Gadgetory

I just want to briefly I don't need to introduce our first guest but I'm going to I mean you guys know who he is you know Miz Geordi LaForge from Star Trek Kunta Kinte from roots which is you know crazy that he's here doing this and doing stuff like that and of course reading from Reading Rainbow please please welcome the amazing levar burton very careful so much so these are live human beings yeah we have real people Wow we've convinced humans to come in here good job levar thank you so much for coming I you've been now I know you've been on a whirlwind tour in New York yes in sightseeing indeed know you've been to like everywhere you were on late night last night you were at CNN today you get all over the place and this is your last stop in here this is my last stop on the on the Reading Rainbow app launch press tour and I wanted to spend it here with y'all that is I appreciate that I appreciate that and work and we're very glad that you did no I so I mentioned before you came out yeah you have some very iconic roles in your history and talking about the Fantasy Island I did and Fantasy Island I did Love Boat too you know and of court well of course Love Boat I mean no one no one can forget the love those I have no one but you but but I was thinking I feel like you've got these their roles are so iconic and they have such a fan base around them particularly Star Trek that you must walk down the street people like hey Jordy mm-hmm does that drive you crazy no really no it really doesn't it doesn't bother him it's not like my fans are like Gary Busey fans you know what I mean he's Gary Busey yeah he does and they tend to put cigarettes out in his arms really yeah but he's into that he loves he loves me yeah yeah Wow so that doesn't bother you at all so then that's great would you be annoyed if I conducted the rest of the interview as if you were Jordy and being Hornet and before you answer at Kui get some mood music on for this when you are serious well it's this is the sound from the bridge I know what that sound is but you would be in engineering so it'd be a little louder could we bring up the sound a little bit more and that sounds about right to me okay that's fine you cut I'm not actually gonna do this I'm not gonna subjective no no no I was really getting in time very you're ready to go in Jordan right I was I was almost in character we were talking backstage the whole time you were on Star Trek who the visor you really couldn't see very well in the visor actually took away about 85% of my vision when I put it on and there's a tremendous irony there right because the visor gave you on the show gave you all kinds of extra abilities you could like see what they give what the makeup of the room was and yet in reality you were at sty I was stumbling around that's uh I didn't know that by the way and it was brought up backstage and I was I was shocked too shocked to find this fun Star Trek facts to know and tell so so besides being an actor your director you you hosted Reading Rainbow and obviously still Reading Rainbow Watchers in the huh I don't want to make you feel old but I grew up on Reading Rainbow I'm lying I'm actually I'm quite all of myself and no but no Reading Rainbow was yes I mean that was like a huge deal 26 years on PBS 26 26 years and you you you want a bunch of Emmys mm-hmm you won a Peabody hmm so 26 seasons yeah do you feel the story's over nowhere you know like there could be a movie in the offing Oh a movie a Reading Rainbow movie not like a narrative film Wow have you considered we could get some butterflies go on maybe a sky yeah that's probably pretty easy to do yeah they have sound stages where they can recreate a sky I understand in Hollywood I would probably want to do it all CGI though yeah absolutely so we're gonna I want to talk with you of an app you have this happen oh yes we all heard about the Reading Rainbow app that's out in the App Store so it's out right now it's out now it's out now how am i how much is it it's a free app two three it's free what are you waiting for why are you downloading the why fighting here's pretty bad okay but but but so so before we talk about that I want to talk about your life on the internet you've become very active on unit I love the internet you you are you're on reddit we've one of the cofounders of reddit here you're not correct me if I'm wrong your username on reddit is Kunta in the house is that correct it's absolutely true okay that is true and true and you're pretty active I mean you're fairly active on there oh yeah you're also a mean you're aware of this the yerba memed I have been yes well we had Neil deGrasse Tyson on who's also do you know he's astrophysicist absolutely and he's been memed heavily and we asked him about it I just want to kind of show you one of my favorites here this is if you're having hall problems I feel bad for you son I've got 99 problems but a breach ant one apologies to jay-z does this does this weird you out as a strange for your I love this stuff he just randomly appears yes you're into it wouldn't you yes I would yes I wish I wish people did more creative means with me I'm going to put that out into the world please do more creative memes so so let's talk about the app okay I actually have it here you do on an iPad let me see if I can get this up so it has can we get this on on camera I'm still talking yeah so check this out it's got islands that you can fly through and we were reading a book you have a backpack right I thought was great reading pirate boy one of my favorites and who is the narrator a pirate boy I don't know no you tell me I don't I don't know isn't there one hundred and fifty percent oxygen what if there are sea monsters it's not you know that is Jim mess common who is one of our storytellers I read about 20 percent of the titles the app you know you are reading the titles alone oh yeah absolutely that's it it seems like a lot of time big time sync I work cheap for myself okay but it's a cool app we were putting around that it just it has interactive it does it's got this you can see dragged in here can you can touch it and it starts doing that it is like very much like a pop-up book on an iPad oh I'm incredibly proud of what we've been able to do in terms of translating a television show into an app experience there are a lot of challenges involved and I think we've we've overcome a lot of them not the least of which is is the fear of disappointing those who really know and are familiar with the brand it can be dangerous to you know go to the well too many times with the same franchise just just ask paramount yeah we're Star Trek is oh oh well but I mean I don't know Star Trek has been pretty successful it has in Harry and they had to give it a long rest before you know JJ rebooted the franchise do you feel bummed that there's not gonna be any more next generation movies I'm tired Josh first contact was on TV last night but was it completely random it I had to watch it obviously and you had to watch it well I mean it's really good yeah wouldn't you wouldn't you stop and watch it I whenever I'm on TV is great no but it's no good I miss the next generation crew yeah do you do you keep in touch with those guys do you think we all keep in touch and this is the 25th anniversary of next gen coming on the air so we are having sort of a reunion tour of conventions we started a couple of months ago in Calgary and and we have others coming up there's one in Austin in a couple of months and so it's great Patrick lives over in England now michael dorn is spending his money there's Wharf money Wharf on next Janney was Wharf on deep space right God he had a long run michael Dorn's got more money than God really yeah after the show can I get his contact information cuz I need you do we do to you know get some budget in here you know we try we're no we're no CNN but we're doing that we're doing the best we can so let me ask you about that the the Reading Rainbow and though it's clearly for kids it is have you ever thought about how our young at heart have you ever thought about adding more adult titles like Fifty Shades of Grey Lolita would be something you might put in there maybe some of the Anne Rice novels people have asked me for years about doing an adult version of Reading Rainbow and I know and I I think we should get around to that in in the fullness of time because why not be a lot of fun yeah I mean adults need to read I let's hope I mean what are what are the goals for you with the app like what do you want to do with this happening obviously you want to encourage people to read yes but it does read for you in some way you're almost encouraging people to not read does that seem fair to the kids seems a little counterproductive it does are we raising a generation of lazy kids who won't read I think we're raising a generation of overindulged kids and with iPad they all have iPad I don't know I mean you know this is a generation that you know gets rewarded for everything you know if you're on a sports team everybody gets a trophy you know whether you suck or not and true you see professional sports players they're really good mm-hmm most people are not that good you should not be in an award if you're not really good at sport I think that my generation of parents in an effort to really give our children the the sort of of childhood that we feel we ourselves never had have really gone way overboard in in terms of indulging this upcoming generation and I just think they're they're a little spoiled yeah yeah I agree we should be hitting them a lot more right spare the rod spoil the child is my so so look I know I know your hit regarded we Barberton advocates leading children's you heard it here first heard it here Babar says hit your kids often more becoming frankly they had it coming I know you're very tired I'm not gonna keep you too much longer but I was thinking so they rebooted the old Star Trek I started to keep going back to start no no but I can just tell you I'm a little bit of a fan I couldn't tell and so they rebooted the original Star Trek they put a bunch of new young actors in the roles of that you know the Shatner had and Leonard Nimoy right if they were to reboot next generation which by the way seems weird to reboot the next generation but do they were to reboot the next generation who would you want you is there anybody out there who you feel like would be a great new Geordi I really put you on the spot now woman no Gary Coleman's not here no he's not gonna work you know why cuz the cat needed a job man I'll tell you what I spent years watching you I had no idea you were as funny you're like so serious on Star Trek and so much horrible always happens to you you know like you never get a chance to just cut loose on starts right now that wasn't part of Georgie's character he always had to hold it together yeah you were you know everybody was countin on him right it was always like everything is falling apart right you just whip up some new way to fix the warp core and you always did sure captain let's get right on it that's so amazing so no no actors in mind that you would want to let's see who in this current crop of actually I think Sam Jackson would make a noise yeah yeah yeah don't you think no why does yeah Geordi like shot stuff all the time right the next the next generation of the next generation Geordi LaForge badass total bass you know what I'm gonna leave it there the BART thank you so much for coming