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Reading Rainbow
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.
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.
LeVar's featured story is about a young Native American tribesman who finds his spiritual calling in life as a natural painter. His assignment is a special task that will influence him and his work have its memory last forever.
Viewers learn the many uses for wire: from creating objects of wire art and transporting people on the longest tramway in the world, to playing an integral part in a circus act.
There's a wide job market out there, but just what kind of job does a person want? In this program are both conventional and unconventional occupations to straddle the flow of the feature book.
In this episode, all is not what it seems as LeVar demonstrates optical illusions from the book by Arline and Joseph Baum. He also shows how special effects are created for television; meets artist Christian Thee, who paints trompe l'oeil, or "trick-the-eye," paintings; and shows clips of kids creating their own optical illusions as well as camouflage tricks that animals use to deceive predators.
LeVar spends the day following around wildlife artist and children's book author Jim Arnofsky, who shows LeVar how he is inspired to create the stories by the signs of animals around the woods near his home. Julia Barr reads several of Arnofsky's books: Raccoons and Ripe Corn, about a family of raccoons that feast on a nearby corn crop; Come Out, Muskrats!, about some shy muskrats hiding in their pond home; and Deer at the Brook, about a family of deer taking a drink at the stream.
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.
LeVar takes a train ride from California to Washington state. Along the way, we learn about trains and how the transcontinental railroad came to be. Brian Dennehy narrates the true story of how a young teen named Kate Shelley risked her life to save the engineers of a train that crashed into a river when the bridge near her home collapsed, and how she had to get word to the nearest station to alert them to stop the express train.
LeVar travels to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It is a perfect spot for a few poetry readings and winter observations. Some of which include sledding down hills, playing in the snow, building snow-people, and even meeting someone who races in the famous Iditarod.
