Seth MacFarlane To Match The Next $1 Million Raised By Reading Rainbow Kickstarter

The Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign has been a massive success, generating its goal of $1 million in just a day and currently resting at almost $4.1 million with five days remaining in the campaign.

The fundraiser, which offers premiums to contributors in an attempt to generate enough revenue to bring Reading Rainbow's app to poor schools, has seen help from a number of high-profile sources, including a number of Star Trek celebrities (since Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and joked about it in his introductory Kickstarter video, that wasn't too surprising).

Now, though, actor/director/produer Seth MacFarlane has stepped on to the stage, offering to help Reading Rainbow in the most direct way yet: he's matching up to $1 million in contributions from fans.

"The money that Seth has pledged is for schools. Every dollar we're raising right now gives us the ability to give the Reading Rainbow product away to more schools in need," explained Burton in the latest announcement video (embedded above).

If MacFarlane were to match the full $1 million, Reading Rainbow would become the biggest film and TV Kickstarter of all time, eclipsing last year's Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter...but it's unlikely that it would go into the record books that way. While no details have yet been released as to just how he plans to match pledges, it stands to reason that MacFarlane would cut a check to Reading Rainbow, rather than making a pledge on Kickstarter, where some of the money would go to Amazon for processing fees.

Reading Rainbow, the decades-old children's literacy program, made the jump from TV to app when it was cancelled in 2006. MacFarlane, best known for his comedy work like Family Guy and the just-released A Million Ways to Die in the West, serves as an executive producer on Fox's Cosmos, similarly a revamp of a classic educational TV program.