Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
Mister Rogers, and a model of the Neighborhood </small>
Genre	Children's television series
Running time	30 minutes
Creator(s)	Fred Rogers
Starring	Fred Rogers
Country of origin	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States
Original channel	NET (1968–1970), PBS (1970–2001)
Original run	February 19, 1968–August 31, 2001
No. of episodes	895

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was an American children's television series that was created and hosted by Fred Rogers. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was produced by Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania public broadcaster WQED and Rogers' not-for-profit production company Family Communications, Inc. (named Small World Enterprises prior to 1971). It is the longest running series on PBS.

[edit] History

The series began in 1962 as MisteRogers, a 15-minute program on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Ernie Coombs, a.k.a. Mister Dressup, got his start as a puppeteer on MisteRogers.

The first broadcast of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was on the National Educational Television network on February 19, 1968; the color NET logo appeared on a model building at the beginning and end of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood from 1969 to 1970. When NET ceased broadcasting, the series moved to PBS. (The former NET model house was "remodeled", first to a small yellow orange sided house, and then into a red apartment building. The roof's lopsided slant from its days as an NET logo remained.) The last set of original episodes began airing in August 2001. 300 reruns continue to be broadcast on most PBS stations.

The series was divided into two halves.

• The first series of episodes were produced and aired from 1968 to 1976.
• The second series of episodes were produced and aired from 1979 to 2001 (modern series).

As of August 11, 1995, all of the episodes of the first half are no longer shown on television, since there is already an ample supply of the second series in circulation, and since many of the episodes of the first series have become outdated. Most episodes from the first half exist in the Museum of Television & Radio including the first episode of the series and the first color episode.

When PBS began reruning the first 460 color episodes of the series in 1976, some of the early color episodes from 1969 and 1970 were re-edited with new voice-overs or footage. For example, in one 1969 episode where Mister Rogers demonstrates the noise-proof ear protectors that airport workers use on the tarmac, the film footage used featured a worker directing a United Airlines jet with its stylised "U" logo—which wasn't introduced until 1974. All of the episodes revised from the first series also included an extra segment following the closing credits, mentioning the episode number and additional companies that provided funding since these episodes originally aired, even though they had not provided funding at the time of original production.

The final week of original episodes of the "first series" were broadcast on February 16-20, 1976 featured Mister Rogers in his workshop, watching scenes of past episodes of his series, which he recorded on videocassettes and kept on the shelf in his workshop. On the Friday episode of that week, he reminded viewers that they, too, can watch many of those old episodes beginning the following week.

Almost all of the 1979–2001 episodes are in active rotation on PBS. The only exception is the week-long "Conflict" series (episodes #1521–#1525, first aired in November of 1983), which covered the topics of war, bombs, and an arms race. The "Conflict" series was last aired in April 1-5 1996, due to the bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995. In that week of episodes, Cornie's factory was making oddly-shaped parts for a project in Southwood. The king originally determined that they were parts for a bomb, so he ordered Cornie to make extra "bomb" parts for the Neighborhood of Make Believe. Furthermore, King Friday had most of the human characters of the Neighborhood of Make Believe trained as generals, but forgot to train regular soldiers. In the end, they found out that the parts were for a bridge that the Southwooders were building. At the end of the Friday episode, instead of Mister Rogers singing the Good Feeling song, he sang a lullaby, Peace and Quiet, wishing his television friends "peace". This was followed by an on-screen display of Isaiah 2:4:

"And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

And their spears into pruning forks;

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

Neither shall they learn war any more."

[edit] About the series

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was characterized by its quiet simplicity and gentleness. Episodes usually eschewed a defined plot, and instead consisted of Rogers speaking directly to children about various issues, taking them on tours of factories, demonstrating experiments and crafts, and interacting with his friends. The half-hour episodes were punctuated by a puppet segment chronicling occurrences in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

Rogers covered a broad range of topics over the years, and the series did not gloss over issues that other children's programming avoided. For example, the series dealt with competition, divorce, death, and war. Rogers returned to the topic of anger regularly and focused on peaceful ways of dealing with angry feelings.

In a Make-Believe segment from 1983 that depicted an arms race against the neighboring Southwood, King Friday said, "Yes, so here is your assignment, Handyman Negri: you are to order a million of these from Cornflake S. Pecially and conscript everyone in the neighborhood to help put the bombs together." Later, Friday added, "If Southwood has a million, we will have a million and one." By the end of the week-long series, other inhabitants of the Neighborhood encourage the King to explore more diplomatic options, and the end result is peace.^{[citations needed]}

Starting in 1979, episodes were grouped into week-long series, with each series focused on a particular topic. Rogers' monologues throughout the week explore various facets of the topic, and the ongoing story from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe serves as illustration.

Mister Rogers always made a clear distinction between the realistic world of his television neighborhood and the fantasy world of Make-Believe. He often discussed what was going to happen in Make-Believe before the next fantasy segment was shown ("Let's pretend that Prince Tuesday has been having scary dreams..."), and sometimes acted out bits of Make-Believe with models on a table before the camera transitioned to the live-action puppet rendition. The miniature motorized trolley, with its accompanying piano theme music, was the only element that appeared in both the realistic world and Make-Believe: it was used to transport viewers from one realm to the other.

This reality/fantasy distinction put Rogers' series in sharp contrast with other children's series, such as Sesame Street, which freely mixed realistic and fantastic elements.

The series was also notable for its use of jazz-inspired music, mostly arranged and performed by Rogers' long-time friend John Costa, until Costa's death in 1996, when he was succeeded by Michael Moricz for the remainder of the series. The music was unique in its simplicity and flow that blended with the series' sketches and features. The music would usually be played live during taping. Lyrics and melodies were written and sung by Rogers—in total, he created more than 200 original songs.

At the beginning of each episode, Fred Rogers enters his television studio house, singing "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" He hangs his coat in a closet and puts on a cardigan sweater and removes his dress shoes to put on sneakers. One of Rogers' sweaters now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution, a testament to the cultural influence of his simple daily ritual.^{[citation needed]}. The final episode of the series aired on August 31, 2001.

When Fred Rogers died in 2003, PBS' website communicated some ways to make children not be scared about Mr. Rogers' passing away; it presented suggestions to parents on what to say to them about Mr. Rogers and how to approach a child who asks about him. PBS stated that the parents would have to say that although Mr. Rogers is no longer with us, he shall live on in the television series.^{[citations needed]}

[edit] Guests

Guests on the series ranged from cellist Yo-Yo Ma to actor and bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno of TV's The Incredible Hulk. (In a 2001 piece where celebrities were asked about their heroes, Rogers cited Ma as one of his heroes.)

Guests on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood were often surprised to find that although Rogers was just as gentle and patient as he was on his series, he was nevertheless a perfectionist who did not allow ad-libbing;^{[citation needed]}he believed that children were thoughtful people who deserved programming as good as anything produced for adults on television.^{[citation needed]}

Rogers appeared as a guest on some other series. On the children's animated cartoon series Arthur, for example, Rogers plays himself as an aardvark like Arthur. Prior to this, Arthur appears as a guest in hand-puppet form in an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Bill Nye (the Science Guy) and Rogers also exchanged appearances on each other's series.

[edit] Specials

A Christmas special aired in 1978. This special had Francois Clemmons introducing a storyteller and flutist friend to Rogers. They filmed a couple of narrated segments of the stories Francois' friend told. The special also had the Neighborhood of Make Believe segment which shows how they celebrated Christmas. Even the Trolley had a banner on the roof that said Merry Christmas on one side, and Happy Hanahkah on the other. This special was aired every Christmas season until 1982. This special's opening and close have Rogers walking through a real neighborhood while the titles roll rather than the model neighborhood used in the series.

In 1994 Rogers created another one-time special for PBS called "Fred Rogers' Heroes" which consisted of documentary portraits of four real-life people whose work helped make their communities better. Rogers, uncharacteristically dressed in a suit and tie, hosted in wraparound segments which did not use the "Neighborhood" set.

For a time Rogers produced specials for the parents as a precursor to the subject of the week on the Neighborhood called "Mister Rogers Talk To Parents About (whatever the topic was)". Rogers didn't host those specials though as other people like Joan Lunden, who hosted the Conflict special, and other news announcers played MC duties in front of a gallery of parents while Rogers answered questions from them. These specials were made to prep the parents for any questions the children might ask after watching the episodes on that topic of the week.

[edit] Characters

Characters on the series include Mr. McFeely the delivery man (David Newell, whose fictional "McFeely" surname was actually Fred Rogers' middle name), Lady Aberlin (Betty Aberlin), Neighbor Aber (Chuck Aber), Chef Brockett (Don Brockett), François Clemmons, Handyman Negri (Joe Negri), and Robert Troll (Bob Trow). The puppets, some of which were voiced by Rogers, included Daniel Striped Tiger, X The Owl, Henrietta Pussycat, Cornflake S. Pecially, Lady Elaine Fairchilde, Grandpere, Edgar Cooke, Prince Tuesday, Queen Sara Saturday, and King Friday XIII. Other regular puppeteers included Lenny Meledandri and Michael Horton.

Pittsburgh-area native Michael Keaton got his first major acting break as a "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" character in 1975. Keaton played an acrobat in a troup called The Flying Zookeenies that performed for King Friday's birthday. He was also in charge of running the Trolley.[1]

Many of the puppet characters appearing in the "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" segment were developed by Rogers years earlier for the The Children's Corner, an educational program that he co-produced with Josie Carey. Rogers was the puppeteer behind many of the characters in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, including:

• Cornflake S. Pecially
• Daniel Striped Tiger
• Donkey Hodie
• Dr. Bill Platypus
• Edgar Cooke
• Grandpere
• Henrietta Pussycat
• King Friday XIII
• Lady Elaine Fairchilde
• Queen Sara Saturday
• Prince Tuesday
• X the Owl

The series produced occasional in-series "operas" during the course of the series. The operas always take place within the Make-Believe segments, and many of them feature American baritone John Reardon as a main character. Among these operas are "A Star for Kitty," "Pineapples & Tomatoes," "Swan Song," "A Granddad for Daniel," "Windstorm in Bubbleland," and "Josephine The Short-Necked Giraffe." The mailman Mr McFeely- named after the middle name of Fred Rogers- would appear in both Mister Roger's Neighborhood and the Neighborhood of Make Believe.

[edit] Mister Rogers in popular culture

Fred Rogers and his television series is often parodied for their gentleness and kind demeanor.

• One of the best-known parodies is Mister Robinson's Neighborhood, which starred Eddie Murphy in the title role of a considerably grittier version of the series. He hosted the series from a run-down row home in a slum district. Like Rogers, Robinson's speaking manner was similarly stilted, although he constantly had to dodge the law and landlords wanting the rent. On occasion, Gilbert Gottfried appeared as Mr. McFeely. The sketch title was appropriated by tennis shoe conglomerate Nike in the late 1980s featuring NBA star David Robinson.
• Several parodies and/or references have appeared on the Fox TV series The Simpsons and Family Guy.
• A clip from the series is heard and briefly seen in the 1979 film Being There, watched by Peter Sellers' character Chauncey Gardiner.
• A clip from the series was also featured in the 1981 Burt Reynolds film, Paternity.
• A series of "Garfield" comic strips from the '90s feature a fictional television program viewed on the character's television entitled "Uncle Roy"- Uncle Roy may very well be a parody of Mister Rogers as he appears to open the week in a very warm and inviting manner (much as Mr. Rogers) but then, unlike the real-world equivalent, he is revealed to be a sleazy, indebted deadbeat who eventually takes to verbally abusing his viewers.^{[citation needed]}
• A skit titled "Battle of the PBS Stars Part 1: Boxing" on the sketch comedy series Second City Television featured Mr. Rogers (portrayed by Martin Short) facing Julia Child (portrayed by John Candy) with Howard Cosell (portrayed by Eugene Levy) commentating at ringside. The fight is close until Mr. McFeely surreptitiously hands Rogers the loaded King Friday puppet which Rogers then uses to club Julia Child. Rogers is declared the winner despite the "weapon". Cosell states that it is a dark day in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.
• The political satire TV series D.C. Follies had a puppet of Mister Rogers that was used on many if not most episodes to poke fun at the children's series. In one episode, Mister Rogers visits the U.S.S.R. and, after having trouble with the K.G.B., begins his show behind bars saying, "Kids, can you say gulag?"
• In the 1980 spoof film Airplane!, Stephen Stucker's character suggests "Mr. Rogers" when Lloyd Bridges requests assistance from someone who knows an "airplane inside and out...someone who won't crack under pressure."
• A song on the album One Fierce Beer Coaster by The Bloodhound Gang is called, "Your Only Friends Are Make Believe," and references Messrs. Rogers and McFeely.
• A song on the Korn album Life Is Peachy is called "Mr. Rogers".
• In 1997 Mr. Rogers made an appearance as an aardvark version of himself on PBS's Arthur.
• During the moral outrage following Monicagate in early 1999, MAD Magazine printed a parody entitled "The Ken Starr Report on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood", featuring numerous outlandish claims including allegations that Mr. Rogers was violating the U.S. Constitution by "recognizing the royal sovereignty of King Friday XIII within U.S. borders", and links between Mr. McFeely and the Unabomber.
• In a 1999 episode of Win Ben Stein's Money, Stein dresses in a sweater like Mr. Rogers, and greets the audience by saying, "Hello, boys and girls, can you say 'game show'?"
• An episode of The Sopranos was named "Mr. Ruggerio's Neighbourhood", a reference to the series.
• A clip from the series appears in the Casper feature film in 1995. In the clip, Rogers is again discussing how to deal with wanting to be a completely different person, which is significant to Casper, as he does wish to be significantly different.
• A clip from the series is shown in Short Circuit 2. Johnny 5 watches Mister Rogers talk about how he is alive and that the dummy he holds is not.
• In the film Demolition Man, character Simon Phoenix refers to Raymond Cocteau as an evil Mister Rogers.
• In a deleted scene from the film Donnie Darko, Dr. Katherine Ross confesses to Donnie that she had a sexual fantasy involving Mr. Rogers.
• In the 1982 film Poltergeist, Steve Freeling (played by Craig T. Nelson) and a bunch of friends was watching a footbal game when, all of a sudden, the channel switches to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on its own. Steve finds out his neighbor used his remote so his son can watch Mister Rogers and the neighbor was complaining that his TV keeps flipping to football. Finally there was a short channel flipping battle with both of their remotes.
• On the Adult Swim animated series, Robot Chicken, during an episode of Bloopers, Mr. Rogers accidentally shocks himself on Trolley's tracks. He calls over the set designer, Peter, who accidentally put the tracks too close to the lake so he can "solve the problem". He then dunks the man's face into the water and drowns him.

[edit] Pre-1979 Credits

• Written by: Fred Rogers Eliot A. Dailey
• Executive Producer: Paul K. Taff, Fred Rogers
• Producers: Fred Rogers, Sam Silberman, Bob Walsh, Bill Moates
• Directors: David Fu-Ying Chen, Sam Silberman, Bob Walsh, Bill Moates
• Associate Producers: David Fu-Ying Chen, Diana Dean, David Newell, Nan Wheelock
• Music Director: Johnny Costa
• Consultants: Albert V. Corrado, M.D., Margaret B. McFarland, Ph.D.
• Film Producer: Laura Perkins
• Assistant Producers: Betsy Nadas Seamans,
• Production Assistants: David Newell, Laura Perkins, Susan Peters
• Art Director: Jack Guest
• Assistant Art Director: David M. Smith
• Lighting Directors: Art Siegel, Frank Warninsky, Gregory King
• Floor Managers: Nick Tallo, Jim Seech
• Videotape Editor: Chet Bednar
• Video: Don Williamson
• Audio: Chuck Sradomski, Dick La Sota

[edit] Sponsors

From 1968 to 1976, the sponsor credits were part of the series credits; the ones used in the opening are silent other than the theme, and an announcer or Fred Rogers reads the sponsor credits aloud during the closing credits. From 1976 onward, repeats of episodes from 1969 to 1974 have additional closing sponsor credits over a still of the trolley with the series logo and episode number. From 1979 onward, the sponsor credits were in a separate segment at the start and end of each episode, announced by Fred Rogers. Only the sponsors' names were shown on screen.

Credited sponsors include:

The series does not use the "Viewers Like You" credit but adds "We thank you" at the end on the sponsor credits in episodes from 2000 and 2001, to partially comply with PBS regulations.

[edit] See also

• Planet Purple
• Mister Robinson's Neighborhood

[edit] External links

• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood at the Internet Movie Database
• Home page of Family Communications Inc.
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood pages at PBS
• In-depth biography of Fred Rogers and his work on Rotten.com
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's obituary for Fred Rogers
• CNN's obituary for Fred Rogers
• Fred Rogers speaking on behalf of CPC in Congress
• Google Video links to the 9 Part Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation Interview with Fred Rogers