Mr. Rogers

 
This page is a tribute to Mr. Rogers, created by a grateful, grown-up child.
 
Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003) was an American educator, minister, songwriter, and television host. Rogers was the host of the television show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, in production from 1968 to 2001. Rogers was also an ordained Presbyterian minister.
Rogers was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, a town located 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. He was born to James and Nancy Rogers; he spent many years as an only child. He spent much of his free time as a child with his grandfather, Fred McFeely, and had an interest in puppetry and music. He would often sing along as his mother would play the piano.
Following secondary school, he studied at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire between 1946 and 1948 before transferring to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. He received a BA in music composition there in 1951.
At Rollins, Rogers met his wife, Sara Joanne Byrd. They had two children. In 1962, Rogers graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church.
Rogers had a life-changing moment when he first saw television in his parents' home. He entered seminary after college, but was diverted into television after his first experience as a viewer; he wanted to explore the capabilities of the medium. "I went 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."
He thus applied for a job at NBC in New York and was accepted because of his music degree. Rogers moved to New York in 1951 and spent three years working in the production staff for music-centered programming such as NBC Opera Theater. He also worked on Gabby Hayes' show for children. Ultimately, Rogers decided that commercial television's reliance on advertisement and merchandising undermined its ability to educate or enrich young audiences, so he quit working at NBC.
 
 
In 1954, he began working at WQED, a Pittsburgh public television station, as a puppeteer on a local children's series, The Children's Corner. For the next seven years, he worked with host Josie Carey in unscripted live TV, developing many of the puppets, characters and music used in his later work, such as King Friday XIII, and Curious X the Owl.
Rogers first began wearing his famous sneakers when he found them to be quieter than his work shoes when he moved about behind the set. He was also the voices behind King Friday XIII and Queen Sara Saturday (named after his wife), rulers of the neighborhood, as well as X the Owl, Henrietta Pussycat, Daniel the Striped Tiger, Lady Elaine Fairchild (named for Fred's sister, Elaine) and Donkey Hodie. The show won a Sylvania Award for best children's show, and was briefly broadcast nationally on NBC.
For eight years during this period, he would leave the WQED studios during his lunch breaks to study theology at the nearby Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Rogers, however, was not interested in preaching, and after his ordination as a Presbyterian minister in 1962, he was specifically charged to continue his work with children's television.
 
 
In 1963, Rogers moved to Toronto, where he was contracted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to develop a 15 minute children's television program: MisteRogers (sic), which would be his debut in front of the camera. The show was a hit with children, but only lasted for three seasons on the network. Many of his famous set pieces, such as Trolley, Eiffel Tower, the 'tree', and 'castle' were all created by designers at the CBC.
In 1966, Rogers acquired the rights to his program from the CBC, and moved the show to WQED in Pittsburgh, where he had worked on The Children's Corner. He developed the new show for the Eastern Educational Network. Stations that carried the program were limited, but included educational stations in Boston, Washington, DC and New York City.
 
 
Distribution of MisterRogers' Neighborhood began on February 19, 1968. The following year, the show moved to PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). In 1971, Rogers formed Family Communications, Inc. (FCI), and the company established offices in the WQED building in Pittsburgh. Initially, the company served solely as the production arm of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, but now develops and produces an array of children's programming and educational materials.
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was characterized by its quiet simplicity and gentleness. Episodes did not have a plot, and consisted of Rogers speaking directly to the viewer about various issues, taking the viewer on tours of factories, demonstrating experiments, crafts, and music, and interacting with his friends. The half-hour episodes were punctuated by a puppet segment chronicling occurrences in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
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, puts on a cardigan zipper 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.
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.
Rogers covered a broad range of topics over the years, and the series did not gloss over issues that other children's programming avoided. In fact, Rogers endeared many when, on March 23, 1970, he dealt with the death of one of his pet goldfish. The series also dealt with competition, divorce, and war. Rogers returned to the topic of anger regularly and focused on peaceful ways of dealing with angry feelings.
 
 
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 regularly in both the realistic world and Make-Believe: it was used to transport viewers from one realm to the other. Rogers, however, was mentioned from time to time in Make-Believe, particularly by Mr. McFeeley, who appeared occasionally in the Make-Believe segments and seemed to form a link between the two worlds.
 
 
The series was also notable for its use of jazz-inspired music, mostly arranged and performed by Rogers' long-time friend Johnny 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 was usually played live during taping. Lyrics and melodies were written and sung by Rogers, who created more than 200 original songs. The final episode of the series aired on August 31, 2001.
Rogers died on February 27, 2003, not long after his retirement and less than a month before he would have turned 75. The Reverend William P. Barker presided over a public memorial in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 2,700 people attended the memorial at Heinz Hall, including former "Good Morning America" host David Hartman, Teresa Heinz Kerry, philanthropist Elsie Hillman, PBS President Pat Mitchell, Arthur creator Marc Brown, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar author-illustrator Eric Carle.
Speakers remembered Rogers' love of children, devotion to his religion, enthusiasm for music, and quirks. Teresa Heinz Kerry said of Rogers, "He never condescended, just invited us into his conversation. He spoke to us as the people we were, not as the people others wished we were." Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, on a concert tour overseas, played on video, and violinist Itzhak Perlman and organist Alan Morrison played in person. His remains are interred at Latrobe's Unity Cemetery inside a mausoleum.
Pittsburgh plans to unveil a $3 million statue of Rogers in 2008.
 
 
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