TVSquad

Did you watch Reading Rainbow yesterday? If you missed it, that's too bad, because PBS' third-longest running show (behind only Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood) ended its 26 year run on Friday.

According to NPR, the children's program is being cut from the PBS stable of educational programming because of ... wait for it ... the Bush administration.

Satire is a tricky sword to wield, and BET's current efforts to call attention to some of the less-favorable aspects of current black culture are proof of that. First, there was We Got to Do Better (formerly Hot Ghetto Mess), a series whose pilot episode was so schizophrenic I actually developed twelve different personalities while watching it. Never have I seen a TV series struggling so hard to figure out its own identity.

All of the press that came out before it read that the series would use amateur footage of people acting untoward as a means to show how we need to improve (the clips show people of all races), but the first episode kept jumping back and forth between straight satire and host Charlie Murphy sincerely pleading to the audience to improve themselves. Imagine Stephen Colbert dropping his facade every two minutes to say, "this is a joke" -- that's what watching We Got to Do Better was like.

Season 38 of Sesame Street will premiere on August 13th with a focus on literacy. All sorts of celebrity guests will participate in a new opening segment called "What's the Word on the Street?" Each episode, a celebrity such as Jon Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres or Brian Williams will answer the question by giving a word and its definition. The goal is to expand early literacy skills such as vocabulary and rhyming. Other celebrity guests next season include Tina Fey, Anderson Cooper, and the New York Jets (sorry, Joel).

Of course, Sesame Street also plans spoofs on popular television shows with skits such as A's Anatomy, The Amazing Alphabet Race and Meal or No Meal (I'm totally looking forward to that one).

Have you been wondering what American Idol's Carrie Underwood has been up to lately? Because I sure haven't? Because I don't watch American Idol? Because the show doesn't interest me even remotely? Anyhoo, Underwood is currently appearing in a poster campaign to promote literacy for an Oklahoma-based group called Read Y'all. This is the third year of the campaign, and past posters have also featured famous people from Oklahoma, including James Garner, Kristen Chenoweth, Toby Keith and Desmond Mason and Dana Dunbar. If you were a fan of American Idol but were unable to vote because you couldn't read the names on the TV screen, this is your first step towards a better life.