. LeVar Burton’s enthusiasm was infectious, and the show gave publicity to books both famous and obscure. It also had the best theme song of any kiddie show of the era, even though, like most ’80s music, it prominently featured a synthesizer. Singer/actress Tina Fabrique handled the vocals.

The opening sequence was eventually redone, dropping the synth and subbing in Chaka Khan on vocals, but the best reboot came in 2011, when Jimmy Fallon demonstrated what a cover by the Doors would have sounded like. He got backup musicians to impersonate the other members – that’s a pretty convincing Ray Manzarek on organ – and nailed Jim Morrison, right down to the spoken-word section. But instead of poetry, Fallon recited the titles of children’s books and quoted from “Goodnight Moon.” I bet LeVar appreciated it.