Of all the people likely to become hot media properties in the age of Instagram and Snapchat, your first guess might not have been Mister Rogers.
Yet 15 years after Fred Rogers’ death — and 50 years after his groundbreaking preschoolers’ TV show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” launched in the U.S. — that warm smile, reassuring tone and zippered cardigan sweater are suddenly everywhere.
Hello, neighbor.
PBS is celebrating the milestone anniversary of the kids show all year, highlighted Tuesday (8 p.m.) by “Mr. Rogers: It’s You I Like,” a special hosted by Michael Keaton.
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Keaton, who got his start on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” is joined by celebrities like Judd Apatow, John Lithgow, Whoopi Goldberg, Yo-Yo Ma and more who pay tribute.
Michael Keaton hosts the tribute special, "Mister Rogers: It's You I Like."
(The Fred Rogers Company)Sarah Silverman credits “Mister Rogers...and many therapists” for steering her into productive adulthood.
“Some people thought Mister Rogers was the biggest nerd on television,” Goldberg says. “To me, he was one of the coolest men on the planet.”
Tom Hanks apparently agrees. He’s set to play Mister Rogers in the upcoming biopic “You Are My Friend,” which will be about the friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod.
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That will come after the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” centering on the legacy of Rogers and his show and due out June 8.
Sarah Silverman says "Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood" helped steer her into productive adulthood.
(Vince Bucci)Comedy Central just did a segment of its “Drunk History” comedy series that recalled Rogers’ 1969 testimony to a Senate subcommittee on the importance of children’s television.
The U.S. Postal Service will issue a Mister Rogers Forever stamp on March 23, and Reddit has a forum called “Church of Rogers.”
“Fred’s message still resonates,” says David Newell, who played Mister Rogers’ trusty mailman Mr. McFeely from the inception through the last filmed episode in 2001. “It may have seemed like a nice little kiddies’ show, and it was, but the depth behind it was remarkable.”
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What’s happening now “may be a combination of a revival and a reminder,” says executive producer Ellen Doherty of the Fred Rogers Company. “The shows have never gone away. ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,’ which started with ‘Mister Rogers,’ is the number-one children’s show on PBS. I think kids will always respond to literate, interesting, thoughtful programs.”
The late Fred Rogers -- seen here with Bill Nye on "Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood" -- will be the focus of "Mister Rogers: It's You I Like."
(The Fred Rogers Company)Rogers died from stomach cancer in 2003 at age 74.
“Fred in real life had the same measured and considered approach that you saw on the air,” Newell says. “He studied things. He wrote 98% of the scripts for the shows, and they had to be right.”
He would spend hours every Tuesday, Newell recalls, with Dr. Margaret McFarland, a child development expert. They would work out the approach to the often difficult subjects that “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” would tackle.
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“When he wanted to do a show on divorce,” Newell says, “it took five years before he felt he had the right way. He talked to a boy with disabilities, which showed the point that some things can’t be fixed.
Fred Rogers, seen here with his Daniel Striped Tiger, is seemingly everywhere in 2018.
(The Fred Rogers Company)“He believed in the Quaker idea that lessons are best ‘caught not taught.’ You don’t have to say something directly. Kids will get it.”
Rogers understood the show’s and his own image, Newell says. When Eddie Murphy was doing his “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood” parodies on “Saturday Night Live,” Rogers surprised Murphy one night by dropping by the comedian’s dressing room for a friendly hello. Newell says he considered Murphy’s skits “affectionate.”
At the same time, says Newell, “Fred never liked being famous. He wanted to focus on the show.”
If Rogers were around today, Newell suggests, he’d find ways to do that with social media. After the show ended, Newell says, Rogers wrote a series of “bedtime stories” for the Internet — a sort of early podcast.
Social media can also be troubling for children, of course, meaning Mister Rogers would not have ignored that part.
“I suspect he would have addressed it,” says Doherty. “I couldn’t speak for him, but I do know one of his biggest messages was to be kind.”
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