Reading Rainbow Intro

Is it this?

I'd suggest seeing if you can get in contact with some people who worked on the show to see if they have any information on it.

Can you describe the rest of the differences? What does the soundtrack sound like? When do you think this was broadcast?

I thought the dragon might appear in the telescope. Not because I've seen the intro, but because that would be so much cooler than LaVar.

Info found on the Community wiki:
Reading Rainbow was an American children's TV program which originally aired on PBS from June 5 1983 to November 10, 2006. It was hosted by actor LeVar Burton and its purpose was to encourage kids to read. It was one of three longest running PBS children's show running from June 6, 1983 until November 10, 2006. The theme song for the show was written by Steve Horelick, Dennis Neil Kleinman, and performed by Tina Fabrique. This version was used until 1999 and was replaced by one sung by R&B artist Chaka Khan.

So Steve Horelick, Dennis Neil Kleinman, Tina Fabrique, and Chaka Kan might all be people to contact.

However, it's extremely odd that a version of the theme song used for an entire season could go missing like this. I found the comments you were talking about, and took screenshots of them for further reference.

Where did LaVar appear in the old intro? After the telescope scene, it doesn't look like there's room for him to appear and keep the continuity. In the last shot, it does look like LaVar was green screened seperately, due to the positioning between him and the kids.

Between 1999-2000, it doesn't seem like new episodes were being made. Some new episodes were shown in May 2000 to April 2001. My source is Wikipedia, though. 

Someone said that the singer is male in the third version. That comment is very deep in the comments thread for the last Reading Rainbow intro.

This is such a cool thread!

I never really watched Reading Rainbow much but it was a show I always thought was pretty cool. I remember the Chaka Kahn version, of course. I was only about 4 when the original intro was last used so I don't really remember it. However, I do remember seeing some ads with Lavar in around mid-2000 for the annual writers and illustrators contest. After Lavar talked about it a message would appear on the screen accompanied by the background music of the original intro, which at the time sounded familiar to me.

Like I said, I rarely watched the show, but a dragon in the theme song does seem to ring a bell. I don't know. It does seem very strange that for a show that was so popular, an entire opening sequence would be this obscure, particularly after all these years.

But it's not entirely surprising. There's an episode of ZOOM (season 2 episode 1 to be exact) that was uploaded to YouTube a few years ago, and was missing a skit I remembered seeing in the original airing (it was a later airing that was recorded). I have yet to find any evidence (that I haven't written myself) backing up my recollection aside from the fact that the episode runs 30 seconds undertime (that was how I knew it was in that exact episode).

Yeah. A few weeks ago, I asked CDCB2 on Youtube if he could upload the credits to RR from a recording he had in 1999. The episode begins mid-way through so the opening wasn't recorded, but he does have the credits. He responded that he'd get to it in the next few weeks. So hopefully we'll have an instrumental of this theme pretty soon!

If even PBS doesn't have it, where do we go from here? This was one of my favorite shows growing up. It seems that PBS simply wants this theme to fade away. Since the theme can't be found at the moment, there's no telling why.