# 1992 VHS • Reading Rainbow: Optical Illusions and A Three Hat Day 60 FPS

Reading Rainbow: Optical Illusions and A Three Hat Day is a PBS Home Video release of a Reading Rainbow episode hosted by LeVar Burton. The program opens with a behind-the-scenes demonstration of television special effects, showing how plastic snow, wind machines, foam rocks, and chroma-key blue-screen photography combine to simulate a mountain blizzard in the studio. Burton then introduces the concept of optical illusions using the picture book Opt: An Illusionary Tale by Arlene and Joseph Baum, walking viewers through several classic illusions including the Muller-Lyer arrows, the impossible trident, equal-length lines appearing unequal in different contexts, figure-ground reversals with an old and young woman, and a box-counting illusion. A segment on camouflage in nature covers flounder, horned lizards, walking sticks, leaf-mimic insects, and caterpillars. Guest child reviewers recommend three additional books: Hide and Seek, an Oxford Scientific Films book on animal camouflage; If at First You Do Not See by Ruth Brown, a caterpillar's-eye-view picture book with figure-ground illusions; and Lenses: Take a Closer Look by Siegfried Aust, covering color blindness tests and optical phenomena. The second program on the tape presents Burton visiting a specialty hat store and reading A Three Hat Day by Laura Geringer, illustrated by Arnold Lobel and read by actress Zelda Rubinstein, the story of R.R. Poddle III, a lonely hat collector who finds love in the largest hat store in…

- Kind: Film
- Year: 1992
- By: The Vista Group®
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/TheVistaGroup-ReadingRainbowOpticalIllusionsAndAThreeHatDay)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/TheVistaGroup-ReadingRainbowOpticalIllusionsAndAThreeHatDay?play=1)