Fred Rogers: “These programs are timeless.”19 Aug
In 1999, Fred Rogers gave an incredibly in-depth, 4+ hour interview with the Archive of American Television — you can watch the whole thing on Youtube.
In the final segment, the interviewer asks Fred what he hopes will happen to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood after he’s gone.
“I’d like to think that it could continue in being re-shown,” Fred says. “These programs are timeless — they’re sort of like The Wizard of Oz in that they can be read in any epoch.”
Indeed.
Another relevant bit comes up in part 8. Fred is discussing the early struggle to keep the Neighborhood going:
“There was a group mothers in Boston who heard that we might be going off the air. They marched door to door to get people to make contributions to the Children’s Programming Fund. They said that it was essential to keep these programs on the air.
“Clear over in Chicago, people got word of what was happening in Boston — this mothers’ march for the Neighborhood. It came to the attention of Bill McCurdy, who was President of the Sears Foundation at that time. He had been talking with NET about sponsoring something… and he said, ‘Why don’t we try that one?’ … You see, it’s always thanks to people. If it hadn’t been for those mothers… And if it hadn’t been for the good graces of the newspapers that wrote about those mothers… people in Chicago never would have heard about it.”
It’s this same kind of grassroots action that we must take today if the Neighborhood is going to remain on the air. Please call your PBS member station today and tell them you want Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood five days a week.
- Brian
I admit to being 35 years old and still enjoy watching Mr. Rogers whenever I can. I still use his sense of calm in daily work situations. I believe his show is a timeless classic. It has been on the air for forty years and that says a lot. Whenever he visits a factory, I am always impressed and amazed. And some of the later episodes got into the technology age, which was also good. Most of all I like Mr. Roger’s simplicity. He wore fashionable sweaters, but never anything flashy. Sometimes that sort of humbleness is lost in today’s designer and fashion obsessed society. The Neighborhood of Make Believe is almost a whole other show, but of course it was part of Mr. Rogers. It teaches us that conflict does happen in our lives, but it can be dealt with in an intelligent manner. Finally, Mr. Roger’s really teaches that people are the most important, not machines or material possessions. I will contact the local PBS stations in keeping Mr. Rogers at least for some time to come.
Lets keep it a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Mister rogers neighborhood had been on the air for almost 42 years. It aired here and boston and other states including pitsburgh in 1965. It ran out of money in 1967 and we saved it with the sears roebuck foundation for $14 million dollars. Let’s save mister rogers neighborhood and maybe put all the episodes even the episodes from 1967-1975. And all the ones from 1978-2000.