Fred Rogers
Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 - February 27, 2003) was the host of the universally acclaimed children's television show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Mister Rogers, a Presbyterian minister, lived and worked in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area.
Rogers' show won four Emmy awards, including one for lifetime achievement. He also recieved a George Foster Peabody award in 1983, "in recognition of 25 beautiful years in the neighborhood". In 2002, Fred Rogers received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to children's education. "Fred Rogers has proven that television can soothe the soul and nurture the spirit and teach the very young," said President George W. Bush at the presentation.
He was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied early childhood development at the University of Pittsburgh.
Life and work
In 1954, he began working at WQED Pittsburgh as a puppeteer on a local children's TV series, The Children's Corner. For the next seven years, he worked in unscripted live TV, and developed many of the puppets, characters and music used in his later work, such as King Friday the XIII, and Curious X the Owl.
During this period, for eight years he gave up lunch breaks to study theology at a nearby seminary. He had planned to enter seminary after college, but had been diverted into TV. In 1962 he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister, and specifcally charged to continue his work with children's TV.
In 1963, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation contracted him to develop a 15 minute children's show, Mister Roger's Show.
In 1966 he moved the show back to WQED in Pittsburgh, incorporating parts of the show into a show he developed for the Eastern Educational Network to cities including Boston, Washington and New York.
Distribution of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood began on National Educational Television on February 19, 1968. The following year the show moved to the PBS network, where it continues to be broadcast today. The last set of new episodes was taped in December 2000 and began airing on August 2001.
After returning to Pittsburgh, he was an active congregational member in the Sixth Presbyterian church of Pittsburgh until his death.
Mister Rogers
Each show began the same way, with Mister Rogers coming home and singing his theme song, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" and changing into comfortable shoes and a cardigan (i.e., zippered) sweater.
The show's target audience was chiefly pre-school children and featured none of the animation or fast pace of Sesame Street. Rogers, who composed all the music for the show, would interact with live guests or with the puppets of his "make-believe world", featuring a trolley (with its own chiming theme song), a castle and various citizens of the kingdom.
Mister Rogers was concerned with teaching children to love themselves and others. He also tried to address common childhood fears with comforting songs and skits. For example, one of his famous songs explains how you can't be pulled down the bathtub drain - because you won't fit.
During the Gulf War, he assured children that all children in the neghborhood would be well cared-for, and asked parents to promise to take care of their children.
Guest stars were often surprised to find that he was a perfectionist, unwilling to let half-baked ad-libbing go on the air. He thought children were people and deserved shows as good as anything else on TV. Guests on the show ranged from cellist Yo-Yo Ma to actor and bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno of TV's The Incredible Hulk.
Rogers is quoted as saying, "I got into television because I hated it so. And I thought there was some way of using this fabulous instrument to be of nurture to those who would watch and listen."
His gentle manner has been lampooned by some comedians, notably a parody in the 1980s on Saturday Night Live by Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live, "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood," a routine Rogers found funny and affectionate. [1] When Murphy met Mister Rogers, he embraced him and respectfully pronounced him "the real Mister Rogers".
Fred Rogers died on February 27, 2003, succumbing to cancer of the stomach a short time after his retirement. He was 74 years old.
The Sniper legend
There has been a widespread urban legend that Fred Rogers was a sniper for the United States army in Vietnam or elsewhere, and that he wore his trademark long-sleeved red cardigan sweater to cover the tattoos of his army days. The myth has been thoroughly debunked, but it continues to circulate, probably because of the humorous contradiction of imagining the incredibly nice, gentle "Mr. Rogers" as any sort of killer.