Reader Rabbit
Reader Rabbit is an Edutainment Game series created by the Learning Company for kids up to second grade. The series consists of several games, each one dedicated either to a specific grade level (apparently "baby" and "toddler" are grades now) or to a specific subject. The games for third grade through sixth grade instead feature The ClueFinders.
It started in 1986 and became very successful in the educational market. In 2001, the games were given a rapid makeover - for example, the title rabbit and his lion friend Sam become more adventurous, their character designs have changed, and their mouse friend Matilda (or "Mat" for short) is replaced by a floating pink manual named Paige.
Tropes used in Reader Rabbit include:
- Alliterative Name: Reader Rabbit.
- Alphabet Soup Cans
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Reader in the 1989-1991 games (where he wears a red sweater and blue overalls) and the 2001 version (where he wears a red shirt and blue jeans). Some of the other characters are this as well.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Mat is completely absent from the 2001 version.
- A Day in the Limelight: Sam the lion, who is usually a supporting character, became the main character of 2nd Grade.
- Funny Animal
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Reader only wears a red sweater in the 1992-1995 games and a red-and-blue-striped sweater in the 1997-2001 games.
- Sam in the 2001 version only wears a green shirt, even though he wears no clothes in previous versions.
- Hello, Insert Name Here: Reader Rabbit Thinking Adventures takes your name entry and matches it against a database of pre-recorded names available on the CD-ROM.
- Meaningful Name: Reader Rabbit is a rabbit who likes reading. Also, Paige is a manual.
- Nice Mice: Mat.
- Panthera Awesome: Sam.
- Pop Up Video Games
- Shout-Out: Pearl the Pi-rat often channels Ethel Merman.
- Skintone Sclerae: Mat.
- Updated Rerelease: The personalized versions of some of the games. They adapt to the abilities of the player; if you're doing good, you get the hard stuff, and vice versa.
- You Dirty Rat: The Pi-rats.