Reading Rainbow
Digging Up Dinosaurs
TV Flash files “Digging Up Dinosaurs” as a desk essential hour — Reading Rainbow (1983–2006) on PBS, season 1, episode 6, aired 1983-06-13, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E06: listed hour 6 of 155 in the Reading Rainbow guide, hour 6 of 15 in season 1. It aired 1983-06-13 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Louis the Fish” (S01E05). Next is “Liang and the Magic Paintbrush” (S01E07).
Essential hour: “Digging Up Dinosaurs”. Digging Up Dinosaurs is early-run field trip: literacy as adventure, the catchphrase loading, dinosaurs as the passport stamp.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
LeVar goes on in the video to explore the fascination of dinosaurs that lived and then disappeared millions of years ago. Humor is interspersed in interviews with a ranger and a paleontologist who take LeVar on a fossil tour of Dinosaur National Monument.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Digging Up Dinosaurs sit in the Reading Rainbow guide?
S01E06 is listed hour 6 of 155 — hour 6 of 15 in season 1, season 1 episode 6.
When did Reading Rainbow S01E06 air?
Digging Up Dinosaurs aired 1983-06-13 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Is it only for kids?
PBS literacy as after-school adventure. Adults return for Burton and the catchphrase. The Kickstarter revival proved nobody actually outgrew the librarian on camera.
In the series
Why this series still plays
LeVar Burton takes you into a book, then kids review it, then the catchphrase: you don't have to take his word for it. PBS literacy as after-school adventure, with field-trip segments that treated reading as a passport. A generation's librarian on camera — the Kickstarter revival proved nobody actually outgrew him.
The catchphrase is the contract. PBS, premiere 1983 through 2006: LeVar Burton introduces books, field trips, and kid reviews that sell the joy of reading — you don't have to take his word for it. Reading Rainbow, from Twila Liggett, Cecily Truett Lancit, and Larry Lancit, made literacy appointment television. After-school adventure treated reading as a passport: theme song as permanent childhood earworm, multiple Daytime Emmys, Burton as a generation's librarian on camera. If you came for a blotter item about a…
Filed against
- LeVar Burton as Host
LeVar Burton’s breakthrough as young Kunta Kinte on Roots made miniseries history — eight ABC nights, event television that forced a nation to watch and talk together. Later Star Trek: TNG and Reading Rainbow sealed educator-icon status.…