LeVar Burton’s ‘Tweeting Rainbow’ teaches kids about the magic of 140 characters

Fresh off his enormously successful Kickstarter campaign, LeVar Burton stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live last night to share a modernized take on Reading Rainbow. But instead of encouraging children to read and explore the wondrous world of literature, this version — Tweeting Rainbow — puts the focus on hashtags, retweets, and helping kids make the most of 140 characters.

Rather than share a book with his young audience, Burton thumbs through celebrity tweets on his phone. Tweeting Rainbow ditches classic children’s stories in favor of timeless musings from Mario Lopez and Snoop Dog. Sadly, though he asks the kids for their theories, Burton never explains the backstory behind Snoop’s “put ya face in tha mayo” tweet. That’s probably for the better. Still, the end result here is shudder-inducing and should make everyone very happy that LeVar’s Reading Rainbow revival will never resemble this skit. If we ever see a video field trip about how tweets are made, some Kickstarter refunds may be in order.