TITLE
The rise and fall of the company behind ‘Reader Rabbit’ and all your favorite educational games
AUTHOR
Abigail Cain
PUBLICATION
The Outline
YEAR
2018
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
Each May, as the elementary school year was winding down, our teachers would send us home with a new educational CD-ROM — hoping, I assume, that it would keep our young brains from rotting away during the lazy summer months. As a result, I spent many a 100-degree Texas day indoors, glued to our family’s outdated computer monitor. One year, I helped Reader Rabbit salvage the town play after it was sabotaged by an angry chipmunk; another, I joined the Cluefinders to traverse the Numerian jungle and defeat a mysterious winged monster known as “Mathra.” I bought new costumes by solving addition problems, unlocked ancient gates by pairing synonymous words, even hitched a ride with a flock of birds after brushing up on U.S. geography.Little did I know, the real drama was happening off-screen. Both Reader Rabbit and Cluefinders were the work of The Learning Company (TLC), a dominant player in the realm of educational software during its peak in the late 1980s and ’90s. At a certain point, TLC owned pretty much every computer game that mattered to millennials: The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, even Oregon Trail. But by 2000, the company was in financial shambles — and, in what was labeled one of the worst business deals of all time, almost took a Fortune 500 company down with it.
“It’s a fascinating story,” said Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children’s Technology Review. “It attracted pioneers both in the business sense and the education sense. A lot of educators could see quickly how powerful the medium was for giving kid instant feedback. That alone was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s like the Holy Grail of learning.’”
Perhaps appropriately, then, it all started with an ex-nun.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
The Learning Company
GAMES MENTIONED
Reader Rabbit
Rocky’s Boots
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Warren Buckleitner
Leslie Grimm
Ann McCormick
Kevin O’Leary
Scot Osterweil
Teri Perl
Warren Robinett
Bernie Stolar
TOPICS MENTIONED
Business
ALTERNATE LINK
Archived Copy @ Internet Archive