It’s here! March 20, 200 is Won’t You Be My Neighbor Day a.k.a. Mister Rogers’ Sweater Day. Won’t you wear a sweater today in honor of Fred Rogers?

Visit Family Communications’ website for more.

Friday, as many of you will recall, was the sixth anniversary of Fred Rogers’ passing. And so it’s been nice for me to spend some time this evening reflecting on his life and work while browsing this extremely informative online resource, The Neighborhood Archive.

It’s an online archive-in-progress of all things Neighborhood-related. Primarily, you’ll find episode summaries with screencaps and occasional commentary. It really is a fantastic site that we are hoping to watch grow.

Speedy Delivery: The Movie, a heartwarming documentary about David Newell (Mr. McFeely), is now available on DVD. The film tells the story of the lovable Neighborhood personality and his efforts to carry on the important work that Fred Rogers began over fifty years ago.

You can purchase Speedy Delivery online for $19.95 + $3.00 shipping and handling. Click here for more details and to place your order.

We have seen the film and can vouch for its specialness.  Thanks to our friend and neighbor Paul Germain, the producer/director of Speedy Delivery, for making this labor of love a reality.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story that you’ll all want to take note of.

It’s being reported that PBS’s license to air reruns of the Neighborhood program expires this August. Given the already reduced visibility on the network, one wonders what their level of interest would be in renewing those rights. And even if they do renew them, what will the future of the Neighborhood look like on PBS?

The Post-Gazette spoke with PBS president Paula Kerger who says that they intend to keep the program around. “My assumption is we’re going to keep ‘Mister Rogers’ available,” Kerger said. Not exactly a troubling statement, but Ms. Kerger does not seem to be bubbling over with enthusiasm either.

Of course we hope that an agreement can be reached that will return reruns of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood to their prominent place on the daily schedule.

As many of you who’ve been following this campaign for a while will know, PBS has said that their plans include bringing Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood episodes online — it was a key point in their press release announcing the show’s weekday demise. So, not surprisingly, a question we’ve been getting a lot is… “Well, where are they!?”

Unfortunately, it would seem that there are no plans for the immediate future. It’s a real shame, especially for children in the areas where the Neighborhood program is no longer being aired each weekday. We hope you’ll continue to contact PBS and let them know how important it is to keep the Neighborhood available to today’s children and the people who care for them.

One point of concession, there are 12 episodes that can be streamed from PBSKidsPlay.org, PBS’ subscription online service. Not exactly the entire library, but it’s worth checking out using the available free trial.

One special thing to note… The site features an animated Neighborhood of Make-Believe environment that would be A LOT better if they had bothered to try to get the character voices even remotely close to the way they originally sounded. (C’mon! I can do a better X the Owl than the person they’re using.)

While navigating around the site, I began to wonder… Would the Neighborhood of Make-Believe work as an animated program? It would be tricky to create an animated program that was true to the nurturing spirit of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, but if it were done with the excellence and care that Fred Rogers employed on his show, I think it could be a special, unique thing.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments…

Hi. There are some Mister Rogers related events that I thought I’d take a sec to bring to everyone’s attention. If these are in your neighborhood you might want to check them out…

On Friday, October 24, Family Communications will conduct a workshop at University of Wisconsin-Stout. Hedda Sharapan, FCI’s Director of Early Childhood Initiatives will be presenting the “What do you Do with the Mad That you Feel?” and Challenging Behvaiors: Where Do We Begin?” seminars. Both of these are part of FCI’s Mister Rogers Professional Development series. Children and the people who care for them are welcome to attend. You can get the specifics here.

Sorry, this next one is invite-only! A special award will be posthumously presented to Fred Rogers at the 41st Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for outstanding print, broadcast and new media coverage of music. The award will be presented during a ceremony and reception on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at The Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Allen Room, Broadway at 60th Street, New York City.

And here’s a lovely event that you may want to check out if you find yourself in the Pittsburgh area around the holidays. Mister Rogers’ musical neighbor, Joe Negri, whom many of you may know is a quite accomplished jazz musician outside of the Neighborhood, will be performing his innovative Mass of Hope at The Carneigie on Saturday, December 20.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has an update on the Tribute to Children memorial that’s being created near Heinz Field in Pittsburgh.  For those not in the know, it’s essentially going to be a small park on the North Shore that will include a stylized 10-foot-tall statue of Fred Rogers by renown sculptor Robert Berks — Rogers was a fan of his work.

The statue itself has been completed for some time, but progress on the site construction has been slow. Our takeaway from the article is that beaucracy has had more than a little to do with it.

Sources close to the project tell Save MRN that it might be ready for March 20, 2009, what would have been Fred Rogers’ 81st birthday. We’ll keep you posted.

Credit: Astorino/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Here’s a glimpse at the sculture and the park courtesy of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette.

The opening of the Fred Rogers Center at St. Vincent College continues to get play in the press. Here’s an excerpt from a nice piece in Allentown PA’s The Morning Call:

“Fred Rogers, during his lifetime, was not only the most powerful producer of children’s media, but he was the standard setter,” Maxwell King, executive director of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media, said at its dedication Thursday at St. Vincent College.

The heart of the center, King said, will be to create national programs to help parents and children deal with media and help media producers create better media for children.

His widow, Joanne, said the center ”keeps Fred alive and he’s been alive for me all along, mostly because of this. Right away, we got busy with this,” she said, adding her husband would have been humbled and fascinated.

Archabott Douglas Nowicki said Rogers made it clear that ”he did not want a museum to himself.”

Still, a modest interactive exhibit focuses on ”Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and includes artifacts such as several of Rogers’ trademark hand-knit cardigan sweaters and a pair of his worn blue canvas sneakers.

Puppets from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, including King Friday, Queen Sara and Daniel Striped Tiger are also on hand. So is the black Royal typewriter and paper on which he taught himself to type in 1943. The original manuscript for ”Won’t You Be My Neighbor” is also on display.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a nice piece as well, which features a look at part of the exhibit area. Meanwhile, The Pittsburgh Tribute-Review has an article that also includes an image.

We hope to pay a visit to the Center soon to check it out for ourselves. If any of you happen to beat us to it, please let us hear from you. Watch for more stories related to the center popping up online here.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has the scoop on the grand opening of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College.

From the paper:

This $14 million facility is being billed as “green” and is a testament to the red-sweatered man above — a Latrobe native and longtime host of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on PBS.

Two stories tall with 36,500 square feet, the center will include the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media; the Fred Rogers Archive; and an interactive exhibit about his life and work.

Also there is his Steinway D Grand piano, on which he composed many of his songs for the show. It was donated by his wife, Joanne.

A group of experts have gathered today for a briefing on Youth-Created Media that’s being streamed live on the Rogers Center website.

The center, which should be a valuable resource for those studying the fields of early learning and children’s media, will have an open-to-the-public space with a self-guided multimedia exhibit. That will be open Monday, October 6th and normal hours will be M-F 8:30AM-4:30PM.

Hi everyone. We have some great news from Brew City! Milwaukee, Wisconsin PBS affiliate MPTV had initially planned to suspend weekday airings of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood starting September 1, but they have reconsidered. We’ve learned that the Neighborhood program will be broadcast Monday-Friday at Noon beginning September 1st on MPTV channels 10 and digital 10.1. And I’m guessing that viewer involvement in our campaign had a little something to do with it. (Special thanks to Milwaukee resident Leah Kim and her family for their active participation!)

We hope that those of you in the MPTV viewing area will join us in expressing our appreciation and, if you’re not already, become a member today!

- Brian