mr. rogers

Cathleen Falsani 11-22-2019

Fred Rogers and C.S. Lewis. Images via Wikimedia Commons

In his Neighborhood of Make-Believe, with simple hand puppets with complex internal lives such as Daniel Striped Tiger, Prince Tuesday, and Ana Platypus, he did something profound. Rogers and his collaborators on the show listened intently to children, created routine and a safe, sometimes magical place where they might be understood, affirmed, and cherished.

For those of us who perhaps didn’t always get the emotional support we needed at home, it was a gift that helped shape who we are as adults, parents, and grandparents.

Kimberly Winston 11-20-2019

Image via 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood' trailer 

The film also gets right Rogers’ deep belief in God and Junod’s persistent doubt. Junod was raised a Catholic but fell away from the church. For a while he attended a Presbyterian church, but now does not. He is still interested in the spiritual, he says, and a lot of that stems from his relationship with Rogers. This summer, as publicity for the movie was heating up, Junod recovered 70 emails he exchanged with Rogers from an old laptop, many of them about theology.

Gareth Higgins 6-01-2018

THE NEW DOCUMENTARY about the life of beloved children’s television host Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, is not merely a nostalgia trip. It stirs more than fond memories: a collective hope that we might discover our kinder selves. Fred Rogers made kindness look easy.

Some folks are skeptical—they remember Mister Rogers as nice, but not brilliant, sweet, but not powerful. Directed by Morgan Neville, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? reveals Fred Rogers as an activist for the common good—a singular figure who cared enough about people to give them what they needed, even if they didn’t know to want it. Footage from 1969 of Rogers testifying to a U.S. Senate subcommittee poised to reduce public television funding—melting the heart of a previously resistant senator—isn’t just a heartstring-pulling moment of grace but shows how speaking truth to the powers can sometimes convert them.

MISTER ROGERS’ Neighborhood began running on U.S. public television just over 50 years ago, in February 1968. The anniversary was marked in March by the airing of a tribute special, Mister Rogers: It’s You I Like, on PBS and the release of a Mister Rogers stamp by the U.S. Postal Service. In June, a documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? by Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville, will hit the theaters. And, in Hollywood, a Fred Rogers biopic is forthcoming, starring Tom Hanks as the man in the sweater.

Rogers, who off-screen was an ordained mainline Presbyterian minister, was most famous as a sort of pastor to the nation’s preschoolers. Every day he looked into the camera and conducted a calm, face-to-face conversation with the kids about their feelings, especially their fears. Usually those discussions would lead into a Rogers-composed song. Then Rogers would dramatize those lessons in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where several puppet characters, most voiced by Rogers, and a few other adult humans populated a fanciful parallel universe.

When Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood started, the U.S. seemed to be falling apart.

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Tripp Hudgins 12-05-2011

Jim Henson spent his life, like Mr. Rogers (a Presbyterian minister), trying to say to us and our children, "Hey, you're special and you're good." How is this a bad thing?