Reading Rainbow - S06E01 - The Bionic Bunny Show

Having just finished compiling my data on the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, for the Star Trek Fuck Report I thought it would behoove me to briefly pause and examine something tangential related to the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation that would otherwise fall outside of the auspices of this august publication. Today, dear readers, we are going to examine the first episode of the sixth season of Reading Rainbow, "The Bionic Bunny Show."

For those of you who are somehow oblivious to this fact, Reading Rainbow, was a children's television program that aired on PBS from 1983 until 2006. It was hosted by your pal and mine, LeVar Burton (the man behind the visor on Star Trek: The Next Generation) and aimed to foster literacy and a love of reading among small children. I am quite well aware of the fact that I tend to come off as sarcastic in these writings but without any irony whatsoever Reading Rainbow was a fantastic show that I loved as a small lad and the fact that LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow was on the show was a major contributing factor to me watching Star Trek: The Next Generation in the first place.

None of this really answers the question of why I am looking at a random episode of Reading Rainbow though, so allow me to explain. This episode, which first aired on August 15, 1988, featured LeVar Burton offering a behind the scene look at the making of Star Trek: The Next Generation. As this episode first aired between Seasons 1 and 2 of The Next Generation, this seems like a perfectly cromulent place for me to examine this episode.

Preexisting Prejudices
I taped this episode off television when I was 8 years old and watched it pretty frequently so I remember a lot of the specifics, but having just watched the first season in its entirety I will be fun to see what episodes they are pulling stuff from when LeVar shows us the behind the scenes stuff.

Plot Synopsis
After a very different albeit equally good, good theme song we get a shot of the Enterprise cruising through space. We then check in on the bridge where it's apparently casual Friday as Geordi is clad in slacks and a denim shirt. Oh wait I forgot this is Reading Rainbow. Geordi's a fictional character. This guy is LeVar Burton. LeVar helpful reminds us that we might have seen him on the bridge before as Geordi LaForge, "the ship's navigator." So I guess in this random-ass episode of Reading Rainbow we finally get confirmation of what Geordi's job actually was in the first season.

LeVar then shows us "something I'll bet you haven't seen before," and the camera pans out to show the sound stage that the bridge set has been built on. There are a bunch of lights and ladders and cameras and shit. He tells us that, "None of this (the random ladders and cameras and stuff) ever appears in an episode of the show," but, he goes on to explain, it all makes the show possible.

He then tells us that "What you see on screen just isn't the whole story." He uses this to transition to this episode's book which gives this episode its title, "The Bionic Bunny Show." He then holds up a copy of the book and informs us that it's about all the work that goes into making "a TV show about an ordinary rabbit who becomes a superhero."

I'm going to forego a play by play of a book for children about an anthropomorphized rabbit playing a superhero on a TV show but will say it was kind of a missed opportunity to not have someone from Star Trek read the book this episode. Instead of Patrick Stewart (who would show up as a reader much later in the show's run) we got some random dude named Gene Klavan who was apparently a disc jockey in New York in the 1950s. Since the show would often have dudes like Pete Seeger and James Earl Jones reading the books this seems like kind of a downgrade but whatever.

Once the book is done we return to the Enterprise where LeVar walks out of a turbolift onto the bridge. Since this is behind the scenes look at the show we hear the doors as they noisily roll on their tracks rather than the cool space aged serpentine hiss they give off on the show.

LeVar tells us that for every person you see on your TV screen there are countless more doing work behind the scenes. He then tells us how "Every week, you see the Captain, Geordi, and the rest of the Enterprise crew." That's some real Gilligan's Island theme song shit right there LeVar. Thankfully like the Gilligan's Island theme song he too quickly realizes that an "and the rest" doesn't really fly and lists off the other crew members:Worf, Troi, Data, and Riker leaving off Yar (though she does appear in this episode), Dr. Beverly Crusher (who I think was feuding with the producers at this point and would be replaced by Doctor Grandma in season 2), and Wesley Crusher (who only appears in clip format here).

He informs us that "Together they (the crew of the Enterprise) keep the ship running at warp speed." According to LeVar, there is another group of people behind the scenes, "that you never get a chance to see...until now!"

We are then treated to a montage of an 80s television production crew working on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation. We see someone standing in for Troi and people working cameras and junk. The director directs the action and we see the stars of the show getting their makeup done.

As LeVar (in Geordi attire) combs his hair he does another voiceover explaining how all the actors have to transform into their characters and then says, "some of us change more than others!" This leads to us getting a brief look at Michael Dorn's transformation into Worf. LeVar explains that it takes two hours for his "friend Michael" to transform into (cue poor Worf impression) "Lt. Worf!"

We then see Dorn put in his Klingon dentures and growl while looking in the mirror. It is my most sincere hope that he's not just being a goof because he knows the Reading Rainbow cameras are there and this growl is part of his daily routine to get into character.

Dorn, fully made up as Worf then emerges from a trailer and declares, "Stand aside! I take large steps!"

When then check back in on the set of the bridge where we see the cast "going over the script with the director (Win Phelps probably since most of the stuff they've shown has been from the shitty "DON'T DO DRUGS!" episode Symbiosis)." LeVar then informs us that "everybody contributes ideas to make the scene work." I don't know how true this is of any other episode of this show, but on this particular episode apparently, "because of changes to the script, the actors were often acting scenes that they had not seen the script for before the first take." [1] So maybe in this one instance it was truly a collaborative effort.

We see the crew rehearsing on the set. Data's wearing a weird-ass jacket and LeVar explains how directors block the action of a scene. We see Riker and Yar come in and deliver some lines. It's weird that Reading Rainbow's camera crew was on the set for what was obviously one of Denise Crosby's final days on Star Trek, but there ya go. LeVar gleefully informs us that "Rehearsal is going well!" before it's time to make the final preparations to film the scene.

They move some cameras around and LeVar puts his V.I.S.O.R. on like a goddamn boss before the director calls "places," and LeVar explains via voiceover that it's now time for "the actors to bring the scene to life."

We are then shown the distance from Picard to the camera measured with a giant tape measure before the director finally calls action. We see footage of Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton delivering lines to each other before the director yells cut and redoes the scene from another angle. This is really some Film Making 101 shit which makes sense since this is a show for elementary school students.

The director once more calls for action and we see some backstage dude pulling a rope to open the doors to the turbolift. THE MAGIC IS GONE! Riker comes in with Yar and delivers some dialogue and then repeats the entire thing from another angle and another. LeVar tells the kids at home about "master shots" and closeups and "reaction shots," as we see the scene filmed from different angles and vantage points. I might have been cool if it was a boring line reading blocked in a boring way but it wasn't so it isn't.

Back in the present, LeVar Burton in street clothes wonders how one could possibly make a television program out of all these different shots and camera angles. Apparently you take it to "an electronic editing house!"

LeVar is now at the Post Group in Hollywood, CA to learn how the team there takes the raw footage and fashions it into a proper television program. He introduces Rob Legato, the "visual effects supervisor," for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The dude would go on to win three Oscars for his work on Titanic, Hugo, and The Jungle Book, but here he's just a guy who's about to dump glitter into a water tank (more on that later).

With him are a dude with a sick mullet named Fred Raimondi and a dude without a sick mullet named Rich Thorne. Fred would go on to do effects work on the greatest movie ever, True Lies, and the greatest advertisement for Dungeons & Dragons, Netflix's Stranger Things. Thorne would later work on Fight Club and X-Men.

They are sitting at whatever the video equivalent of a mixing board is called. It is well beyond LeVar's ken and he yells about how complicated it all looks before asking them, "What are all these buttons and knobs?"

The trio explain to LeVar that it's an editing console and it controls the tape machines "downstairs in the basement." They edit scene 42 (or "the one with the solar flares," as Rob puts it) while LeVar looks on and does voiceover work for Reading Rainbow explaining that editing film is "like putting together a puzzle." I don't think this is a particularly good comparison since puzzles generally don't have 20 or so pieces that are similar and can be slotted in to complete the puzzle while the remaining 19 pieces get trashed...or released as some sort of DVD bonus feature.

LeVar then tells us that editing film is something that every dumbass TV show does, but what makes Star Trek special are "THOSE AMAZING SPECIAL EFFECTS!" We get some clips of the Enterprise docking at a spacebase that I'm pretty sure was reused footage from one of the movies with the Next Generation Enterprise superimposed over the Original Recipe Enterprise, and then a brief clip of the Enterprise going into FUCKING OVERDRIVE from that shit "Where No One Has Gone Before," episode where The Traveler was a creep and told Picard that Wesley Crusher was a "the chosen one."

LeVar informs us that Rob and his crew create these AMAZING SPECIAL EFFECTS "in some very surprising ways." Those very surprising ways more or less turn out to be "using random household junk to build miniatures of sci-fi technology."

Rob shows LeVar some random hunk of junk that's about 2 feet tall that he built out of old model parts and straws and shit to represent a 100 foot tall piece of ancient technology. We then see a clip of the random heap of model airplane parts in all its glory when it appeared on that shitty "When the Bough Breaks" episode. Good job Rob!

Rob then shows LeVar how they create the teleportation effect. This is legit the thing I best remember from this particular episode. If I were be sent back in time to the 16th century I wouldn't be able to create any of the technology we in the 21st century take for granted but I would be able to be like, "Yo check this out! Doesn't this look cool as shit?"

Basically to make the sparkly teleportation effect you need to dump a mess of glitter "like you buy at a hobby shop" into a tank of water and stir the water real fast until the glitter is suspended in the water and then film that. BOOM! Teleportation effects! LeVar is utterly amazed by this. I don't know if this is normal for Reading Rainbow episodes but in this one LeVar Burton is fast approaching "Guy on an Infomercial Who Cannot Believe This" levels of shock and awe at everything transpiring around him.

Next up, Rob shows LeVar a model of a shuttle (or "scout ship" as Rob calls it) that they used with a matte painting of the Enterprise when it was docked at a space station (in that episode where the Binars stole the Enterprise). Rob tells LeVar that they "didn't have much money," (on account of dropping $10K on a dumbass wheelchair) so they made it out of disposable razors (you can legit see the Gillette logo on the side) and some LED lights in the front. They show the final result which actually doesn't look that bad, but up close the shuttle looks absolutely ridiculous.

LeVar asks Rob if he likes what he does and Rob gives a pretty noncommittal answer saying it is "fun" and a "challenge," before LeVar changes topics and is like tells he that he knows we're all wonder where the real Enterprise is. I'm not because I saw this episode years ago and remember that it's in some other studio and that it's upside down.

My memory proves correct as LeVar shows us footage of his trip to Image G studios earlier in the day to see "where the Enterprise lives." It is indeed upside down which Rob explains makes it easier to film the ship passing by. He explains that they flip the camera upside down as well so when all is said and done it seems as though the ship was rightside up.

We then see the camera move around on a robot arm filming an upside down model of the Enterprise. Rob tells LeVar (and all of us at home) that they don't move the ship but move the camera instead to create the illusion of motion. They do this "so it's all lit correctly," according to Rob.

Back in the editing suite, LeVar is with the special effects guys who are about to "put the Enterprise into space." LeVar is amped up about this because he apparently doesn't pay any attention to the show he is part of.

Fred explains how they superimpose the footage of the Enterprise on to a image of a planet. This is all very impressive to LeVar who is all like "WOW!" and "WOAH!" after they show the Enterprise get blasted by a blast of blasting (also from that shitty "When the Bough Breaks" episode). Clearly since this cannot possibly be topped by anything else the special effects magicians could show him LeVar thinks them for everything and heads off.

We then see LeVar wandering through the "miles of corridor" on the Enterprise. He talks about "how much power it takes to keep it running," and then appears on the set of engineering. It's all lit up and LeVar seemingly implies that the warp core is powering the set going so far as to do a muscle pose when he says the word "power."

Somehow, LeVar ties the warp core and the concept of power to books and we get the standard issue "if you liked the random ass book we read earlier here are some more book that [pun/metaphor about the overall theme of this episode] but you don't have to take my word for it!"

I wasn't going to mention this segment at all but one of the kids recommends a book ("it's a chapter book!" the kid exclaims) about the making of the Ramona TV show from the 80s (based on the Beverly Cleary books). I legit loved that show and had such a crush on Lori Choidos (Beezus) when I was like 8 years old, but I digress. This has little and less to do with Star Trek so let's sally forth.

With that taken care of, LeVar tells us that on the set things don't always go according to plan and we are then treated to a brief blooper reel. Since all the Reading Rainbow stuff was filmed on a single day there's not a ton of variety in what we get here. It's mostly Picard repeatedly fucking up a line of dialogue but the entire thing ends with LeVar Burton getting a clapboard dropped onto his cock...perhaps this behind the scenes injury is why Geordi never got to fuck in Star Trek.

Anyway I've included the blooper reel below, so enjoy that if you want to see a guy get hit in the cock with a clapboard on a show designed to encourage small children to read.

As the blooper reel comes to a close, LeVar laughs in voiceover and the informs us that even though they have a lot of fun on set, at the end of the day they have a show that everyone is "really proud of."

Back on the bridge, LeVar encourages us to read and tells us that when we read a good book we become, "the producer, the director, the actor, even the special effects magician (which I did not know was the technical term for that job)." He then tells us that he'll see us next time and prepares to beam out. He acts all nervous and jittery before it happens which is kind of funny and then he's gone.

As the credits roll we get to hear that good, good Reading Rainbow theme this time played on a cheesy sounding synthesizer that is clearly attempting to ape the sound of the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme and failing poorly. I do have to give them an A for effort though, and with that our show comes to an end...oh except for LeVar hyping up the books featured in this episode one last time via voiceover.

Final Thoughts
While this is very clearly a show geared towards small children in an era before DVD extras and readily available product photos and things of that ilk this episode of Reading Rainbow provided a pretty interesting look at what went into making a weekly sci-fi show. I'm certain that the various Star Trek: The Next Generation DVDs have more in depth behind the scenes featurettes and I know that there are now countless books and documentaries and websites that examine all the minute details of the behind the scenes stuff but for a lot of people my age this episode was undoubtedly a big part of our Star Trek fandom.