After twenty-six years on PBS, Reading Rainbow ended its run on Friday, August 28th. Hosted by LeVar Burton (Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation), Reading Rainbow was the third longest-running children’s show in PBS history, behind only Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. According to WNED in Buffalo NY, Reading Rainbow’s home station, the show is a victim of the recent economic crisis. For those of you feeling nostalgic, here’s a video of the original Reading Rainbow theme song:

To read more about the importance and impact of Reading Rainbow, check out this story on NPR.

Jon Rubin of WNET.ORG speaks at Brooklyn Borough Hall, accompanied by Digit from Cyberchase,
Karen Boykin-Towns, president of the NAACP Brooklyn Branch, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz

As New York City students get in their last licks of summer, the annual NAACP “Back to School/Stay in School” (BTS/SIS) event yesterday at Brooklyn Borough Hall hopefully made the end of vacation a little sweeter as 2,000 free backpacks filled with essential school supplies were distributed to disadvantaged students.

This year the NAACP Brooklyn Branch forged a partnership with WNET.ORG as a media sponsor and with Friends of Thirteen to help fill the backpacks with supplies from THIRTEEN’s children’s programs. But the idea for this partnership was not born in a board room, nor at a fundraiser, nor even as a conversation between professionals.

It was Memorial Day weekend when Karen Boykin-Towns, president of the NAACP Brooklyn Branch, began preparing this year’s “BTS/SIS” event. She had been thinking of companies to ask for donations. It was her daughter who had the idea: “Mom, why don’t you ask Thirteen? They have a lot of kids’ shows.”

Karen’s first call was to Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who then connected Dorothy Pacella, Executive Director of Friends of Thirteen, with Karen.

From there it was a team effort. THIRTEEN’s education department donated Cyberchase pencils and other back-to-school goodies from Martha Speaks and Sid the Science Kid. Digit, one of the stars from Cyberchase, and Jon Rubin, director, state and local education services for WNET.ORG, were at the event to help celebrate the new school year and encourage kids to stay in school.

Finally, happy 100th anniversary to the NAACP. THIRTEEN looks forward to future collaborations that will advance the committment of both organizations to improving access to educational opportunities for children and adults of all backgrounds.

Watch Jon Rubin’s comments at Brooklyn Borough Hall.

Angelina Ballerina™ The Next Steps will twirl onto screens across the country this September! Animated in stunning CGI, the series will feature all new music- and dance-filled adventures starring Angelina Ballerina, the little mouseling with big dreams.

Inspired by the best-selling children’s book series by Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig, Angelina Ballerina™ The Next Steps follows the now 8-year-old Angelina as she embarks on the next stage in her life at a new performing arts school, Camembert Academy. Angelina makes new friends and explores all kinds of dance, music, and performance, including ballet, modern, tap, jazz, ballroom, opera, and hip hop, as well as ethnic dances from around the world.

Each episode also includes Camembert’s Shining Stars, a live-action interstitial featuring talented young performers who demonstrate their love of music and dance.

The series introduces kids to the joys of movement, artistic expression, musicality, imagination and coordination. A team of accredited dance instructors and music education specialists helped develop the show’s arts education curriculum. Creative consultants from American Ballet Theatre helped choreograph the dance movements animated on the program, ensuring that they are age-appropriate for the characters.

Angelina Ballerina™ The Next Steps will air daily on THIRTEEN, supported by a local outreach campaign, and weekly via PBS KIDS nationwide starting September 2009. Click here to see a preview of Angelina’s brand new CG animated world!

(View full post to see video)

by Gilbert Gottfried
Voice of Digit, Cyberchase

When they offered me the part of the bird Digit on Cyberchase, it seemed quite fitting. I always seem to be getting the bird parts (Parrot in Aladdin and the Aflac Duck). However, when they told me it was an educational cartoon, one thing popped into my head. When I was a child, I was the worst student ever, and as an adult, I ain’t much smarter. I thought for sure once they figured out the horrible mistake they made, they would get someone else.

I’m happy to say that saner minds did not prevail. For the years that Cyberchase has been running, I have parents approach me all the time explaining to me that their children are addicted to the cartoon and they love figuring out the problems and solving them along with the other characters in the cartoons. Some of them even try to beat the stars of the series. So, I guess the people producing Cyberchase knew what they were doing after all!

For the past 3 years, Nature has produced a full-color comic book as a corollary to the on-air episodes, as an entertaining & educational tool…but we’d like to share them with all of you, at least in digital form. The paper copies of the comic were distributed to museums, schools, and nature centers. The series was edited by David Reisman, and we have all three issues as pdfs at the bottom of this post for you to download and read or print. The above image is from #2, a section of a really great set of panels by R. Kikuo Johnson, who creatively uses the honeycomb as the layout structure–and does some really nice color work. Read More …

from: Neal Shapiro, President & CEO, WNET.org

I’m a big fan of the weather forecast. And that’s due to Janice Huff – the terrific meteorologist at New York’s NBC affiliate, Channel 4. Back when I was President of NBC News, Janice and I were colleagues, and I’m happy to report we’re working together again. Well, in a manner of speaking . . . Actually, it’s Janice Huff – the animated version – who has been appearing on our hit kids series, Cyberchase. Read More …