 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 him as Jordy 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 welcome the amazing LeVar Burton. Very careful. Thank you so much. These are live human beings. Yeah, we have real people. Wow. We've convinced humans to come in here. Good job. Thank you so much for coming. Yeah, man. You've been, now I know you've been on a whirlwind tour of New York. Yes. You've just been sightseeing. Indeed. No, you've been everywhere. You were on Late Night last night. You were at CNN today. You've been all over the place. And this is your last stop in New York? This is my last stop on the Reading Rainbow app launch press tour, and I wanted to spend it here with y'all. That is... No, seriously. I mean, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And we're very glad that you did. Now, so I mentioned before you came out, you have some very iconic roles in your history. I'm talking about the Fantasy Island I did. And Fantasy Island. I did the Love Boat too, you know. And of course, well, of course, Love Boat. I mean, no one can forget the Love Boat. I have. No one but you can forget the Love Boat. But I was thinking, I feel like you've got these, the roles are so iconic and they have such a fan base around them, particularly Star Trek, that you must walk down the street and people are like, hey, Jordy. Does that drive you crazy? No. Really? No, it really doesn't. It doesn't bother you? It's not like my fans are like Gary Busey fans. You know what I mean? Does Gary Busey have fans? Yeah, he does, and they tend to put cigarettes out in his arm and stuff. Really? Yeah. But he's into that. And he loves it. 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 before you answer, could we get some mood music on for this? Oh, you are serious? Well, this is the sound from the bridge. I know what that sound is. Actually, but actually, hold on. But you would be an engineer and so it would 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. I'm not actually going to do this. I'm not going to subject you. No, no, no. I was really getting into it. You were ready to go into Jordy right there, weren't you? I was almost in character. We were talking backstage the whole time you were on Star Trek, the visor, you really couldn't see very well in the visor. 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 on the show gave you all kinds of extra abilities. You could see what the makeup of the room was. And yet in reality you were stumbling around. I was stumbling around. I didn't know that, by the way. And it was brought up backstage and I was shocked to find that. Fun Star Trek facts to know and tell. So besides being an actor, you're a director. You hosted Reading Rainbow and obviously still very... Any Reading Rainbow watchers in the house? I don't want to make you feel old, but I grew up on Reading Rainbow. I'm lying. I'm actually quite old. I'm quite old myself. But no, Reading Rainbow was, yes, that was a huge deal. 26 years on PBS. 26. 26 years on PBS. And you won a bunch of Emmys. You won Peabody. So 26 seasons. Do you feel the story is over? No. Or do you feel like there could be a movie in the offing? Oh, a movie? A Reading Rainbow movie? Like a narrative film? Wow. Have you ever considered that? We could get some butterflies. Go on. Maybe a sky. That's probably pretty easy to do. 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, no, absolutely. So I want to talk, because you have an app. You have this app. Yes, we do. Have you all heard about the Reading Rainbow app that's out in the App Store? Some? It's out right now. It's out now. It's out now. How much is it? It's a free app to download. It's free. What are you waiting for? Why aren't you downloading it? The Wi-Fi in here is pretty bad. Okay, fine. But so before we talk about that, I want to talk about your life on the internet. You've become very active on the internet. I love the internet. You are on Reddit. We have one of the co-founders of Reddit here. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. Your username on Reddit is Kunta in the house. Is that correct? That is absolutely true. That is true. That is true. And you're pretty active. I mean, you're fairly active on there. Yeah, a little. You're also a meme. You're aware of this? That you've been memed? I have been? Yes. Well, we had Neil deGrasse Tyson on here also. Do you know, the 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 health problems like me, if you're having health problems, I feel bad for you, son. I've got 99 problems, but a breach ain't one. Apologies to Jay-Z. Does this weird you out? Is this strange for you? No, no, I love this stuff. That you just randomly appear? Yes. You're into it. Wouldn't you? Yes, I would. Yes. I wish people did more creative memes with me. I'm going to put that out into the world. Please do more creative memes. So let's talk about the app. I actually have it here on an iPad. Let me see if I can get this up. Can we get this on camera? Is it still talking to me? Check this out. It's got islands that you can fly through. We were reading a book, you have a backpack, which I thought was great. We were reading Pirate Boy, one of my favorites. Who is the narrator of Pirate Boy? I don't know. You tell me. I don't know. There are 150 people. Okay. But mom, what if there are sea monsters? It's not you. No, that is Jim Meskimen, who is one of our storytellers. I read about 20% of the titles in the app. You are reading the titles as well? Oh, yeah, absolutely. That seems like a lot of big time sink. I work cheap for myself. Okay. But it's a cool app. We were playing around with it. It has interactive elements. It does. It's got this, the sea dragon here, you can touch it and it starts doing that. It is very much like a pop-up book on an iPad, though. 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 overcome a lot of them, not the least of which is the fear of disappointing those who really know and are familiar with the brand. It can be dangerous to go to the well too many times with the same franchise. Just ask Paramount, where Star Trek is concerned. Oh, oh. Well, but I mean, I don't know. Star Trek has been pretty successful throughout the years. It has been, and they had to give it a long rest before JJ rebooted the franchise. Do you feel bummed that there's not going to be any more Next Generation movies? I'm tired, Josh. First Contact was on TV last night, by the way. Was it? Completely random, and I had to watch it, obviously. You had to watch it. Well, I mean, it's really good. Yeah. Wouldn't you stop and watch it? Whenever I'm on TV, I stop to watch. You're like, who's that guy? He is great. No, but it's so good. I miss the Next Generation crew. Yeah. Do you keep in touch with those guys? Do you hang out? We all keep in touch, yeah. Really? 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 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. His wharf money. He was wharf on Next Gen. He was wharf on Deep Space. Oh, that's 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? Because I need to get some budget in here. Clearly. Yeah, I know, right? You know, we try. We're no CNN, but we're doing the best we can. So let me ask you about the Reading Rainbow app, though. It's clearly for kids. It is. And those who are young at heart. Have you ever thought about adding more adult titles, like Fifty Shades of Grey or 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 think we should get around to that in the fullness of time. Why not? Because it would be a lot of fun. And adults need to read. Let's hope. I mean, what are the goals for you with the app? Like, what do you want to do with this app? I mean, obviously you want to encourage people to read. Yes. But it does read for you. It does. So 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. With iPads. They all have iPads? No, no, no. I mean, this is a generation that gets rewarded for everything. If you're on a sports team, everybody gets a trophy, whether you suck or not. That's true. And most people suck. That's the thing about sports. You see professional sports players. They're really good. Most people are not that good. You should not be getting an award if you're not really good at sports. I think that my generation of parents, in an effort to really give our children the sort of childhood that we feel we ourselves never had, have really gone way overboard in terms of indulging this upcoming generation. I just think they're a little spoiled. Yeah. I agree. We should be hitting them a lot more. Right? Spare the rod, spoil the child is my... So, look, I know you're... LeBaron advocates beating children. You heard it here first. You heard it here first. LeBaron says hit your kids often. More, more. Yeah. They had it coming, frankly. They had it coming. So, look, I know you're very tired. I'm not going to keep you too much longer. But I was thinking, so they rebooted the old Star Trek. I'm sorry, I have to keep going back to Star Trek. No, 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 that 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 if they were to reboot the Next Generation, who would you want? Is there anybody out there who you feel like would be a great new Geordi? I'm really putting you on the spot now. Gary Coleman? No, Gary Coleman's not here. No. No. He's not going to work. No. Why Gary Coleman of all people? Because the cat needed a job. Desk- I felt so bad for him. Man, I'll tell you what. I spent years watching you. I had no idea you were as funny as you are. You're like so serious on Star Trek and so much horrible shit always happens to you. You know, like you never get a chance to just cut loose on Star Trek. No, that wasn't part of Geordi's character. He always had to hold it together. Yeah. Because everybody was counting on him. Right. No, it was always like everything is falling apart. Right. Can you just whip up some new way to fix the warp core? And you always did. Sure, Captain. I'll get right on it. That's just so amazing. So no actors in mind that you would want to accept as? Let's see. Who in this current crop of- actually, I think Sam Jackson would make a hell of a Geordi. As Geordi? Yeah. Yeah. Don't you think? No, I don't. Yes. Come on. You have Geordi shot stuff all the time. Right? Yeah. It's like the new- The next generation of the next generation. Geordi LaForge. Badass. Total badass. You know what? I'm going to leave it there. LeVar, thank you so much for coming. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. LeVar Burns. Thank you. That was so good. Thank you so much.
 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 him as Jordy 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 welcome the amazing LeVar Burton.
 Very careful. Thank you so much.
 These are live human beings.
 Yeah, we have real people.
 Wow.
 We've convinced humans to come in here.
 Good job.
 Thank you so much for coming.
 Yeah, man.
 You've been, now I know you've been on a whirlwind tour of New York.
 Yes.
 You've just been sightseeing.
 Indeed.
 No, you've been everywhere.
 You were on Late Night last night.
 You were at CNN today.
 You've been all over the place.
 And this is your last stop in New York?
 This is my last stop on the Reading Rainbow app launch press tour,
 and I wanted to spend it here with y'all.
 That is...
 No, seriously.
 I mean, I appreciate that.
 I appreciate that.
 And we're very glad that you did.
 Now, so I mentioned before you came out,
 you have some very iconic roles in your history.
 I'm talking about the Fantasy Island I did.
 And Fantasy Island.
 I did the Love Boat too, you know.
 And of course, well, of course, Love Boat.
 I mean, no one can forget the Love Boat.
 I have.
 No one but you can forget the Love Boat.
 But I was thinking, I feel like you've got these,
 the roles are so iconic and they have such a fan base around them,
 particularly Star Trek, that you must walk down the street
 and people are like, hey, Jordy.
 Does that drive you crazy?
 No.
 Really?
 No, it really doesn't.
 It doesn't bother you?
 It's not like my fans are like Gary Busey fans.
 You know what I mean?
 Does Gary Busey have fans?
 Yeah, he does, and they tend to put cigarettes out in his arm and stuff.
 Really?
 Yeah.
 But he's into that.
 And he loves it.
 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 before you answer, could we get some mood music on for this?
 Oh, you are serious?
 Well, this is the sound from the bridge.
 I know what that sound is.
 Actually, but actually, hold on.
 But you would be an engineer and so it would 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.
 I'm not actually going to do this.
 I'm not going to subject you.
 No, no, no.
 I was really getting into it.
 You were ready to go into Jordy right there, weren't you?
 I was almost in character.
 We were talking backstage the whole time you were on Star Trek, the visor, you really couldn't
 see very well in the visor.
 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 on the show gave you all kinds of extra abilities.
 You could see what the makeup of the room was.
 And yet in reality you were stumbling around.
 I was stumbling around.
 I didn't know that, by the way.
 And it was brought up backstage and I was shocked to find that.
 Fun Star Trek facts to know and tell.
 So besides being an actor, you're a director.
 You hosted Reading Rainbow and obviously still very...
 Any Reading Rainbow watchers in the house?
 I don't want to make you feel old, but I grew up on Reading Rainbow.
 I'm lying.
 I'm actually quite old.
 I'm quite old myself.
 But no, Reading Rainbow was, yes, that was a huge deal.
 26 years on PBS.
 26.
 26 years on PBS.
 And you won a bunch of Emmys.
 You won Peabody.
 So 26 seasons.
 Do you feel the story is over?
 No.
 Or do you feel like there could be a movie in the offing?
 Oh, a movie?
 A Reading Rainbow movie?
 Like a narrative film?
 Wow.
 Have you ever considered that?
 We could get some butterflies.
 Go on.
 Maybe a sky.
 That's probably pretty easy to do.
 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, no, absolutely.
 So I want to talk, because you have an app.
 You have this app.
 Yes, we do.
 Have you all heard about the Reading Rainbow app that's out in the App Store?
 Some?
 It's out right now.
 It's out now.
 It's out now.
 How much is it?
 It's a free app to download.
 It's free.
 What are you waiting for?
 Why aren't you downloading it?
 The Wi-Fi in here is pretty bad.
 Okay, fine.
 But so before we talk about that, I want to talk about your life on the internet.
 You've become very active on the internet.
 I love the internet.
 You are on Reddit.
 We have one of the co-founders of Reddit here.
 Now, correct me if I'm wrong.
 Your username on Reddit is Kunta in the house.
 Is that correct?
 That is absolutely true.
 That is true.
 That is true.
 And you're pretty active.
 I mean, you're fairly active on there.
 Yeah, a little.
 You're also a meme.
 You're aware of this?
 That you've been memed?
 I have been?
 Yes.
 Well, we had Neil deGrasse Tyson on here also.
 Do you know, the 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 health problems like me,
 if you're having health problems, I feel bad for you, son.
 I've got 99 problems, but a breach ain't one.
 Apologies to Jay-Z.
 Does this weird you out?
 Is this strange for you?
 No, no, I love this stuff.
 That you just randomly appear?
 Yes.
 You're into it.
 Wouldn't you?
 Yes, I would.
 Yes.
 I wish people did more creative memes with me.
 I'm going to put that out into the world.
 Please do more creative memes.
 So let's talk about the app.
 I actually have it here on an iPad.
 Let me see if I can get this up.
 Can we get this on camera?
 Is it still talking to me?
 Check this out.
 It's got islands that you can fly through.
 We were reading a book, you have a backpack, which I thought was great.
 We were reading Pirate Boy, one of my favorites.
 Who is the narrator of Pirate Boy?
 I don't know.
 You tell me.
 I don't know.
 There are 150 people.
 Okay.
 But mom, what if there are sea monsters?
 It's not you.
 No, that is Jim Meskimen, who is one of our storytellers.
 I read about 20% of the titles in the app.
 You are reading the titles as well?
 Oh, yeah, absolutely.
 That seems like a lot of big time sink.
 I work cheap for myself.
 Okay.
 But it's a cool app.
 We were playing around with it.
 It has interactive elements.
 It does.
 It's got this, the sea dragon here, you can touch it and it starts doing that.
 It is very much like a pop-up book on an iPad, though.
 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 overcome a lot of them, not
 the least of which is the fear of disappointing those who really know and are familiar with
 the brand.
 It can be dangerous to go to the well too many times with the same franchise.
 Just ask Paramount, where Star Trek is concerned.
 Oh, oh.
 Well, but I mean, I don't know.
 Star Trek has been pretty successful throughout the years.
 It has been, and they had to give it a long rest before JJ rebooted the franchise.
 Do you feel bummed that there's not going to be any more Next Generation movies?
 I'm tired, Josh.
 First Contact was on TV last night, by the way.
 Was it?
 Completely random, and I had to watch it, obviously.
 You had to watch it.
 Well, I mean, it's really good.
 Yeah.
 Wouldn't you stop and watch it?
 Whenever I'm on TV, I stop to watch.
 You're like, who's that guy?
 He is great.
 No, but it's so good.
 I miss the Next Generation crew.
 Yeah.
 Do you keep in touch with those guys?
 Do you hang out?
 We all keep in touch, yeah.
 Really?
 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 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.
 His wharf money.
 He was wharf on Next Gen.
 He was wharf on Deep Space.
 Oh, that's 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?
 Because I need to get some budget in here.
 Clearly.
 Yeah, I know, right?
 You know, we try.
 We're no CNN, but we're doing the best we can.
 So let me ask you about the Reading Rainbow app, though.
 It's clearly for kids.
 It is.
 And those who are young at heart.
 Have you ever thought about adding more adult titles, like Fifty Shades of Grey or 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
 think we should get around to that in the fullness of time.
 Why not?
 Because it would be a lot of fun.
 And adults need to read.
 Let's hope.
 I mean, what are the goals for you with the app?
 Like, what do you want to do with this app?
 I mean, obviously you want to encourage people to read.
 Yes.
 But it does read for you.
 It does.
 So 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.
 With iPads.
 They all have iPads?
 No, no, no.
 I mean, this is a generation that gets rewarded for everything.
 If you're on a sports team, everybody gets a trophy, whether you suck or not.
 That's true.
 And most people suck.
 That's the thing about sports.
 You see professional sports players.
 They're really good.
 Most people are not that good.
 You should not be getting an award if you're not really good at sports.
 I think that my generation of parents, in an effort to really give our children the sort of childhood that we feel we ourselves never had,
 have really gone way overboard in terms of indulging this upcoming generation.
 I just think they're a little spoiled.
 Yeah.
 I agree.
 We should be hitting them a lot more.
 Right?
 Spare the rod, spoil the child is my...
 So, look, I know you're...
 LeBaron advocates beating children.
 You heard it here first.
 You heard it here first.
 LeBaron says hit your kids often.
 More, more.
 Yeah.
 They had it coming, frankly.
 They had it coming.
 So, look, I know you're very tired.
 I'm not going to keep you too much longer.
 But I was thinking, so they rebooted the old Star Trek.
 I'm sorry, I have to keep going back to Star Trek.
 No, 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 that 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 if they were to reboot the Next Generation, who would you want?
 Is there anybody out there who you feel like would be a great new Geordi?
 I'm really putting you on the spot now.
 Gary Coleman?
 No, Gary Coleman's not here.
 No.
 No.
 He's not going to work.
 No.
 Why Gary Coleman of all people?
 Because the cat needed a job.
 Desk-
 I felt so bad for him.
 Man, I'll tell you what.
 I spent years watching you.
 I had no idea you were as funny as you are.
 You're like so serious on Star Trek and so much horrible shit always happens to you.
 You know, like you never get a chance to just cut loose on Star Trek.
 No, that wasn't part of Geordi's character.
 He always had to hold it together.
 Yeah.
 Because everybody was counting on him.
 Right.
 No, it was always like everything is falling apart.
 Right.
 Can you just whip up some new way to fix the warp core?
 And you always did.
 Sure, Captain.
 I'll get right on it.
 That's just so amazing.
 So no actors in mind that you would want to accept as?
 Let's see.
 Who in this current crop of- actually, I think Sam Jackson would make a hell of a Geordi.
 As Geordi?
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Don't you think?
 No, I don't.
 Yes.
 Come on.
 You have Geordi shot stuff all the time.
 Right?
 Yeah.
 It's like the new-
 The next generation of the next generation.
 Geordi LaForge.
 Badass.
 Total badass.
 You know what?
 I'm going to leave it there.
 LeVar, thank you so much for coming.
 Really appreciate it.
 Thank you.
 Thank you.
 LeVar Burns.
 Thank you.
 That was so good.
 Thank you so much.