Reader Rabbit
| Reader Rabbit | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genres | Edutainment |
| Publishers | The Learning Company |
| Creators | Leslie Grimm |
| Platform of origin | Apple II |
| Year of inception | 1983 |
| First release |
Reader Rabbit and the Fabulous Word Factory v1.0 1983 |
| Spin-offs | The Cluefinders |
Reader Rabbit is an edutainment software franchise created in 1983 by The Learning Company. This series is aimed at players aged from infancy through second grade. To cater to older players who had outgrown Reader Rabbit, 1998 saw the release of the first title in a new spin-off series entitled The ClueFinders, for third grade through sixth grade.
Generally, the games in the series taught language arts, featuring a variety of simple games designed to teach schoolchildren basic reading and spelling skills. Originally, the title character's name was changed to reflect a change in subject, as with Math Rabbit and Writer Rabbit, but it was eventually decided to call the main character "Reader Rabbit", and feature his name in all titles regardless of the subject area covered by a particular game.
Reader Rabbit was originally conceived by the Grimm sisters and titled Reader Rabbit and the Fabulous Word Factory. It was released in late 1983 or early 1984 (and featured in the 1983 holiday special for The Computer Chronicles), with later versions released in 1984. In 1986, both Reader Rabbit 2.0 and Math Rabbit were released, while 1987 saw the release of Writer Rabbit, with the intention of having a Rabbit series that featured different academic subjects; however, the title soon became locked in as Reader Rabbit, and under that name the developers explored subjects beyond reading. (Math Rabbit would later be renamed to Reader Rabbit Math). Many critics and gaming historians erroneously assert that the Reader Rabbit series officially began in 1986. The 1990s saw an audio cassette release of some of the game's most popular music, entitled Reader Rabbit's Sing Along Favorites In 1995, The Learning Company was bought by Softkey after it made a hostile takeover bid, with the latter company adopting the former company's name. This saw the series go into a new direction, which involved cutting R&D costs, downsizing staff, re-releasing older software with a minimal redesign, and selling cheaper software. The Platinum line of budget titles pushed the retail price for edutainment down to $12.99, and swapped the fancy packaging for a simple jewel case. At this time, SoftKey founder Kevin O'Leary recalled "I’d get a $US12 million order for "Reader Rabbit," it would blow up behind me, the logistics. I couldn’t deliver", noting that he gave Mike Perik half his equity to solve the problem.
...
Wikipedia