Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018) Movie Script
1
[piano music playing]
Come on over a minute.
I just had some ideas that
I'd been thinking about for quite a while,
about modulation.
It seems to me that there are
different themes in life.
And one of my main jobs, it seems to me,
is to help through
the mass media, for children...
To help children through
some of the difficult modulations of life.
Because it's easy,
for instance, to go from C
[plays C note]
to F.
But there are some modulations
that aren't so easy.
For instance, to go from F, to F-sharp,
you've got to weave through
all sorts of things.
And it seems to me
if you've got somebody to help you,
as you weave...
Maybe this is just too philosophical?
Maybe I'm trying to combine,
uh, things that...
That can't be combined,
but it makes sense to me.
Fourteen years ago,
a television program for children,
made its inauspicious debut
on Station WQED in Pittsburgh.
It's host, Fred Rogers,
an ordained minister with an abiding
interest in children,
and an equally abiding belief that
they deserve more from television.
["Won't you be my neighbor" playing]
It's a beautiful day
In this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
It's a neighborly day
In this beauty wood
A neighborly day for a beauty
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
I have always wanted to have
A neighbor just like you
I've always wanted to live in
A neighborhood with you
So, let's make
The most of this beautiful day
Since we're together
We might as well say
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please, won't you please?
Please, won't you be my neighbor
-Mr. Rogers?
-[Fred] Yes.
-Where do you live?
-I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
-Did you want to... Pardon me?
-[child mumbles]
[newsreader] They are gathered
in this television studio
with Fred Rogers,
an adult who cares just about them.
His reward is the love
of millions of children.
-I want to tell you something.
-What would you like to tell me?
-I like you.
-I like you, my dear.
Thank you very much for telling me that.
[Margy] We had a director
that once said to me,
"If you take all of the elements
that make good television,
"and do the exact opposite,
you have Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."
Low production values,
simple set, unlikely star.
Yet, it worked...
because he was saying
something really important.
[Fred] Love is at the root of everything.
All learning, all parenting,
all relationships.
Love or the lack of it.
And what we see and hear
on the screen is part of who we become.
[Tom] He had a singular vision
of kindness and love,
but a question that
I think of a lot in terms of Fred is
whether his attempt to influence America
succeeded or not.
[crowd cheering]
[Fred] I was all set to go
to the seminary to become a minister,
but I went home
my senior year for a vacation,
and I saw this
new thing called television.
And I saw people throwing pies
in each other's faces.
And I thought,
"This could be a wonderful tool.
"Why is it being used this way?"
And so I said to my parents, "I don't
think I'll go to seminary right away.
I think maybe I'll go into television."
And they said,
"Wait, but you've never even seen it."
[female announcer] Station WQED
is located in the heart of Pittsburgh.
[Joanne] His father told him
about this new station,
that was coming along here.
It was going to be called...
It was called Educational Television.
[Fred] Nobody wanted
to do a children's program.
I said, "Well, we need
a children's program."
And I said, "Well, I'll produce it
and play some music in the background.
"We'll get some free films and,
Josie, you can introduce them."
[singing]
And then we discovered the awful fact
that when you got free film,
it was often brittle and it would break.
And if you were on the air live,
you had to do something.
Somebody had given me
this little tiger puppet.
I pushed it through in the clock and said,
[in high-pitched voice]
"Hi, Josie, it's 5:02,
"and Columbus discovered America in 1492."
[in normal voice]
And then just went right back in.
And that's how the puppetry began.
We never expected to use puppets.
You know, there's so much of it was
the necessity being
the mother of that invention.
My friend, Daniel Striped Tiger.
[Daniel] How do you do? How do you do?
The interesting thing was Dad remembered
being six, and seven, and eight,
and nine years old.
That inner child never really went away.
[Fred] I had every imaginable
childhood disease, even scarlet fever.
Whenever I was quarantined,
I would be in bed a lot.
I would put up my knees, and they would
be mountains covered with the sheet.
I'd have all these
little figures moving around,
and I'd make them talk.
I had to make up a lot of my own fun.
[exclaims] Take that.
[exclaims]
What's the matter?
Over time, Fred became
unsatisfied withThe Children's Corner.
He thought that
it was simple and slapstick.
And he said he really
wanted to concentrate on the seminary,
so he wanted to stop for a while.
[Joanne] His ordination
was as an evangelist for television.
It was pretty way out there
for the Presbyterian Church.
[Hedda] With television,
Fred wanted to focus on the very young.
[Fred] What do you think it is?
-[kid] A lion!
-[Fred] A lion, great!
[kids roaring]
[Max] Back in the 1950s,
there was a school of people
at the University of Pittsburgh,
looking at early childhood education.
[baby gurgling]
[Hedda] They felt that
physicians needed a training ground.
So that they had
a sense of where human behavior
was coming from the very beginning.
[Max] Dr. Benjamin Spock was part of it.
Berry Brazelton,
the famous pediatrician, was a part of it.
Erik Erikson,
the extraordinary psychologist,
was a part of it,
and Fred's part of that group.
He became part of the group
as a student of Margaret McFarland.
Fred, I think to the child,
the television program between
you and the child is a real relationship.
[Elizabeth] For him to say,
"The feelings of a young child
"are every bit as powerful
as our adult feelings..."
He was radical. I know
everyone says that, but he was radical.
I've always felt that...
That I didn't need to put on a funny hat,
or jump through the hoop
to have a relationship with the child.
So, I went to visit with a new
nursery school.
I had never met these children before.
And I walked in,
and there was
a long stare from most of them.
And one little boy
by the name of Thatcher spoke first.
And all he said was,
"My doggy's ear came off
in the automatic washer."
And there was silence,
just complete silence.
It was as if,
"This is your test, Mr. Rogers.
"Are you still in touch with childhood?"
And so I said,
"Sometimes that happens
to toys, doesn't it?
"Their ears come off
or their legs come off,
"but that never happens to us.
"Our ears don't come off.
Our noses don't come off.
"Our arms don't come off,"
and Thatcher's eyes were getting
bigger and bigger and bigger, and he said,
"And our legs don't come off."
And I said, "No, they don't."
And, immediately,
all of the other children
started asking questions,
and poignant questions!
It was just as if, you know,
"We shall now open the door.
"You have passed the test.
You may come in."
[Hedda] And what he wanted to do
was to take all of that
that he learned in television work,
add to that the sense of ministry,
and the child development background.
It became Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
[Max] A neighborhood
was a place where at times
that you felt worried, scared, unsafe,
would take care of you,
would provide understanding, safety.
That's what the neighborhood was for Fred.
[Fred] Television has the chance
of building a real community
out of an entire country.
[Junlei] The neighborhood
is not a fantasy place
where all these
different people got together,
and everything was happily ever after.
When you have diverse people
together with their different opinions,
you have conflict. And that's
what happens in the neighborhood.
You have conflict, real conflict.
Halt, trolley!
Give me your name,
rank, and serial number.
[Fred] "King Friday the 13th
"establishes border guard.
"King Against Change."
[Junlei] The parallels between
what is happening in the real world
and what is happening
inside the neighborhood
are uncanny and undeniable.
[imitating rapid gunfire]
In 1968, the country is at war.
[man on TV]
He can go on fighting longer than we can.
[Henrietta Pussycat]
Frightened, meow, frightened, meow.
[X the Owl]
There's nothing to be frightened about
until somebody starts shooting, Henrietta.
[crying]
Meow-meow, start shooting, meow!
[Junlei]
That was the first time he knew that
he was producing something
for a national audience.
King Friday was really irritated
that people were changing things.
So, his reaction,
as the authority, was to build a wall.
[Edgar singing]
Oh, it's very sharp, It's very sharp
Oh, my, barbed wire is very sharp
[King Friday]
Remember our battle cry, Edgar?
Down with the changers!
[Edgar singing]
Down with the changers
Down with the changers
We don't want anything to change
[King Friday]
'Cause we're on top!
[Edgar] That's right.
'Cause we're...
At least you're on top
I can't believe
what a broad area we covered.
Edgar, Edgar, what do you think
he means by "any trouble"?
Fred didn't want you ad-libbing,
putzing around with the words,
because he was always trying
to get a message across in every show.
[Daniel] I want there
to be peace in this neighborhood.
It's been a hard time for everyone.
[X the Owl] Well, I really
do hope that what you say'll work.
[Daniel] Do you have
the tags on the bottom?
Yes, I put them on.
Look, see if you like them.
[Daniel] Good.
[Lady Aberlin] "Love" this one says.
And then we float them
over into the castle,
so that Great Uncle Friday will know
that the whole neighborhood wants peace.
[King Friday] Paratroopers!
Fire the cannon!
-Hold it, King Friday.
-[King Friday] Well, what is it?
They're not paratroopers.
They're messages of peace.
Look at this, "Tenderness."
-[King Friday] Messages of peace?
-"Peaceful co-existence."
-[King Friday] Wait.
-You see that one was...
-They're peaceful messages, sir.
-[King Friday] Let us stop all fighting.
Stop all fighting now.
[clapping] Superb! Superb!
Meow, wonderful, meow!
That was the first week.
That's how it got started.
["Won't you be my neighbor" playing]
It's a beautiful day
In this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
[Hedda] From the early days of
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
until the end of that program
he came in the door
every day the same way.
Hi.
Hello!
And he changed to the sweater
to give a sense
that we were going to have
this relaxing time together.
Whoop.
Change the shoes.
Some food for the fish.
Picture, picture on the wall,
would you kindly tell us all,
is Mr. McFeely on his way here?
[David Newell] My job
was to be the prop person.
And then he said,
"Oh, I know you've done some acting."
"I'd like you to play
the character of the delivery man."
I must go off, Mr. Rogers. I have a lot
of deliveries today in the neighborhood.
So, I became "Mr. McFeely" on the spot.
[Bill] Trolley left for its house...
[Fred]
Into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
Boomerang, toomerang, sumurang!
[Bill] Anything could
happen in Make-Believe.
But Make-Believe was not real.
I mean, there was a distinction.
Fred never appeared in Make-Believe.
The actors did. The puppets did.
[Fred] There's the clock
where Daniel Striped Tiger lives.
Next you see
King Friday the 13th's castle.
King Friday the 13th is one
of the few remaining benevolent despots.
These characters are...
Were people in his life.
Queen Sara would obviously be my mom.
[Queen Sara] I'd just like to say
what a fine person my husband is.
[King Friday] Why, Sara!
[kisses]
None of us like to think
of Lady Elaine as my aunt,
but we wonder about that.
[chuckling]
In the beginning, she was a witch.
[Lady Elaine] I heard that.
Here's a squirt.
What can I say? [laughs]
[Fred] In a beautiful tree,
lived X the Owl and Henrietta Pussycat.
Meow-meow, beautiful day,
meow-meow neighborhood.
[bell dinging]
[Hedda]
And then at the end of every program,
we came back to Fred's television house.
And to help children
understand all of these experiences,
he put that into a song.
[singing]
I like you as you are
Exactly and precisely
I think you turned out nicely
And I like you as you are
And children need to hear that.
I don't think that anybody can grow
unless he really
is accepted exactly as he is.
[Elizabeth] I think
he was one of those people
who would do their work seriously,
and they hope that
someone will pick up on
the seriousness of what they're about.
There were times when he thought,
"Will people ever understand
"that I'm not just a klutzy guy
who's falling around
"in a '50s living room
with weird curtains?"
WGBH in Boston decided to have
something called a "Mister Rogers Day."
There was just a woman in GBH
who was in their PR department
who loved the program,
and I think her colleagues said...
You know, I think they thought it was
really simple, kind of '50s, square.
And she said,
"No, I really want to bring him here,
"and I want families
to be able to come and see him."
And the line to get in
was blocks and blocks long,
before they even opened the doors.
And the word got around really quickly
that there's something
going on with this guy.
[indistinct chatter]
[kid] Mr. Rogers, Mr. Rogers.
I like you as you are.
A little boy came up to him and said,
"Mr. Rogers, how did you get out?"
And so he talked to the little boy,
explained what television was all about.
And the little boy's just taking it
all in, going, "Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm."
And when Fred finished,
he said, the little boy said,
"How are you gonna get back in?"
[all shouting excitedly]
[Rev. George Wirth] There was a whole
spiritual dimension to his work,
in the television business,
to be inclusive.
He did this without
ever identifying himself as a minister.
He didn't wear a collar.
He wore a sweater.
And he preached in that context,
in a way more effective
than anyone I've ever seen,
because it wasn't a sermon,
like an oratorical thing.
It was a communication
right into their hearts.
[Max] He was a life-long
registered Republican,
and if you look at the values
that Mr. Rogers represented,
it's influenced by his faith.
His Christianity was
this kind of wide open Christianity
that was accepting
thinking from all other places,
while never departing
from the Christian faith.
[Rev. George Wirth] Fred's theology
was love your neighbor and love yourself.
And he saw that communication
as the most deeply spiritual thing
that he could be doing.
[Fred] When I look at the camera,
I think of one person.
Not any specific person, but one person.
It's very, very personal.
The space between the television screen
and whoever happens to be receiving it,
I consider that very holy ground.
A lot happens. A lot happens there.
For somebody that was in television,
he was just... He hated television.
[machine guns firing]
Here, buddy, it's all yours.
-Wow! Look at this!
-Hey, what about me?
[Fred] In this country, the child
is appreciated for what he will be.
He will be a great consumer some day.
The quicker we can get them
to go out and buy, the better.
There's so much of that in this country.
Mr. Ellison, I think you have felt
strongly about some aspects of this.
Public television
could make a contribution.
As the American people
becomes aware of itself,
it discovers itself.
We do not know as much
as we should know about who we are,
what we are, and how we differ.
[President Johnson]
How will Man use his miracles?
The answer just begins
with public television.
We want most of all to enrich Man's spirit
and that is the purpose of this act.
And then Nixon became president,
and he wanted to cut the funding.
[David Bianculli] The beginnings of PBS
was gonna probably be dismantled
by Richard Nixon, whose approach to media
was to threaten stations
if they didn't behave politically.
[Max] Nixon had a problem with his budget.
He had to find money for the Vietnam War.
It wasn't a lot of money
in today's terms,
but he wanted to cut the budget.
[David Bianculli]
In the midst of all this,
Fred Rogers gets to go before Congress,
argue for $20 million of funding
to, sort of, solidify PBS,
in front of John Pastore,
who is a senator who had already,
sort of, made his Congressional bones
by attacking television.
This is gonna be a thorough hearing.
This is gonna be a hearing
not to reach for a headline,
but to reach for a result.
There had been two days of hearings,
and he hasn't been very impressed.
If you'd been watching those hearings,
and you had to bet on whether or not
PBS was going to keep going... No!
That educational television
should permanently struggle
for subsistence is intolerable.
[Pastore]
All right, who's the next witness?
[Hedda] Senator Pastore told the group,
"I've heard everybody
read your testimonies.
"I don't want anyone to read anymore.
I'm tired of hearing the reading."
When I heard about that
I thought, "Uh-oh, Fred."
[Pastore]
All right, Rogers, you've got the floor.
And I could hear in his voice, the nerves.
Senator Pastore,
this is a philosophical statement,
and would take about ten minutes to read.
So, I'll not do that.
One of the first things
that a child learns
in a healthy family is trust.
And I trust what you have said,
that you will read this.
It's very important to me.
I care deeply about children.
-My first children--
-Will it make you happy if you read it?
I'd just like to talk about it,
-if it's all right.
-All right, sir.
This is what I give,
I give an expression
of care every day to each child,
to help him realize that he is unique.
I end the program by saying,
"You've made this day
a special day by just you're being you.
"There's no person
in the whole world like you.
"And I like you just the way you are."
And I feel that if we,
in public television,
can only make it clear
that feelings
are mentionable and manageable,
we will have done a great service.
Could I tell you
the words of one of the songs,
which I feel is very important?
[Pastore] Yes.
This has to do with
that good feeling of control,
which I feel that, that
children need to know is there.
And it starts out, "What do you do
with the mad that you feel?"
And that first line
came straight from a child.
I work with children, doing puppets
in very personal communication
with small groups.
"What do you do with the mad that you feel
"when you feel so mad you could bite?
"When the whole wide world
seems oh-so-wrong
"and nothing you do seems very right?
"It's great to be able to stop
"when you've planned a thing that's wrong,
and be able to do something else instead,
"and think this song,
"I can stop when I want to,
can stop when I wish,
"can stop, stop, stop any time.
"Know that there's something deep inside
"that helps us become what we can."
I think it's wonderful.
I think it's wonderful.
Looks like
you just earned the $20 million.
[all laughing]
[people applauding]
[piano music playing, man scatting]
[newsreader] Fred Rogers
is easily the star of the show,
and if children had votes,
public television would be
on Easy Street tomorrow.
[scatting]
-Oh, wow!
-[laughs]
Everything just sort of exploded.
You know, suddenly there was
press beating a path to our door.
Good evening. I was
in Pittsburgh a few days ago,
doing a bit of investigative reporting
on a man named Fred Rogers.
[in Henrietta's voice]
Meow-meow-meow wonderful! Meow!
[reporter]
Mr. Rogers does ten different voices,
for ten different puppets.
[in King Friday's voice] Well,
a copperhead is poisonous, is it not?
[reporter] He writes, he's the producer
he's the chief performer,
and he is a marvel.
Fred Rogers, as best I can tell,
has managed to escape
the calloused, the embittered,
the negative aspects
of being a public performer.
He is doing the one thing
in the world that he wishes to do,
and he is by any definition a happy man.
[man vocalizing]
[John] I sometimes
wonder myself how he ticked.
It's a little tough for me to have the...
Almost the second Christ as my dad.
[Jim] If we were at the dinner table,
and he would want to say something
that wasn't necessarily Mr. Rogers-like,
he would say it
in Lady Elaine Fairchilde's voice.
[Lady Elaine] Get out here, Friday.
I need to speak with you.
That was our cue that
this is the alter-ego speaking now,
you know, and just
letting off a little steam.
[indistinct dialog]
[woman laughing]
[Joanne] He and I both had childhoods
that you weren't allowed to be angry.
You weren't allowed to show your anger.
And we were never able to do it.
It scared us.
[Fred] Music was my first language.
I was scared to use words.
I didn't want to be a bad boy.
I didn't want
to tell people that I was angry.
But I could show it through
the way I would play on the piano.
I could literally laugh or cry
or be very angry
through the ends of my fingers.
[piano keys striking harshly]
I've always felt that you were
someone who could understand
the deep feelings or thoughts of people.
Well, it took me so long to get tame.
I try to understand
how everybody else is working at it.
-Sometimes it isn't easy.
-No, but it's worth a try.
Daniel was pretty much Fred.
He did all the voices,
but uh... I think Daniel was
the real Fred.
[in Daniel's voice] Maybe I could
talk about clocks, and loving,
and things like that.
"A, B, C, D,
"F, G, J, K, L, M, S..."
Oh, Lady Aberlin,
I just can't go to school tomorrow!
Why not, Daniel?
Because I don't know everything.
[Junlei] Daniel is articulating
the fears and anxieties and feelings
that Fred had as a child,
but that many children have.
[Margy] He never forgot
how vulnerable it was to be a kid.
You know, you're this little thing.
Everything else in the world
is bigger than you are,
and you have to learn everything
that helps you get through life.
I think that it just never left him.
Whatever those scars of his life were,
he wanted to help heal that wound, maybe?
It's a lot easier, even as an adult,
for me to have Daniel say,
[in Daniel's voice] "I'm really scared.
"Do you think maybe
you could give me a hug?"
[in normal voice] You know?
But that would be hard for me to say,
"I'm really scared.
Do you think you could give me a hug?"
So, the difference from here to here,
that doesn't seem very far,
but it was efficacious,
to say the least.
[in Daniel's voice]
A car ran over the jaw of your cat?
Mm-hmm.
-And what happened?
-It was bleeding.
Oh.
They tried and fixed it, but they fixed it
for a half a day, but then it died.
-But then it died?
-Mm-hmm.
Oh, I think that's scary.
[Tom] All you had to do
was see Fred inhabit Daniel,
to really kind of figure it out.
I mean, they were symbiotic.
As strange as it is to see a grown man
have a symbiotic relationship
with kind of a dingy,
you know, worn out little sock puppet,
he definitely had that.
[Fred in Daniel's voice]
Would you give me a hug?
Thank you. 'Cause I needed that.
I better go back in the case, Mr. Rogers.
[in normal voice] Okay, Daniel.
[in Daniel's voice] He's really nice.
You could talk to him.
[in normal voice] Okay, Daniel.
[Daniel] Just a minute.
I want to show you something.
Okay.
Wonder what?
-It's a balloon.
-[Lady Aberlin] Oh, a balloon.
-Could you blow it up for me?
-Surely.
[David Bianculli] So, this is the first
year of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
Daniel Striped Tiger
is there with Lady Aberlin,
asking her to blow a balloon up
and then let the air out.
You wonder why this is in there.
[balloon whistling]
[crowd clamoring]
But they can't hear.
Can you hear on any of these?
[Daniel]
There's something I want to ask you.
What does "assassination" mean?
-[man 1] What happened? Do you know?
-[man 2] Somebody said he's been shot.
[man 1] Let's roll some
video tape on this out here, friends.
[Lady Aberlin] Have you
heard that word a lot today?
Yes. And I didn't know what it meant.
Well...
It means...
Somebody getting killed...
In a sort of surprise way.
[Daniel] That's what happened, you know.
That man killed that other man.
A lot of people are sad
and scared about it, you know.
I'd rather talk about it some other day.
Whenever you like.
[Fred] I felt that
I had to speak to the families
of our country about grief.
A plea not to leave the children isolated,
and at the mercy of their own
fantasies of loss and destruction.
Children have very deep feelings,
just the way parents do,
just the way everybody does.
And our striving
to understand those feelings,
and to better respond to them
is what I feel is
a most important task in our world.
[Fred singing in Henrietta's voice]
He realized that
if he really wanted to communicate,
the most important thing is to listen.
'Cause there's so many people
who will just lump 'em all together,
and say, "Hey, kids, come along.
We'll see the next cartoon."
And they couldn't care less
about what that cartoon is saying
to the child about such
things as human dignity.
[upbeat music playing]
[Max] Remember what was happening
for children's television?
It was speeding up.
Fred was pretty radical
in television for that day,
in that he used time totally differently.
To Fred, silence was his delight.
[Hedda]
Fred took an egg timer and said,
"Do you want to know how long a minute is?
There. We're going to show you."
And we just sat there
for the whole minute.
[David Bianculli]
There's a lot of slow space.
There's no wasted space.
[inhales]
In.
[exhales]
Out.
[birds chirping]
[Fred] I think silence is one
of the greatest gifts that we have.
His questions are direct, simple, short,
and then he waits.
[Yo-Yo Ma] He interviewed me,
and he put his face about
three inches away from my face,
says, "It's so nice to see you
"and to be with you."
It scared the living daylights out of me.
But I realized this is what
children do with adults.
And sometimes after they answer,
he doesn't say anything else.
So they say a little bit more.
It's a perfect interviewing trick.
[laughing]
Very funny! Very funny.
I'm not falling for it. Very good.
[bugle sounding]
Handyman Negri
and Officer Clemmons, I presume.
[both] Correct as always, Your Highness.
Could we take a close
look at your badge here, Officer Clemmons?
My friends, I think, can read it.
P-O-L-I-C-E.
I have always felt policemen to be
the most dangerous person
in the neighborhood.
So, to have me playing a police officer
I was tremendously hesitant.
But there was something
reluctant about Fred to let go.
And I said, "Mr. Rogers,
"I would be very happy
to be on your program,
"as long as
it doesn't interfere with my singing."
[singing]
We've had it and now we can go
[vocalizing]
We don't want the snow anymore
And he teased me.
He teased me about that for 20 years!
He'd say, "Officer Clemmons,
"are we interfering with your career?
"Are we interfering?"
He was relentless,
but he also told me, he said,
"That was the moment I loved you."
He said, "Because
you were not going to kiss my ass."
Those are Mr. Rogers' words.
[Fred] That feels good.
Oh, there's Officer Clemmons.
Hi, Officer Clemmons. Come in.
-Hi, Mr. Rogers, how are you?
-Fine. Why don't you sit down?
Oh, sure, just for a moment.
It's so warm I was just, uh,
putting some water on my feet.
-Oh, it sure is.
-Would you like to join me?
That looks awfully enjoyable,
but I don't have a towel or anything.
Oh, you share mine.
Okay. Sure!
[Francois] Around the country,
they didn't want black people to come
and swim in their swimming pools.
And Fred said,
"That is absolutely ridiculous."
[male reporter]
Today, trouble under a noon sun.
Negroes and white rabbis marched
to a segregated hotel with these results,
the manager, James Brock
told them to get off his private property,
tossed, uh,
cleaning chemicals inside the pool,
in an effort to get the Negroes to leave.
My being on the program
was a statement for Fred.
[Fred] Cool water on a hot day.
[Tom] I think that will is the great
unseen and unacknowledged
ingredient in Fred's story.
The level of will that this guy brought
to really almost all phases
of his life, physical and spiritual.
There's no better manifestation of that
than 143.
-Is that your address here?
-Oh, no.
It means something special.
-[Lady Aberlin] One-four-three?
-[Daniel] Mm-hmm.
You see, "I" is one letter,
and "love," L-O-V-E, is four letters,
and "you," Y-O-U, is three letters.
[Tom] Fred would go to
the Pittsburgh Athletic Club,
and he swam a mile.
He swam at a unhurried,
but deliberate and determined pace.
And then he got on the scale
and the needle of the scale jumped to 143.
And he came off it
with, kind of, a little smile on his face,
and he told me that he had weighed
143 pounds every day of his life,
since, like, the late '50s or early '60s.
Now, I've thought about this a lot.
With that 143 pound thing,
drives me insane.
Try that! I can't do that!
[Tom] In Fred's private numerology,
"I love you" is "143."
So, when the needle jumps to 143,
there's, like, this confirming quality.
There's so many weird things
that I'm not gonna tell you.
[interviewer speaking]
[interviewer chuckles]
No. [laughs]
[Nick] Freddy was like the little
rich kid that lived in the big house.
We were all the goofball kids
that lived across the alley.
We could be ourselves around Fred.
We were crazies. We all had long hair,
and we were always having fun.
We were always making jokes.
It's such a good...
[laughing]
[crew laughing]
All right, that aren't mine.
Who's are these?
[Nick] If we ever saw
a camera lying around, would grab it,
I'd pull my pants down,
I'd take a picture of my ass,
and put their camera back.
And, like, then it was film,
so, like, three weeks later,
you'd go to the Fotomat
and you'd get your pictures back,
and there's Aunt Judy, and there's
Uncle Fred, and there's some guy's ass.
And one day Fred
brought his camera into the studio,
and he was taking pictures with it.
And we went behind the set,
took a picture of my butt,
and put his camera back.
He never said anything,
and, like, months later...
I think it was around Christmas time,
he said to somebody,
"Did you give Nick his present?"
And it was a poster
of that picture of me and my butt.
-Thank you very much.
-You're welcome.
Did you make these yourself?
I... [stuttering]
I thought... I thought of X the Owl,
so I, I drew him in his house,
and his little door.
[Fred] Oh, these are real treasures.
Thank you very much.
-[girl] You're welcome.
-Would you like to see X the Owl?
[girl giggling]
[man] You're a little happy.
That makes you
just a little bit happy, huh?
[in X the Owl's voice] Oh, hello there!
Hello, everybody.
-[all] Hi.
-I'm X the Owl.
I hear you drew a picture of me.
[in normal voice] This is a book
on all of the different tapes
that we have.
Here are the tapes. Here.
[David Newell] At that point,
he thought he had done enough programs,
that they could be repeated.
Those are all different visits,
television visits that we have on tape.
[David Newell] He was writing,
he was hosting, he was singing,
he was composing.
And it took a lot out of him.
I think he wanted a breather.
Well, next week,
we'll start to show all of these visits,
so everybody can see them
the whole way through.
I'll look forward to that.
Let's take a look at this one.
[Margy] When you think
about all of those episodes,
there's only so many stories
you can tell, right?
[man] What's in the future
for Fred Rogers? I understand that
you are ceasing production,
this spring, of the Neighborhood shows.
Well, it's going to give us time
to make some things
that I've wanted to do for a long time.
[piano music playing]
-Hi, Katie.
-Hi, Fred.
John, wait till you see this quilt.
He wanted to do some
prime time stuff for adults,
and so he got funding to do
a show called Old Friends... New Friends.
[Fred] I wonder what it is
that makes one person
push on in the face of difficulty,
and make someone else
crumble in helplessness.
[man] What does tomorrow feel like?
That big. I feel that big.
[man] There's no feeling for tomorrow.
Feeling is dead for me in here.
[Elizabeth] He was incredibly open.
He was scarily open.
[Max] He wanted to speak to adults.
He kinda put the puppets away.
But have you watched some of these?
[Fred] The feeling that
this instrument is a place,
that it is a country.
That it's somewhere that you go
to say something.
[Lorin Hollander] What does this
have to do with our world?
I don't know any store that's like this.
Any television program that's like this.
A flower is like this.
A child is like this.
[Max] Nobody but Fred would've thought
of doing that for adults.
[man] Take number 19.
Thank you for your poems and your thoughts
about loving poetry and music.
You really inspired us
to make this program.
I'll be with you next time.
But he wasn't making
the kind of connections
with adults on television that he thought
he might be able to make.
[David Newell]
I remember opening the paper
and reading about a child
jumping off a roof
with a towel around his neck
because he was playing Superman.
And there had been
a lot of stories like that.
Some children died because
of the injuries. I read it to Fred.
It hit him because
he thought he had covered
all there was to say in child development,
but this was new.
[Max]
Fred didn't become angry a lot,
but he just became so angry
about the fact that
people would mislead a small child.
And angry that it was
his medium that was doing this.
Yeah, Superman.
I am tired of hearing people
who have long ago set aside
the concerns of childhood,
telling everybody
what children really need.
I'll tell you what children need.
They need adults who will protect them
from the ever-ready
molders of their world.
[David Newell]
That was the moment Fred said,
"I wonder if we could do
a week on superheroes
"talking about the pretend-ness of it?"
Very quickly we came back with the show.
[X the Owl] Careful, Ana,
I don't want you to--
[Ana] I think I'm flying!
-I am! I'm flying!
-No, no, you're falling!
-What is going on here?
-Oh, Ana was trying to fly.
I was using my super-skirt,
and I was going through the air.
Yes, but you were going down
and you might have gotten hurt!
[X the Owl] That's right, Ana.
[Lady Aberlin] You have to be
really careful with super-things.
[Nick] He was cool with every kid.
That's the whole thing.
I mean, there were the kids that were...
They were little bastards.
They were just rowdy and...
Fred never said,
"This kid's a dick. Get him outta here."
You know, I mean, I sure would've.
[Hedda]
Fred used to say that the outside world
of children's lives has changed,
but their insides haven't.
He realized that his work wasn't through.
I'm Fred Rogers, and I'd like to talk
with you about make-believe.
[Max] When it goes
to the next level is in the 1980s
when he goes to the theme weeks.
I mean, to do a week on death...
"Oh, hi, kids!
[chuckles]
"We're going to do a week on death!"
On divorce!
[Fred] Some people get married,
and after a while
they're so unhappy with each other,
that they don't want
to be married anymore.
On children getting lost!
Man! That's guts.
[Daniel] Help! Help, help!
Help, please, everybody!
[Junlei] There's a piece of paper
that I accidentally ran into.
And he typed in this little sheet of paper
about how he couldn't do it,
that he didn't think
he was up to the task.
[Joanne] "Am I kidding myself
that I'm able to write a script again?
"Am I really just
whistling Dixie? I wonder.
"If I don't get down to it,
I'll never really know.
[typing]
"Why don't I trust myself?
"After all these years,
it's just as bad as ever.
"The hour cometh and
now is when I've got to do it.
"Get to it, Fred, get to it!
"But don't let anybody
ever tell anybody else that it was easy.
"It wasn't."
["Rapper's delight" playing]
[Tom] The time that I was with him,
going on a New York City subway,
all the children
in that crowded subway car
began singing the Neighborhood song.
I said a hip hop
Hippie to the hippie
The hip, hip a hop,
And you don't stop, a rock it out
Bubba to the bang bang boogie,
Boobie to the boogie
To the rhythm of the boogie the beat
Now, what you hear is not a test
I'm rappin' to the beat
[Tom] He might as well have been
an animated figure stepped into real life.
Could I try that?
[blowing]
I brought my skates with me. I can try.
[woman exclaims]
-What else you like to do?
-Moon walking.
-[Fred] Moonwalk?
-[boy] You got it. Yeah.
[Max] People thought
he was such an important American figure.
They wanted him to speak out
on the issues of the day.
And, so, Fred grew pretty
comfortably into more of a public role.
[Fred] You know, the Earth is a name
for the place where everybody lives.
And the moon is the name for the place
where the astronauts go.
Every time we went through
a national or international tragedy,
my impulse was always
to call Fred, and put him on the radio.
What shall we tell our children
about the things that are in the news
that seem so difficult, so tragic?
[female reporter] Pilot Mike Smith
followed by Christa McAuliffe,
teacher in space.
[male reporter]
Christa has been rehearsing the lessons
she'll teach from space.
Good morning. [clears throat]
This is Christa McAuliffe,
live from the Challenger.
[male reporter 1]
The lessons will be seen nationwide
on public television.
Five, four, three...
[male reporter 2] Two, one, and liftoff!
Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission,
and it has cleared the tower.
[man 1 over radio]
Challenger, go with throttle up.
[man 2 over radio]
Roger, go with throttle up.
[man 3] God, no!
[Susan] How do we put it to children,
so they will understand?
And part of Fred's answer
was always to tell children
that we, the parents,
would take care of them.
Sometimes, I found that
a difficult message myself
as the parent of a young child.
Sometimes I felt I was lying.
I knew that there were
things in this world
that I couldn't protect my child from.
[Fred] Sometimes we need
to struggle with the tragedy,
to feel the gravity of love.
Love is what keeps us together and afloat.
["Won't you be my neighbor" playing]
[audience cheering]
It's a beautiful day
In the neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine?
You know,
it must be tough to be Fred Rogers,
with your mission in mind,
and then to have parodies.
I always wanted to live
In a house like yours my friend
Maybe when there's nobody home
I'll break in
I married a woman
Who said she was rich
Spent all her money
Walked out on the bitch
Won't you be my, won't you be my
Won't you be my neighbor?
[knocking at door]
[Fred] Eddie Murphy did that
Mister Robinson's Neighborhood,
and I remember meeting him,
and he just threw his arms around me
the first time he saw me,
and he said, "The real Mister Rogers."
[David Litterman]
That's Mr. Rogers there in the...
-On the left.
-[David Litterman] On the left, yeah.
Uh, now, how do you react to that?
Well, some of them aren't very funny.
But I think that a lot of them are done
-with real kindness in their hearts.
-Mm-hmm.
I'm moving to a new neighborhood,
where I've made a new friend.
Can you say "hooker"?
There were some
that were not as kind in nature,
and if they made fun
of the philosophy,
that was the only thing
that offended him, I think.
[male announcer]
The battle of the P-B-S stars.
[host] The crowd
is literally buzzing with excitement
as Mr. Rogers enters the ring...
Oh, look out there, Fred!
Fred had such a great sense of humor,
for the most part.
[male announcer] There's Child, obviously
in shape and ready for this fight.
But what about Rogers?
Experts have cast aspersions
on his manhood itself.
[David Newell]
Fred was watching with the rest of us,
and everybody would be laughing,
and I just wonder if a little bit
of Fat Freddy came back.
[Joanne]
Just before getting to adolescence,
he didn't have an easy time
making friends, I don't think.
He got a good taste
of what bullying was all about.
I've often wondered,
if there hadn't been a Fat Freddy,
would there have been a Mister Rogers?
[male announcer]
You can feel the momentum
actually swinging towards Child.
And what just happened there?
He cracked a puppet!
Oh, look at this!
He's hitting Child
with the lovable King Friday!
And the French chef is down!
[laughter on record]
[chuckles]
[laughter stops]
A laughter record.
Used to play one like this
when I was a young boy.
You see, I felt that
the adults around me were pressuring me
to be what I couldn't be yet.
"Act like a grown-up," I'd hear them say.
Well, I was afraid
they'd laugh at me when I tried.
So, I found a record like this,
and I could make the laughs start,
and make them stop whenever I wanted to.
For someone who hated to be laughed at,
it was a good feeling
to be in charge of at least this laughter.
I think that
those who would try
to make you feel less than who you are,
I think that's the greatest evil.
I've always wanted
To live in a neighborhood with you
So, let's make
The most of this beautiful day
Since we're together,
We might as well say
Would you be mine,
Could you be mine...
[Hedda] There was
a wonderful quote from Fred.
Oh, that's hard.
[Hedda] The most important learning,
it's the ability to accept
and expect mistakes,
and deal with
the disappointments that they bring.
Hi, neighbor.
Had a little trouble with my zipper there.
I'll get these shoes tied,
and then try the zipper again.
[Hedda] And Fred also understood
that there's a deeper level.
[Daniel]
You know something, Lady Aberlin?
What, Daniel?
I've been wondering
about something myself.
Something about Mr. Skunk?
Something about mistakes.
-[Lady Aberlin] What is it?
-I've been wondering
if I was a mistake?
[Lady Aberlin] If you were a mistake?
And I will tell you,
sitting in the studio,
listening to that, that day,
I said to myself,
"I can't believe Fred had the courage
"to put that into words."
Sometimes I wonder if I'm too tame.
["Am I a mistake" playing]
Sometimes I wonder if I'm a mistake
I'm not like anyone else I know
When I'm asleep or even awake
Sometimes I get
To dreaming that I'm just a fake
I'm not like anyone else
I think you are just fine as you are
You do?
I really must tell you I do...
[Junlei] Lady Aberlin is saying to Daniel
what Fred himself wanted to say,
not only to his childhood self,
but to all children.
You're not a fake
You're no mistake
You are my friend
And then you think,
"Okay, then Daniel's gonna say,
"'Oh, thank you. That helped me a lot.'"
I wonder if I'm a mistake
I think you are just fine as you are
I'm not like anyone else
I really must tell you...
[Hedda] And I thought to myself,
"Thank you, Fred, for reminding us
"that it's not so easy to quiet a doubt."
But make it a duet,
so that it's not just your fears,
but you'll hear my support.
Isn't it true
That the strong never break?
When you're sleep
When you're wake
I'm not like anyone else I know
You're not a fake
You're no mistake
You're my friend
I'm not like anyone else
I think you are just fine,
exactly the way you are.
The way I look?
Yes.
The way I talk?
Well, yes.
The way I love?
Especially that.
[sighs]
["Every valley" playing on organ]
Every valley
Every valley
Shall be exalted...
[Francois]
There were black kids watching the show.
They needed a black figure
who would not let them down.
So, if I came out as gay,
and there was some kind of scandal,
that would not serve the race.
I carried that all the time.
The feeling you know you're alive!
[Fred] Really nice, Francois!
[Francois] I went to
a gay bar downtown called the Play Pen.
Oh, God, did I have a lot of fun!
But somebody told
the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood people
about it, and he asked me,
"Were you downtown at that bar?"
And I said, "Yes." He said,
"You can't go back there anymore."
I wanted to show this film to you.
Okay, on Picture, Picture.
Here's Mrs. Clemmons at home.
[Francois] In '68 I got married.
I'm not stupid.
[Fred] There's the portrait
of the King and Queen.
If I came out publicly, he said,
"You cannot be on the show anymore."
The sponsors,
Johnson and Johnson, and Sears,
they are not going
to support an openly gay man.
Fred was not prepared
to lose that market.
My marriage failed miserably.
And I discovered you can't pray it away.
[Joanne] Eventually,
Fred came around to it.
I think Francois just came
a little too soon maybe, you know?
[interviewer speaking]
Oh, yes. Oh, my yes. Heavens.
Um...
You gotta forgive me for this,
but I have to ask you something
that may sound impertinent,
and I don't mean for it to, for a second.
Are, are...
Are you square?
I mean, are you a straight guy?
I mean, you're just...
Are you really the way you are?
[Francois] First of all, no, he's not gay.
I tell everyone who asks me,
"No, he's not gay."
But the other part is,
I spent enough time with him
that if he had... If there was
"a gay vibe", I would've picked it up.
Nope. Not as far as I know.
I mean, I think that anybody who looked
at Fred, looked at somebody
that they couldn't compare
with anybody else.
There's something inside you
that hasn't been lost.
Thank you, Daniel.
-Your childhood.
-Mm-hmm.
Okay.
I like him.
[Fred] I know.
Bye-bye.
[Tom] That was
one of the things that I responded to.
He's terrific. Wow.
I definitely saw
another way of being a man.
[Nick] I'm sure you've heard
all these rumors about
Fred being a Navy SEAL and killing people.
Was Fred a Navy SEAL?
Did Fred have tattoos?
[Tom] And that, you know,
he wore the sweater
to cover the tattoos.
[Nick] Fred was born a rich kid.
He didn't know how to use a screwdriver,
let alone kill a bunch of people.
[Tom] That to me is just
like a classic example of people
looking at Fred
in all his eccentricity and singularity,
and trying to basically say,
"Well, that can't be.
"He has to be this way."
The universal question about Fred is,
was he that way in real life?
And the answer is, yes.
Francois Clemmons, hi, welcome.
Thank you. How you doin'?
-I'm fine. How are you today?
-Fine.
My feet were tired, so I thought
I'd just soak them
for a while in this water.
Does it make them feel better?
It does. Would you like to try?
Sure!
[Francois] On the show, he would say,
"I love you just the way you are."
One day, I said,
"Fred! Were you talking to me?"
And he looked at me, and he said, "Yes,
"I've been talking to you for two years,
"and you finally heard me today."
And I just collapsed into his arms.
I was... I started crying. I...
That's when I knew that I loved him.
There are many ways to say I love you
There are many ways to say
I care about you...
[Francois] No man had ever told me
that he loved me like that.
I needed to hear it
all my life. My dad never told me.
My stepfather never told me.
So, from then on,
he became my surrogate father.
I'm so proud of you, Francois.
Oh, thank you, Fred.
May I help you here?
Thank you.
[Fred] The people who have had
a lot of struggle in their lives,
those are the people
who really impress me.
[interviewer speaking]
There was an interview with a little boy
by the name of Jeff Erlanger.
We wrote because
Jeff was going to have a spinal fusion
and be in a... What they call a halo...
Cast. A halo cast.
Metal rim, and then cast on his shoulders,
and bolted all together...
-All the way down his trunk.
-Yeah.
[Howard] He may not
have survived the surgery.
And, so, we said, you know,
"What would you like to do?
"This is going to be
a really big task for you and, so,
"we want to kick it off with something
that would be really special."
Mr. Rogers?
Hey, Jeff. [chuckles]
-I'm glad to see you.
-Hi.
Thank you very much for coming by.
Can you tell my friends
what it is that made you
need this wheelchair?
Sure.
Well, when I was about seven months old,
I had, um... I had a tumor,
and it broke the nerves
to tell my hands and legs what to do.
[Fred] I see.
And I got a wheelchair
when I was four years old.
-That was your first one.
-Mm-hmm.
-When you were four.
-Uh-huh.
He told Jeff, before they started,
that they would have a chat
and then sing a song together.
I think he said,
"We might sing a song." I remember.
'Cause, I was sort of surprised,
"What? He's going to start
singing a song?"
Well, you know, this is totally...
Not even "What song?"
It's you I like
It's not the things you wear
It's not the way you do your hair
But it's you I like
The way you are right now
[both singing]
The way down deep inside you
Not the things that hide you
Not your fancy chair!
Chair!
That's just beside you
But it's you I like
Every part of you
Your skin
Your eyes
Your feelings
Whether old or new
I hope that you'll remember
Even when you're feeling blue
That it's you I like
It's you, yourself
It's you
It's you
I like
And it is you I like, Jeff.
Thanks.
And there must be times
when you do feel blue.
Uh-huh.
I'm not feeling blue right now, though.
-Me neither!
-[Fred laughs]
-I'm so glad that you came today.
-Thanks.
I remember asking
one of the staff people that was there,
"Well, you know,
what do you think? Did it go okay?"
"Oh, this is good! This is good."
[Pam] He had his surgery, he survived.
Certainly, Mr. Rogers
had an impact on who Jeff became.
His sense of self.
[interviewer]
You obviously have a power now.
I mean, that you wouldn't have
had when you first started the show.
Well, it might sound very ingenuous,
but I don't feel that.
[laser gun firing]
[indistinct dialog]
I would hope that anybody
who sets himself or herself out
to produce mass programming for children,
could have the kind of respect
of childhood that I have.
Because it's not all clowns and balloons.
[interviewer speaking]
What do you mean, you don't agree with me?
[buzzing]
[explosion]
Some television programs
are loud and scary,
with people shooting
and hitting other people.
You know, you can do something about that.
When you see scary television,
you can turn it off.
[television turns off]
We need to help our children
become more and more aware
that what is essential in life
is invisible to the eye.
Thank you.
[woman] Thank you very much.
[Margy] As he got older,
it was more important
for him to be strong in his beliefs.
Maybe that was how
he was getting his anger out.
His anger that people
didn't take him seriously.
They didn't get him.
They didn't get the depth of the show.
[Elaine Crozier]
He started out being Daniel,
soft and quiet and shy,
developed into King Friday.
That is not correct.
Now do it again, and do it perfectly.
[Susan] Wasn't King Friday
a wonderful insight into his character?
His determination, and his ambitions.
[King Friday] As a king, I must see
that the world runs smoothly.
Farewell to you both!
[Susan] That gruffness was his way
of getting what he wanted across.
Fred Rogers wanted something very badly,
and would do what he felt was necessary,
in order to get it.
[Fred] Let's take the gauntlet,
and make goodness attractive
in this so-called next millennium.
That's the real...
That's the real job that we have.
I'm not talking about
Pollyanna-ish kind of stuff.
I'm talking about
down-to-earth actual goodness.
People caring for each other,
in a myriad of ways,
rather than people
knocking each other off all the time.
I mean, I don't find that funny at all.
What changes the world?
The only thing that
ever really changes the world,
is when somebody gets the idea
that love can abound,
and can be shared.
You're doing a great job.
[Jim] Dad never stood up and said,
"Look at what I've done.
"Look at this. Isn't this wonderful?"
The only time I ever saw him come
even close to anything like that
was when he did the interview
with Koko the gorilla.
[Koko purrs]
Right. That's a happy sound.
-Is it?
-That's a purr.
[mimics purring] Like that?
Can you teach me how to do that? [purrs]
[purrs]
Isn't that a nice way to welcome someone
and say that you're happy?
[Jim] It was a weird kind of a thing,
but you realize there was something
kind of magical going on there.
What? Love?
Love your visit.
-Well, that was very nice.
-Thank you, Koko.
[Fred] There's so much
to think about, isn't there?
[man] Let me ask you about what we've
been discussing for the last three hours.
Mr. Rogers and the narcissistic society
that he gave birth to
because he told every kid
that they were important.
Do you believe his philosophy
destroyed a generation?
[woman] This evil, evil man.
The criticism goes like this...
"You told everyone they're special.
"They don't have to do anything
to earn that special.
"That's what's wrong with our country.
"That's what's wrong with children today."
[man] He didn't say,
"If you wanna be special,
"you're gonna have to work hard."
And now all these kids
are growing up, and they're realizing,
"Hey, wait a minute,
Mr. Rogers lied to me. I'm not special."
[Junlei] I'm sure by then
Fred had heard the criticisms,
but he's not talking about entitlement.
And if you don't believe
that everyone has inherent value,
you might as well go against
the fundamental notion of Christianity.
That you are the beloved son
or daughter of God.
Hi, Mr. Rogers,
it's a pleasure to meet you.
Hi. I'm glad to meet you. Thank you.
I watched your show as a youngster.
I wasn't allowed to go to preschool,
'cause I had a disability,
and my mom made me
watch your show every day.
-So, thank you...
-Bless your heart and here you are.
For my preschool education.
And thank you for inspiring me today.
[Junlei] At the very end of Fred's
very last commencement speech,
he said what he meant
when he say, "You're special."
And what that ultimately means, of course,
is that you don't ever
have to do anything sensational
for people to love you.
It is really a matter of believing that
you're endowed by your creator with good.
"You know there are many
different ways of saying I love you.
"In fact, I like to think about times
"when I've seen people
showing their love." Okay.
[man speaking indistinctly]
Mm-hmm.
[man] Show 1765.
This is the last scene of the last show
of the last day, the last taping day
of the interior
of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
[Fred singing]
It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up ready to say
I think I'll make a snappy new day
It's such a good feeling
A very good feeling, the...
[laughs]
This place has been condemned.
-Oh, it's been condemned. Oh, well.
-You got two days to move out.
Okay, thanks. See ya.
[all laughing]
That was wonderful! [laughing]
Years ago, it wasn't so weird that
somebody as nice as Fred was around.
Now, there isn't room
for a nice person on TV.
-[people laughing]
-So, we must have regular reunions.
Yeah. How about Tuesday?
[both laughing]
Yeah, I'll have forgotten
about everyone by Monday.
So, Tuesday will bring it all back.
[laughing]
[playing a tune]
-We did it! Can you believe it?
-We did it!
Mercy!
[Joanne] When he did
stop making the programs,
I felt that he was depressed.
And I mentioned it to him,
and he said,
"Well, I miss my playmates."
[man speaking indistinctly]
-[man] Okay?
-[Fred] That's fine.
[man] Okay, slate out.
[Margy] We decided to have Fred back
to do some promos about 9-11.
He was very troubled,
and I said, "Fred, what's wrong?"
And he said, "I just don't know
"what good these are going to do."
And I just remember saying,
"Fred! How can you say that?"
[playing a tune]
When the horror of 9-11 really hit him,
I think it was a real eye-opener.
He was realizing that it was just so big.
It's always going to be
an ongoing struggle to overcome evil.
I remember thinking, "Okay, this is
"the time that you need
to pump him up because
he doesn't understand
this is really important."
People listen to you.
Okay.
No matter what our particular job,
especially in our world today,
we all are called to be tikun olam,
"repairers of creation."
Thank you for whatever you do,
wherever you are,
to bring joy and light and hope
and faith and pardon and love
to your neighbor and to yourself.
[playing a tune]
[Max] Fred didn't like
going to the doctor's office.
He had stomach problems for a long time.
I mean, for several years.
[Fred] Oh, what's that right down there?
[cello music playing]
Take a look at the aquarium.
Do you see a dead fish?
A dead fish would be one
that isn't swimming
or breathing or anything at all.
Look down there and see, will you?
See if you see anything.
Oh, yes, right there, isn't it?
[Yo-Yo Ma]
He told me that he was sick.
I played a Bach Sarabande
for him over the phone.
It's like sending a little loving message.
[Joanne] When he was very ill,
he talked a lot about dying well,
to die with the hopes...
With the hopes intact.
Before he became comatose, he said,
"Do you think I'm a sheep?"
And we knew what he was talking about
because he had been reading
in the Bible about the Last Days,
with the Judgment.
It will be decided at the end,
who is a sheep and who is a goat.
And I think the need was always there
for being loved,
for being capable of being loved.
There was a little silence,
and then I said,
"Fred, if ever
there was a sheep, you're one."
[cello music continues]
Well, I suppose it's an invitation,
"Won't you be my neighbor?"
Uh, it's an invitation for...
Uh, somebody to be close to you.
You know, I think everybody
longs to be loved,
and longs to know
that he or she is lovable.
["Won't you be my neighbor"
playing on the piano]
And consequently,
the greatest thing that we can do
is to help somebody know...
That they're loved, and capable of loving.
[Tom] Across the street
from Fred's funeral, there's this hubbub,
and there's all these people
holding up signs saying, "God hates fags."
And I went and talked to them
because Fred would have it
no other way. [chuckles]
I said, "Are you condemning Fred?
Are you saying that he was gay?
"What's happening?"
And they were saying that,
"No, no, he just... He tolerated gays."
And so they were
intolerant of the tolerance.
And the thing that struck me that day,
more than anything else,
was the children that were there.
Children that had been drafted into
doing this work into standing there
with their parents,
and holding up signs and screaming.
And those kids looked so unhappy.
Those kids looked so exhausted.
Those kids looked so ill-treated.
It was just heart-breaking.
And I knew that if Fred had seen that,
that's where his heart would have gone.
[Joanne] I can't think
how he would feel about the things
that have come out
that seem to set us back so far.
[Susan] And I wonder if he wouldn't
simply put down his tiger
and just stay home,
forget about even trying.
He's not a person who would've given up,
but this is daunting.
I think he would be trying to mend...
Mend the...
The split.
He would be trying to find some way
to find something positive.
[Fred] When I was a boy
and I would hear about something scary,
my mother would tell us, "Always look
for the people who are helping.
"You'll always find
somebody who's trying to help."
I think there are a lot
of people out there like Fred Rogers.
A lot more than we really want to believe.
[Junlei] In response to the question,
"What would Fred Rogers do?"
It's not a question that you can answer.
The most important question is,
"What are you going to do?"
From the time you were very little,
you've had people
who have smiled you into smiling.
People who have talked you into talking.
Sung you into singing.
Loved you into loving.
[Rev. George Wirth] When he was
giving speeches, he would say,
"Now, think about somebody
who's helped you along the way,
"for one minute. I'm going to time you."
[Fred] Let's just take some time
to think of those extra special people.
Mmm.
[Fred] Some of them may be right here.
Some may be far away.
Some may even be in heaven.
No matter where they are,
deep down you know
they've always wanted
what was best for you.
They've always
cared about you beyond measure,
and have encouraged you to be true
to the best within you.
[chuckles]
[interviewer speaking]
My mother.
How I got to this point
because it was my grandfather's doing.
There was this woman named Viola,
who used to take care of me
when I was little. She was our babysitter.
I thought about Fred.
How about you?
[interviewer speaking]
Yeah.
[sighs softly]
Thank you.
["It's Such a Good Feeling" playing]
[Fred singing]
It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up ready to say
I think I'll make a snappy new day
It's such a good feeling
A very good feeling
The feeling you know
That we're friends
[woman]
Please welcome, Jeffrey Erlanger.
[audience clapping]
-I am so glad to see you.
-Thank you. You too.
Oh! What a surprise!
It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up ready to say
I think I'll make a snappy new day
It's such a good feeling
A very good feeling
The feeling you know
That we're friends
You help to make each day a special day
by just you're being yourself.
There is nobody else
in the whole world who's exactly like you.
And people can like you
exactly as you are.
[piano music playing]
Come on over a minute.
I just had some ideas that
I'd been thinking about for quite a while,
about modulation.
It seems to me that there are
different themes in life.
And one of my main jobs, it seems to me,
is to help through
the mass media, for children...
To help children through
some of the difficult modulations of life.
Because it's easy,
for instance, to go from C
[plays C note]
to F.
But there are some modulations
that aren't so easy.
For instance, to go from F, to F-sharp,
you've got to weave through
all sorts of things.
And it seems to me
if you've got somebody to help you,
as you weave...
Maybe this is just too philosophical?
Maybe I'm trying to combine,
uh, things that...
That can't be combined,
but it makes sense to me.
Fourteen years ago,
a television program for children,
made its inauspicious debut
on Station WQED in Pittsburgh.
It's host, Fred Rogers,
an ordained minister with an abiding
interest in children,
and an equally abiding belief that
they deserve more from television.
["Won't you be my neighbor" playing]
It's a beautiful day
In this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
It's a neighborly day
In this beauty wood
A neighborly day for a beauty
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
I have always wanted to have
A neighbor just like you
I've always wanted to live in
A neighborhood with you
So, let's make
The most of this beautiful day
Since we're together
We might as well say
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please, won't you please?
Please, won't you be my neighbor
-Mr. Rogers?
-[Fred] Yes.
-Where do you live?
-I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
-Did you want to... Pardon me?
-[child mumbles]
[newsreader] They are gathered
in this television studio
with Fred Rogers,
an adult who cares just about them.
His reward is the love
of millions of children.
-I want to tell you something.
-What would you like to tell me?
-I like you.
-I like you, my dear.
Thank you very much for telling me that.
[Margy] We had a director
that once said to me,
"If you take all of the elements
that make good television,
"and do the exact opposite,
you have Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."
Low production values,
simple set, unlikely star.
Yet, it worked...
because he was saying
something really important.
[Fred] Love is at the root of everything.
All learning, all parenting,
all relationships.
Love or the lack of it.
And what we see and hear
on the screen is part of who we become.
[Tom] He had a singular vision
of kindness and love,
but a question that
I think of a lot in terms of Fred is
whether his attempt to influence America
succeeded or not.
[crowd cheering]
[Fred] I was all set to go
to the seminary to become a minister,
but I went home
my senior year for a vacation,
and I saw this
new thing called television.
And I saw people throwing pies
in each other's faces.
And I thought,
"This could be a wonderful tool.
"Why is it being used this way?"
And so I said to my parents, "I don't
think I'll go to seminary right away.
I think maybe I'll go into television."
And they said,
"Wait, but you've never even seen it."
[female announcer] Station WQED
is located in the heart of Pittsburgh.
[Joanne] His father told him
about this new station,
that was coming along here.
It was going to be called...
It was called Educational Television.
[Fred] Nobody wanted
to do a children's program.
I said, "Well, we need
a children's program."
And I said, "Well, I'll produce it
and play some music in the background.
"We'll get some free films and,
Josie, you can introduce them."
[singing]
And then we discovered the awful fact
that when you got free film,
it was often brittle and it would break.
And if you were on the air live,
you had to do something.
Somebody had given me
this little tiger puppet.
I pushed it through in the clock and said,
[in high-pitched voice]
"Hi, Josie, it's 5:02,
"and Columbus discovered America in 1492."
[in normal voice]
And then just went right back in.
And that's how the puppetry began.
We never expected to use puppets.
You know, there's so much of it was
the necessity being
the mother of that invention.
My friend, Daniel Striped Tiger.
[Daniel] How do you do? How do you do?
The interesting thing was Dad remembered
being six, and seven, and eight,
and nine years old.
That inner child never really went away.
[Fred] I had every imaginable
childhood disease, even scarlet fever.
Whenever I was quarantined,
I would be in bed a lot.
I would put up my knees, and they would
be mountains covered with the sheet.
I'd have all these
little figures moving around,
and I'd make them talk.
I had to make up a lot of my own fun.
[exclaims] Take that.
[exclaims]
What's the matter?
Over time, Fred became
unsatisfied withThe Children's Corner.
He thought that
it was simple and slapstick.
And he said he really
wanted to concentrate on the seminary,
so he wanted to stop for a while.
[Joanne] His ordination
was as an evangelist for television.
It was pretty way out there
for the Presbyterian Church.
[Hedda] With television,
Fred wanted to focus on the very young.
[Fred] What do you think it is?
-[kid] A lion!
-[Fred] A lion, great!
[kids roaring]
[Max] Back in the 1950s,
there was a school of people
at the University of Pittsburgh,
looking at early childhood education.
[baby gurgling]
[Hedda] They felt that
physicians needed a training ground.
So that they had
a sense of where human behavior
was coming from the very beginning.
[Max] Dr. Benjamin Spock was part of it.
Berry Brazelton,
the famous pediatrician, was a part of it.
Erik Erikson,
the extraordinary psychologist,
was a part of it,
and Fred's part of that group.
He became part of the group
as a student of Margaret McFarland.
Fred, I think to the child,
the television program between
you and the child is a real relationship.
[Elizabeth] For him to say,
"The feelings of a young child
"are every bit as powerful
as our adult feelings..."
He was radical. I know
everyone says that, but he was radical.
I've always felt that...
That I didn't need to put on a funny hat,
or jump through the hoop
to have a relationship with the child.
So, I went to visit with a new
nursery school.
I had never met these children before.
And I walked in,
and there was
a long stare from most of them.
And one little boy
by the name of Thatcher spoke first.
And all he said was,
"My doggy's ear came off
in the automatic washer."
And there was silence,
just complete silence.
It was as if,
"This is your test, Mr. Rogers.
"Are you still in touch with childhood?"
And so I said,
"Sometimes that happens
to toys, doesn't it?
"Their ears come off
or their legs come off,
"but that never happens to us.
"Our ears don't come off.
Our noses don't come off.
"Our arms don't come off,"
and Thatcher's eyes were getting
bigger and bigger and bigger, and he said,
"And our legs don't come off."
And I said, "No, they don't."
And, immediately,
all of the other children
started asking questions,
and poignant questions!
It was just as if, you know,
"We shall now open the door.
"You have passed the test.
You may come in."
[Hedda] And what he wanted to do
was to take all of that
that he learned in television work,
add to that the sense of ministry,
and the child development background.
It became Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
[Max] A neighborhood
was a place where at times
that you felt worried, scared, unsafe,
would take care of you,
would provide understanding, safety.
That's what the neighborhood was for Fred.
[Fred] Television has the chance
of building a real community
out of an entire country.
[Junlei] The neighborhood
is not a fantasy place
where all these
different people got together,
and everything was happily ever after.
When you have diverse people
together with their different opinions,
you have conflict. And that's
what happens in the neighborhood.
You have conflict, real conflict.
Halt, trolley!
Give me your name,
rank, and serial number.
[Fred] "King Friday the 13th
"establishes border guard.
"King Against Change."
[Junlei] The parallels between
what is happening in the real world
and what is happening
inside the neighborhood
are uncanny and undeniable.
[imitating rapid gunfire]
In 1968, the country is at war.
[man on TV]
He can go on fighting longer than we can.
[Henrietta Pussycat]
Frightened, meow, frightened, meow.
[X the Owl]
There's nothing to be frightened about
until somebody starts shooting, Henrietta.
[crying]
Meow-meow, start shooting, meow!
[Junlei]
That was the first time he knew that
he was producing something
for a national audience.
King Friday was really irritated
that people were changing things.
So, his reaction,
as the authority, was to build a wall.
[Edgar singing]
Oh, it's very sharp, It's very sharp
Oh, my, barbed wire is very sharp
[King Friday]
Remember our battle cry, Edgar?
Down with the changers!
[Edgar singing]
Down with the changers
Down with the changers
We don't want anything to change
[King Friday]
'Cause we're on top!
[Edgar] That's right.
'Cause we're...
At least you're on top
I can't believe
what a broad area we covered.
Edgar, Edgar, what do you think
he means by "any trouble"?
Fred didn't want you ad-libbing,
putzing around with the words,
because he was always trying
to get a message across in every show.
[Daniel] I want there
to be peace in this neighborhood.
It's been a hard time for everyone.
[X the Owl] Well, I really
do hope that what you say'll work.
[Daniel] Do you have
the tags on the bottom?
Yes, I put them on.
Look, see if you like them.
[Daniel] Good.
[Lady Aberlin] "Love" this one says.
And then we float them
over into the castle,
so that Great Uncle Friday will know
that the whole neighborhood wants peace.
[King Friday] Paratroopers!
Fire the cannon!
-Hold it, King Friday.
-[King Friday] Well, what is it?
They're not paratroopers.
They're messages of peace.
Look at this, "Tenderness."
-[King Friday] Messages of peace?
-"Peaceful co-existence."
-[King Friday] Wait.
-You see that one was...
-They're peaceful messages, sir.
-[King Friday] Let us stop all fighting.
Stop all fighting now.
[clapping] Superb! Superb!
Meow, wonderful, meow!
That was the first week.
That's how it got started.
["Won't you be my neighbor" playing]
It's a beautiful day
In this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
[Hedda] From the early days of
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
until the end of that program
he came in the door
every day the same way.
Hi.
Hello!
And he changed to the sweater
to give a sense
that we were going to have
this relaxing time together.
Whoop.
Change the shoes.
Some food for the fish.
Picture, picture on the wall,
would you kindly tell us all,
is Mr. McFeely on his way here?
[David Newell] My job
was to be the prop person.
And then he said,
"Oh, I know you've done some acting."
"I'd like you to play
the character of the delivery man."
I must go off, Mr. Rogers. I have a lot
of deliveries today in the neighborhood.
So, I became "Mr. McFeely" on the spot.
[Bill] Trolley left for its house...
[Fred]
Into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
Boomerang, toomerang, sumurang!
[Bill] Anything could
happen in Make-Believe.
But Make-Believe was not real.
I mean, there was a distinction.
Fred never appeared in Make-Believe.
The actors did. The puppets did.
[Fred] There's the clock
where Daniel Striped Tiger lives.
Next you see
King Friday the 13th's castle.
King Friday the 13th is one
of the few remaining benevolent despots.
These characters are...
Were people in his life.
Queen Sara would obviously be my mom.
[Queen Sara] I'd just like to say
what a fine person my husband is.
[King Friday] Why, Sara!
[kisses]
None of us like to think
of Lady Elaine as my aunt,
but we wonder about that.
[chuckling]
In the beginning, she was a witch.
[Lady Elaine] I heard that.
Here's a squirt.
What can I say? [laughs]
[Fred] In a beautiful tree,
lived X the Owl and Henrietta Pussycat.
Meow-meow, beautiful day,
meow-meow neighborhood.
[bell dinging]
[Hedda]
And then at the end of every program,
we came back to Fred's television house.
And to help children
understand all of these experiences,
he put that into a song.
[singing]
I like you as you are
Exactly and precisely
I think you turned out nicely
And I like you as you are
And children need to hear that.
I don't think that anybody can grow
unless he really
is accepted exactly as he is.
[Elizabeth] I think
he was one of those people
who would do their work seriously,
and they hope that
someone will pick up on
the seriousness of what they're about.
There were times when he thought,
"Will people ever understand
"that I'm not just a klutzy guy
who's falling around
"in a '50s living room
with weird curtains?"
WGBH in Boston decided to have
something called a "Mister Rogers Day."
There was just a woman in GBH
who was in their PR department
who loved the program,
and I think her colleagues said...
You know, I think they thought it was
really simple, kind of '50s, square.
And she said,
"No, I really want to bring him here,
"and I want families
to be able to come and see him."
And the line to get in
was blocks and blocks long,
before they even opened the doors.
And the word got around really quickly
that there's something
going on with this guy.
[indistinct chatter]
[kid] Mr. Rogers, Mr. Rogers.
I like you as you are.
A little boy came up to him and said,
"Mr. Rogers, how did you get out?"
And so he talked to the little boy,
explained what television was all about.
And the little boy's just taking it
all in, going, "Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm."
And when Fred finished,
he said, the little boy said,
"How are you gonna get back in?"
[all shouting excitedly]
[Rev. George Wirth] There was a whole
spiritual dimension to his work,
in the television business,
to be inclusive.
He did this without
ever identifying himself as a minister.
He didn't wear a collar.
He wore a sweater.
And he preached in that context,
in a way more effective
than anyone I've ever seen,
because it wasn't a sermon,
like an oratorical thing.
It was a communication
right into their hearts.
[Max] He was a life-long
registered Republican,
and if you look at the values
that Mr. Rogers represented,
it's influenced by his faith.
His Christianity was
this kind of wide open Christianity
that was accepting
thinking from all other places,
while never departing
from the Christian faith.
[Rev. George Wirth] Fred's theology
was love your neighbor and love yourself.
And he saw that communication
as the most deeply spiritual thing
that he could be doing.
[Fred] When I look at the camera,
I think of one person.
Not any specific person, but one person.
It's very, very personal.
The space between the television screen
and whoever happens to be receiving it,
I consider that very holy ground.
A lot happens. A lot happens there.
For somebody that was in television,
he was just... He hated television.
[machine guns firing]
Here, buddy, it's all yours.
-Wow! Look at this!
-Hey, what about me?
[Fred] In this country, the child
is appreciated for what he will be.
He will be a great consumer some day.
The quicker we can get them
to go out and buy, the better.
There's so much of that in this country.
Mr. Ellison, I think you have felt
strongly about some aspects of this.
Public television
could make a contribution.
As the American people
becomes aware of itself,
it discovers itself.
We do not know as much
as we should know about who we are,
what we are, and how we differ.
[President Johnson]
How will Man use his miracles?
The answer just begins
with public television.
We want most of all to enrich Man's spirit
and that is the purpose of this act.
And then Nixon became president,
and he wanted to cut the funding.
[David Bianculli] The beginnings of PBS
was gonna probably be dismantled
by Richard Nixon, whose approach to media
was to threaten stations
if they didn't behave politically.
[Max] Nixon had a problem with his budget.
He had to find money for the Vietnam War.
It wasn't a lot of money
in today's terms,
but he wanted to cut the budget.
[David Bianculli]
In the midst of all this,
Fred Rogers gets to go before Congress,
argue for $20 million of funding
to, sort of, solidify PBS,
in front of John Pastore,
who is a senator who had already,
sort of, made his Congressional bones
by attacking television.
This is gonna be a thorough hearing.
This is gonna be a hearing
not to reach for a headline,
but to reach for a result.
There had been two days of hearings,
and he hasn't been very impressed.
If you'd been watching those hearings,
and you had to bet on whether or not
PBS was going to keep going... No!
That educational television
should permanently struggle
for subsistence is intolerable.
[Pastore]
All right, who's the next witness?
[Hedda] Senator Pastore told the group,
"I've heard everybody
read your testimonies.
"I don't want anyone to read anymore.
I'm tired of hearing the reading."
When I heard about that
I thought, "Uh-oh, Fred."
[Pastore]
All right, Rogers, you've got the floor.
And I could hear in his voice, the nerves.
Senator Pastore,
this is a philosophical statement,
and would take about ten minutes to read.
So, I'll not do that.
One of the first things
that a child learns
in a healthy family is trust.
And I trust what you have said,
that you will read this.
It's very important to me.
I care deeply about children.
-My first children--
-Will it make you happy if you read it?
I'd just like to talk about it,
-if it's all right.
-All right, sir.
This is what I give,
I give an expression
of care every day to each child,
to help him realize that he is unique.
I end the program by saying,
"You've made this day
a special day by just you're being you.
"There's no person
in the whole world like you.
"And I like you just the way you are."
And I feel that if we,
in public television,
can only make it clear
that feelings
are mentionable and manageable,
we will have done a great service.
Could I tell you
the words of one of the songs,
which I feel is very important?
[Pastore] Yes.
This has to do with
that good feeling of control,
which I feel that, that
children need to know is there.
And it starts out, "What do you do
with the mad that you feel?"
And that first line
came straight from a child.
I work with children, doing puppets
in very personal communication
with small groups.
"What do you do with the mad that you feel
"when you feel so mad you could bite?
"When the whole wide world
seems oh-so-wrong
"and nothing you do seems very right?
"It's great to be able to stop
"when you've planned a thing that's wrong,
and be able to do something else instead,
"and think this song,
"I can stop when I want to,
can stop when I wish,
"can stop, stop, stop any time.
"Know that there's something deep inside
"that helps us become what we can."
I think it's wonderful.
I think it's wonderful.
Looks like
you just earned the $20 million.
[all laughing]
[people applauding]
[piano music playing, man scatting]
[newsreader] Fred Rogers
is easily the star of the show,
and if children had votes,
public television would be
on Easy Street tomorrow.
[scatting]
-Oh, wow!
-[laughs]
Everything just sort of exploded.
You know, suddenly there was
press beating a path to our door.
Good evening. I was
in Pittsburgh a few days ago,
doing a bit of investigative reporting
on a man named Fred Rogers.
[in Henrietta's voice]
Meow-meow-meow wonderful! Meow!
[reporter]
Mr. Rogers does ten different voices,
for ten different puppets.
[in King Friday's voice] Well,
a copperhead is poisonous, is it not?
[reporter] He writes, he's the producer
he's the chief performer,
and he is a marvel.
Fred Rogers, as best I can tell,
has managed to escape
the calloused, the embittered,
the negative aspects
of being a public performer.
He is doing the one thing
in the world that he wishes to do,
and he is by any definition a happy man.
[man vocalizing]
[John] I sometimes
wonder myself how he ticked.
It's a little tough for me to have the...
Almost the second Christ as my dad.
[Jim] If we were at the dinner table,
and he would want to say something
that wasn't necessarily Mr. Rogers-like,
he would say it
in Lady Elaine Fairchilde's voice.
[Lady Elaine] Get out here, Friday.
I need to speak with you.
That was our cue that
this is the alter-ego speaking now,
you know, and just
letting off a little steam.
[indistinct dialog]
[woman laughing]
[Joanne] He and I both had childhoods
that you weren't allowed to be angry.
You weren't allowed to show your anger.
And we were never able to do it.
It scared us.
[Fred] Music was my first language.
I was scared to use words.
I didn't want to be a bad boy.
I didn't want
to tell people that I was angry.
But I could show it through
the way I would play on the piano.
I could literally laugh or cry
or be very angry
through the ends of my fingers.
[piano keys striking harshly]
I've always felt that you were
someone who could understand
the deep feelings or thoughts of people.
Well, it took me so long to get tame.
I try to understand
how everybody else is working at it.
-Sometimes it isn't easy.
-No, but it's worth a try.
Daniel was pretty much Fred.
He did all the voices,
but uh... I think Daniel was
the real Fred.
[in Daniel's voice] Maybe I could
talk about clocks, and loving,
and things like that.
"A, B, C, D,
"F, G, J, K, L, M, S..."
Oh, Lady Aberlin,
I just can't go to school tomorrow!
Why not, Daniel?
Because I don't know everything.
[Junlei] Daniel is articulating
the fears and anxieties and feelings
that Fred had as a child,
but that many children have.
[Margy] He never forgot
how vulnerable it was to be a kid.
You know, you're this little thing.
Everything else in the world
is bigger than you are,
and you have to learn everything
that helps you get through life.
I think that it just never left him.
Whatever those scars of his life were,
he wanted to help heal that wound, maybe?
It's a lot easier, even as an adult,
for me to have Daniel say,
[in Daniel's voice] "I'm really scared.
"Do you think maybe
you could give me a hug?"
[in normal voice] You know?
But that would be hard for me to say,
"I'm really scared.
Do you think you could give me a hug?"
So, the difference from here to here,
that doesn't seem very far,
but it was efficacious,
to say the least.
[in Daniel's voice]
A car ran over the jaw of your cat?
Mm-hmm.
-And what happened?
-It was bleeding.
Oh.
They tried and fixed it, but they fixed it
for a half a day, but then it died.
-But then it died?
-Mm-hmm.
Oh, I think that's scary.
[Tom] All you had to do
was see Fred inhabit Daniel,
to really kind of figure it out.
I mean, they were symbiotic.
As strange as it is to see a grown man
have a symbiotic relationship
with kind of a dingy,
you know, worn out little sock puppet,
he definitely had that.
[Fred in Daniel's voice]
Would you give me a hug?
Thank you. 'Cause I needed that.
I better go back in the case, Mr. Rogers.
[in normal voice] Okay, Daniel.
[in Daniel's voice] He's really nice.
You could talk to him.
[in normal voice] Okay, Daniel.
[Daniel] Just a minute.
I want to show you something.
Okay.
Wonder what?
-It's a balloon.
-[Lady Aberlin] Oh, a balloon.
-Could you blow it up for me?
-Surely.
[David Bianculli] So, this is the first
year of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
Daniel Striped Tiger
is there with Lady Aberlin,
asking her to blow a balloon up
and then let the air out.
You wonder why this is in there.
[balloon whistling]
[crowd clamoring]
But they can't hear.
Can you hear on any of these?
[Daniel]
There's something I want to ask you.
What does "assassination" mean?
-[man 1] What happened? Do you know?
-[man 2] Somebody said he's been shot.
[man 1] Let's roll some
video tape on this out here, friends.
[Lady Aberlin] Have you
heard that word a lot today?
Yes. And I didn't know what it meant.
Well...
It means...
Somebody getting killed...
In a sort of surprise way.
[Daniel] That's what happened, you know.
That man killed that other man.
A lot of people are sad
and scared about it, you know.
I'd rather talk about it some other day.
Whenever you like.
[Fred] I felt that
I had to speak to the families
of our country about grief.
A plea not to leave the children isolated,
and at the mercy of their own
fantasies of loss and destruction.
Children have very deep feelings,
just the way parents do,
just the way everybody does.
And our striving
to understand those feelings,
and to better respond to them
is what I feel is
a most important task in our world.
[Fred singing in Henrietta's voice]
He realized that
if he really wanted to communicate,
the most important thing is to listen.
'Cause there's so many people
who will just lump 'em all together,
and say, "Hey, kids, come along.
We'll see the next cartoon."
And they couldn't care less
about what that cartoon is saying
to the child about such
things as human dignity.
[upbeat music playing]
[Max] Remember what was happening
for children's television?
It was speeding up.
Fred was pretty radical
in television for that day,
in that he used time totally differently.
To Fred, silence was his delight.
[Hedda]
Fred took an egg timer and said,
"Do you want to know how long a minute is?
There. We're going to show you."
And we just sat there
for the whole minute.
[David Bianculli]
There's a lot of slow space.
There's no wasted space.
[inhales]
In.
[exhales]
Out.
[birds chirping]
[Fred] I think silence is one
of the greatest gifts that we have.
His questions are direct, simple, short,
and then he waits.
[Yo-Yo Ma] He interviewed me,
and he put his face about
three inches away from my face,
says, "It's so nice to see you
"and to be with you."
It scared the living daylights out of me.
But I realized this is what
children do with adults.
And sometimes after they answer,
he doesn't say anything else.
So they say a little bit more.
It's a perfect interviewing trick.
[laughing]
Very funny! Very funny.
I'm not falling for it. Very good.
[bugle sounding]
Handyman Negri
and Officer Clemmons, I presume.
[both] Correct as always, Your Highness.
Could we take a close
look at your badge here, Officer Clemmons?
My friends, I think, can read it.
P-O-L-I-C-E.
I have always felt policemen to be
the most dangerous person
in the neighborhood.
So, to have me playing a police officer
I was tremendously hesitant.
But there was something
reluctant about Fred to let go.
And I said, "Mr. Rogers,
"I would be very happy
to be on your program,
"as long as
it doesn't interfere with my singing."
[singing]
We've had it and now we can go
[vocalizing]
We don't want the snow anymore
And he teased me.
He teased me about that for 20 years!
He'd say, "Officer Clemmons,
"are we interfering with your career?
"Are we interfering?"
He was relentless,
but he also told me, he said,
"That was the moment I loved you."
He said, "Because
you were not going to kiss my ass."
Those are Mr. Rogers' words.
[Fred] That feels good.
Oh, there's Officer Clemmons.
Hi, Officer Clemmons. Come in.
-Hi, Mr. Rogers, how are you?
-Fine. Why don't you sit down?
Oh, sure, just for a moment.
It's so warm I was just, uh,
putting some water on my feet.
-Oh, it sure is.
-Would you like to join me?
That looks awfully enjoyable,
but I don't have a towel or anything.
Oh, you share mine.
Okay. Sure!
[Francois] Around the country,
they didn't want black people to come
and swim in their swimming pools.
And Fred said,
"That is absolutely ridiculous."
[male reporter]
Today, trouble under a noon sun.
Negroes and white rabbis marched
to a segregated hotel with these results,
the manager, James Brock
told them to get off his private property,
tossed, uh,
cleaning chemicals inside the pool,
in an effort to get the Negroes to leave.
My being on the program
was a statement for Fred.
[Fred] Cool water on a hot day.
[Tom] I think that will is the great
unseen and unacknowledged
ingredient in Fred's story.
The level of will that this guy brought
to really almost all phases
of his life, physical and spiritual.
There's no better manifestation of that
than 143.
-Is that your address here?
-Oh, no.
It means something special.
-[Lady Aberlin] One-four-three?
-[Daniel] Mm-hmm.
You see, "I" is one letter,
and "love," L-O-V-E, is four letters,
and "you," Y-O-U, is three letters.
[Tom] Fred would go to
the Pittsburgh Athletic Club,
and he swam a mile.
He swam at a unhurried,
but deliberate and determined pace.
And then he got on the scale
and the needle of the scale jumped to 143.
And he came off it
with, kind of, a little smile on his face,
and he told me that he had weighed
143 pounds every day of his life,
since, like, the late '50s or early '60s.
Now, I've thought about this a lot.
With that 143 pound thing,
drives me insane.
Try that! I can't do that!
[Tom] In Fred's private numerology,
"I love you" is "143."
So, when the needle jumps to 143,
there's, like, this confirming quality.
There's so many weird things
that I'm not gonna tell you.
[interviewer speaking]
[interviewer chuckles]
No. [laughs]
[Nick] Freddy was like the little
rich kid that lived in the big house.
We were all the goofball kids
that lived across the alley.
We could be ourselves around Fred.
We were crazies. We all had long hair,
and we were always having fun.
We were always making jokes.
It's such a good...
[laughing]
[crew laughing]
All right, that aren't mine.
Who's are these?
[Nick] If we ever saw
a camera lying around, would grab it,
I'd pull my pants down,
I'd take a picture of my ass,
and put their camera back.
And, like, then it was film,
so, like, three weeks later,
you'd go to the Fotomat
and you'd get your pictures back,
and there's Aunt Judy, and there's
Uncle Fred, and there's some guy's ass.
And one day Fred
brought his camera into the studio,
and he was taking pictures with it.
And we went behind the set,
took a picture of my butt,
and put his camera back.
He never said anything,
and, like, months later...
I think it was around Christmas time,
he said to somebody,
"Did you give Nick his present?"
And it was a poster
of that picture of me and my butt.
-Thank you very much.
-You're welcome.
Did you make these yourself?
I... [stuttering]
I thought... I thought of X the Owl,
so I, I drew him in his house,
and his little door.
[Fred] Oh, these are real treasures.
Thank you very much.
-[girl] You're welcome.
-Would you like to see X the Owl?
[girl giggling]
[man] You're a little happy.
That makes you
just a little bit happy, huh?
[in X the Owl's voice] Oh, hello there!
Hello, everybody.
-[all] Hi.
-I'm X the Owl.
I hear you drew a picture of me.
[in normal voice] This is a book
on all of the different tapes
that we have.
Here are the tapes. Here.
[David Newell] At that point,
he thought he had done enough programs,
that they could be repeated.
Those are all different visits,
television visits that we have on tape.
[David Newell] He was writing,
he was hosting, he was singing,
he was composing.
And it took a lot out of him.
I think he wanted a breather.
Well, next week,
we'll start to show all of these visits,
so everybody can see them
the whole way through.
I'll look forward to that.
Let's take a look at this one.
[Margy] When you think
about all of those episodes,
there's only so many stories
you can tell, right?
[man] What's in the future
for Fred Rogers? I understand that
you are ceasing production,
this spring, of the Neighborhood shows.
Well, it's going to give us time
to make some things
that I've wanted to do for a long time.
[piano music playing]
-Hi, Katie.
-Hi, Fred.
John, wait till you see this quilt.
He wanted to do some
prime time stuff for adults,
and so he got funding to do
a show called Old Friends... New Friends.
[Fred] I wonder what it is
that makes one person
push on in the face of difficulty,
and make someone else
crumble in helplessness.
[man] What does tomorrow feel like?
That big. I feel that big.
[man] There's no feeling for tomorrow.
Feeling is dead for me in here.
[Elizabeth] He was incredibly open.
He was scarily open.
[Max] He wanted to speak to adults.
He kinda put the puppets away.
But have you watched some of these?
[Fred] The feeling that
this instrument is a place,
that it is a country.
That it's somewhere that you go
to say something.
[Lorin Hollander] What does this
have to do with our world?
I don't know any store that's like this.
Any television program that's like this.
A flower is like this.
A child is like this.
[Max] Nobody but Fred would've thought
of doing that for adults.
[man] Take number 19.
Thank you for your poems and your thoughts
about loving poetry and music.
You really inspired us
to make this program.
I'll be with you next time.
But he wasn't making
the kind of connections
with adults on television that he thought
he might be able to make.
[David Newell]
I remember opening the paper
and reading about a child
jumping off a roof
with a towel around his neck
because he was playing Superman.
And there had been
a lot of stories like that.
Some children died because
of the injuries. I read it to Fred.
It hit him because
he thought he had covered
all there was to say in child development,
but this was new.
[Max]
Fred didn't become angry a lot,
but he just became so angry
about the fact that
people would mislead a small child.
And angry that it was
his medium that was doing this.
Yeah, Superman.
I am tired of hearing people
who have long ago set aside
the concerns of childhood,
telling everybody
what children really need.
I'll tell you what children need.
They need adults who will protect them
from the ever-ready
molders of their world.
[David Newell]
That was the moment Fred said,
"I wonder if we could do
a week on superheroes
"talking about the pretend-ness of it?"
Very quickly we came back with the show.
[X the Owl] Careful, Ana,
I don't want you to--
[Ana] I think I'm flying!
-I am! I'm flying!
-No, no, you're falling!
-What is going on here?
-Oh, Ana was trying to fly.
I was using my super-skirt,
and I was going through the air.
Yes, but you were going down
and you might have gotten hurt!
[X the Owl] That's right, Ana.
[Lady Aberlin] You have to be
really careful with super-things.
[Nick] He was cool with every kid.
That's the whole thing.
I mean, there were the kids that were...
They were little bastards.
They were just rowdy and...
Fred never said,
"This kid's a dick. Get him outta here."
You know, I mean, I sure would've.
[Hedda]
Fred used to say that the outside world
of children's lives has changed,
but their insides haven't.
He realized that his work wasn't through.
I'm Fred Rogers, and I'd like to talk
with you about make-believe.
[Max] When it goes
to the next level is in the 1980s
when he goes to the theme weeks.
I mean, to do a week on death...
"Oh, hi, kids!
[chuckles]
"We're going to do a week on death!"
On divorce!
[Fred] Some people get married,
and after a while
they're so unhappy with each other,
that they don't want
to be married anymore.
On children getting lost!
Man! That's guts.
[Daniel] Help! Help, help!
Help, please, everybody!
[Junlei] There's a piece of paper
that I accidentally ran into.
And he typed in this little sheet of paper
about how he couldn't do it,
that he didn't think
he was up to the task.
[Joanne] "Am I kidding myself
that I'm able to write a script again?
"Am I really just
whistling Dixie? I wonder.
"If I don't get down to it,
I'll never really know.
[typing]
"Why don't I trust myself?
"After all these years,
it's just as bad as ever.
"The hour cometh and
now is when I've got to do it.
"Get to it, Fred, get to it!
"But don't let anybody
ever tell anybody else that it was easy.
"It wasn't."
["Rapper's delight" playing]
[Tom] The time that I was with him,
going on a New York City subway,
all the children
in that crowded subway car
began singing the Neighborhood song.
I said a hip hop
Hippie to the hippie
The hip, hip a hop,
And you don't stop, a rock it out
Bubba to the bang bang boogie,
Boobie to the boogie
To the rhythm of the boogie the beat
Now, what you hear is not a test
I'm rappin' to the beat
[Tom] He might as well have been
an animated figure stepped into real life.
Could I try that?
[blowing]
I brought my skates with me. I can try.
[woman exclaims]
-What else you like to do?
-Moon walking.
-[Fred] Moonwalk?
-[boy] You got it. Yeah.
[Max] People thought
he was such an important American figure.
They wanted him to speak out
on the issues of the day.
And, so, Fred grew pretty
comfortably into more of a public role.
[Fred] You know, the Earth is a name
for the place where everybody lives.
And the moon is the name for the place
where the astronauts go.
Every time we went through
a national or international tragedy,
my impulse was always
to call Fred, and put him on the radio.
What shall we tell our children
about the things that are in the news
that seem so difficult, so tragic?
[female reporter] Pilot Mike Smith
followed by Christa McAuliffe,
teacher in space.
[male reporter]
Christa has been rehearsing the lessons
she'll teach from space.
Good morning. [clears throat]
This is Christa McAuliffe,
live from the Challenger.
[male reporter 1]
The lessons will be seen nationwide
on public television.
Five, four, three...
[male reporter 2] Two, one, and liftoff!
Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission,
and it has cleared the tower.
[man 1 over radio]
Challenger, go with throttle up.
[man 2 over radio]
Roger, go with throttle up.
[man 3] God, no!
[Susan] How do we put it to children,
so they will understand?
And part of Fred's answer
was always to tell children
that we, the parents,
would take care of them.
Sometimes, I found that
a difficult message myself
as the parent of a young child.
Sometimes I felt I was lying.
I knew that there were
things in this world
that I couldn't protect my child from.
[Fred] Sometimes we need
to struggle with the tragedy,
to feel the gravity of love.
Love is what keeps us together and afloat.
["Won't you be my neighbor" playing]
[audience cheering]
It's a beautiful day
In the neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine?
You know,
it must be tough to be Fred Rogers,
with your mission in mind,
and then to have parodies.
I always wanted to live
In a house like yours my friend
Maybe when there's nobody home
I'll break in
I married a woman
Who said she was rich
Spent all her money
Walked out on the bitch
Won't you be my, won't you be my
Won't you be my neighbor?
[knocking at door]
[Fred] Eddie Murphy did that
Mister Robinson's Neighborhood,
and I remember meeting him,
and he just threw his arms around me
the first time he saw me,
and he said, "The real Mister Rogers."
[David Litterman]
That's Mr. Rogers there in the...
-On the left.
-[David Litterman] On the left, yeah.
Uh, now, how do you react to that?
Well, some of them aren't very funny.
But I think that a lot of them are done
-with real kindness in their hearts.
-Mm-hmm.
I'm moving to a new neighborhood,
where I've made a new friend.
Can you say "hooker"?
There were some
that were not as kind in nature,
and if they made fun
of the philosophy,
that was the only thing
that offended him, I think.
[male announcer]
The battle of the P-B-S stars.
[host] The crowd
is literally buzzing with excitement
as Mr. Rogers enters the ring...
Oh, look out there, Fred!
Fred had such a great sense of humor,
for the most part.
[male announcer] There's Child, obviously
in shape and ready for this fight.
But what about Rogers?
Experts have cast aspersions
on his manhood itself.
[David Newell]
Fred was watching with the rest of us,
and everybody would be laughing,
and I just wonder if a little bit
of Fat Freddy came back.
[Joanne]
Just before getting to adolescence,
he didn't have an easy time
making friends, I don't think.
He got a good taste
of what bullying was all about.
I've often wondered,
if there hadn't been a Fat Freddy,
would there have been a Mister Rogers?
[male announcer]
You can feel the momentum
actually swinging towards Child.
And what just happened there?
He cracked a puppet!
Oh, look at this!
He's hitting Child
with the lovable King Friday!
And the French chef is down!
[laughter on record]
[chuckles]
[laughter stops]
A laughter record.
Used to play one like this
when I was a young boy.
You see, I felt that
the adults around me were pressuring me
to be what I couldn't be yet.
"Act like a grown-up," I'd hear them say.
Well, I was afraid
they'd laugh at me when I tried.
So, I found a record like this,
and I could make the laughs start,
and make them stop whenever I wanted to.
For someone who hated to be laughed at,
it was a good feeling
to be in charge of at least this laughter.
I think that
those who would try
to make you feel less than who you are,
I think that's the greatest evil.
I've always wanted
To live in a neighborhood with you
So, let's make
The most of this beautiful day
Since we're together,
We might as well say
Would you be mine,
Could you be mine...
[Hedda] There was
a wonderful quote from Fred.
Oh, that's hard.
[Hedda] The most important learning,
it's the ability to accept
and expect mistakes,
and deal with
the disappointments that they bring.
Hi, neighbor.
Had a little trouble with my zipper there.
I'll get these shoes tied,
and then try the zipper again.
[Hedda] And Fred also understood
that there's a deeper level.
[Daniel]
You know something, Lady Aberlin?
What, Daniel?
I've been wondering
about something myself.
Something about Mr. Skunk?
Something about mistakes.
-[Lady Aberlin] What is it?
-I've been wondering
if I was a mistake?
[Lady Aberlin] If you were a mistake?
And I will tell you,
sitting in the studio,
listening to that, that day,
I said to myself,
"I can't believe Fred had the courage
"to put that into words."
Sometimes I wonder if I'm too tame.
["Am I a mistake" playing]
Sometimes I wonder if I'm a mistake
I'm not like anyone else I know
When I'm asleep or even awake
Sometimes I get
To dreaming that I'm just a fake
I'm not like anyone else
I think you are just fine as you are
You do?
I really must tell you I do...
[Junlei] Lady Aberlin is saying to Daniel
what Fred himself wanted to say,
not only to his childhood self,
but to all children.
You're not a fake
You're no mistake
You are my friend
And then you think,
"Okay, then Daniel's gonna say,
"'Oh, thank you. That helped me a lot.'"
I wonder if I'm a mistake
I think you are just fine as you are
I'm not like anyone else
I really must tell you...
[Hedda] And I thought to myself,
"Thank you, Fred, for reminding us
"that it's not so easy to quiet a doubt."
But make it a duet,
so that it's not just your fears,
but you'll hear my support.
Isn't it true
That the strong never break?
When you're sleep
When you're wake
I'm not like anyone else I know
You're not a fake
You're no mistake
You're my friend
I'm not like anyone else
I think you are just fine,
exactly the way you are.
The way I look?
Yes.
The way I talk?
Well, yes.
The way I love?
Especially that.
[sighs]
["Every valley" playing on organ]
Every valley
Every valley
Shall be exalted...
[Francois]
There were black kids watching the show.
They needed a black figure
who would not let them down.
So, if I came out as gay,
and there was some kind of scandal,
that would not serve the race.
I carried that all the time.
The feeling you know you're alive!
[Fred] Really nice, Francois!
[Francois] I went to
a gay bar downtown called the Play Pen.
Oh, God, did I have a lot of fun!
But somebody told
the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood people
about it, and he asked me,
"Were you downtown at that bar?"
And I said, "Yes." He said,
"You can't go back there anymore."
I wanted to show this film to you.
Okay, on Picture, Picture.
Here's Mrs. Clemmons at home.
[Francois] In '68 I got married.
I'm not stupid.
[Fred] There's the portrait
of the King and Queen.
If I came out publicly, he said,
"You cannot be on the show anymore."
The sponsors,
Johnson and Johnson, and Sears,
they are not going
to support an openly gay man.
Fred was not prepared
to lose that market.
My marriage failed miserably.
And I discovered you can't pray it away.
[Joanne] Eventually,
Fred came around to it.
I think Francois just came
a little too soon maybe, you know?
[interviewer speaking]
Oh, yes. Oh, my yes. Heavens.
Um...
You gotta forgive me for this,
but I have to ask you something
that may sound impertinent,
and I don't mean for it to, for a second.
Are, are...
Are you square?
I mean, are you a straight guy?
I mean, you're just...
Are you really the way you are?
[Francois] First of all, no, he's not gay.
I tell everyone who asks me,
"No, he's not gay."
But the other part is,
I spent enough time with him
that if he had... If there was
"a gay vibe", I would've picked it up.
Nope. Not as far as I know.
I mean, I think that anybody who looked
at Fred, looked at somebody
that they couldn't compare
with anybody else.
There's something inside you
that hasn't been lost.
Thank you, Daniel.
-Your childhood.
-Mm-hmm.
Okay.
I like him.
[Fred] I know.
Bye-bye.
[Tom] That was
one of the things that I responded to.
He's terrific. Wow.
I definitely saw
another way of being a man.
[Nick] I'm sure you've heard
all these rumors about
Fred being a Navy SEAL and killing people.
Was Fred a Navy SEAL?
Did Fred have tattoos?
[Tom] And that, you know,
he wore the sweater
to cover the tattoos.
[Nick] Fred was born a rich kid.
He didn't know how to use a screwdriver,
let alone kill a bunch of people.
[Tom] That to me is just
like a classic example of people
looking at Fred
in all his eccentricity and singularity,
and trying to basically say,
"Well, that can't be.
"He has to be this way."
The universal question about Fred is,
was he that way in real life?
And the answer is, yes.
Francois Clemmons, hi, welcome.
Thank you. How you doin'?
-I'm fine. How are you today?
-Fine.
My feet were tired, so I thought
I'd just soak them
for a while in this water.
Does it make them feel better?
It does. Would you like to try?
Sure!
[Francois] On the show, he would say,
"I love you just the way you are."
One day, I said,
"Fred! Were you talking to me?"
And he looked at me, and he said, "Yes,
"I've been talking to you for two years,
"and you finally heard me today."
And I just collapsed into his arms.
I was... I started crying. I...
That's when I knew that I loved him.
There are many ways to say I love you
There are many ways to say
I care about you...
[Francois] No man had ever told me
that he loved me like that.
I needed to hear it
all my life. My dad never told me.
My stepfather never told me.
So, from then on,
he became my surrogate father.
I'm so proud of you, Francois.
Oh, thank you, Fred.
May I help you here?
Thank you.
[Fred] The people who have had
a lot of struggle in their lives,
those are the people
who really impress me.
[interviewer speaking]
There was an interview with a little boy
by the name of Jeff Erlanger.
We wrote because
Jeff was going to have a spinal fusion
and be in a... What they call a halo...
Cast. A halo cast.
Metal rim, and then cast on his shoulders,
and bolted all together...
-All the way down his trunk.
-Yeah.
[Howard] He may not
have survived the surgery.
And, so, we said, you know,
"What would you like to do?
"This is going to be
a really big task for you and, so,
"we want to kick it off with something
that would be really special."
Mr. Rogers?
Hey, Jeff. [chuckles]
-I'm glad to see you.
-Hi.
Thank you very much for coming by.
Can you tell my friends
what it is that made you
need this wheelchair?
Sure.
Well, when I was about seven months old,
I had, um... I had a tumor,
and it broke the nerves
to tell my hands and legs what to do.
[Fred] I see.
And I got a wheelchair
when I was four years old.
-That was your first one.
-Mm-hmm.
-When you were four.
-Uh-huh.
He told Jeff, before they started,
that they would have a chat
and then sing a song together.
I think he said,
"We might sing a song." I remember.
'Cause, I was sort of surprised,
"What? He's going to start
singing a song?"
Well, you know, this is totally...
Not even "What song?"
It's you I like
It's not the things you wear
It's not the way you do your hair
But it's you I like
The way you are right now
[both singing]
The way down deep inside you
Not the things that hide you
Not your fancy chair!
Chair!
That's just beside you
But it's you I like
Every part of you
Your skin
Your eyes
Your feelings
Whether old or new
I hope that you'll remember
Even when you're feeling blue
That it's you I like
It's you, yourself
It's you
It's you
I like
And it is you I like, Jeff.
Thanks.
And there must be times
when you do feel blue.
Uh-huh.
I'm not feeling blue right now, though.
-Me neither!
-[Fred laughs]
-I'm so glad that you came today.
-Thanks.
I remember asking
one of the staff people that was there,
"Well, you know,
what do you think? Did it go okay?"
"Oh, this is good! This is good."
[Pam] He had his surgery, he survived.
Certainly, Mr. Rogers
had an impact on who Jeff became.
His sense of self.
[interviewer]
You obviously have a power now.
I mean, that you wouldn't have
had when you first started the show.
Well, it might sound very ingenuous,
but I don't feel that.
[laser gun firing]
[indistinct dialog]
I would hope that anybody
who sets himself or herself out
to produce mass programming for children,
could have the kind of respect
of childhood that I have.
Because it's not all clowns and balloons.
[interviewer speaking]
What do you mean, you don't agree with me?
[buzzing]
[explosion]
Some television programs
are loud and scary,
with people shooting
and hitting other people.
You know, you can do something about that.
When you see scary television,
you can turn it off.
[television turns off]
We need to help our children
become more and more aware
that what is essential in life
is invisible to the eye.
Thank you.
[woman] Thank you very much.
[Margy] As he got older,
it was more important
for him to be strong in his beliefs.
Maybe that was how
he was getting his anger out.
His anger that people
didn't take him seriously.
They didn't get him.
They didn't get the depth of the show.
[Elaine Crozier]
He started out being Daniel,
soft and quiet and shy,
developed into King Friday.
That is not correct.
Now do it again, and do it perfectly.
[Susan] Wasn't King Friday
a wonderful insight into his character?
His determination, and his ambitions.
[King Friday] As a king, I must see
that the world runs smoothly.
Farewell to you both!
[Susan] That gruffness was his way
of getting what he wanted across.
Fred Rogers wanted something very badly,
and would do what he felt was necessary,
in order to get it.
[Fred] Let's take the gauntlet,
and make goodness attractive
in this so-called next millennium.
That's the real...
That's the real job that we have.
I'm not talking about
Pollyanna-ish kind of stuff.
I'm talking about
down-to-earth actual goodness.
People caring for each other,
in a myriad of ways,
rather than people
knocking each other off all the time.
I mean, I don't find that funny at all.
What changes the world?
The only thing that
ever really changes the world,
is when somebody gets the idea
that love can abound,
and can be shared.
You're doing a great job.
[Jim] Dad never stood up and said,
"Look at what I've done.
"Look at this. Isn't this wonderful?"
The only time I ever saw him come
even close to anything like that
was when he did the interview
with Koko the gorilla.
[Koko purrs]
Right. That's a happy sound.
-Is it?
-That's a purr.
[mimics purring] Like that?
Can you teach me how to do that? [purrs]
[purrs]
Isn't that a nice way to welcome someone
and say that you're happy?
[Jim] It was a weird kind of a thing,
but you realize there was something
kind of magical going on there.
What? Love?
Love your visit.
-Well, that was very nice.
-Thank you, Koko.
[Fred] There's so much
to think about, isn't there?
[man] Let me ask you about what we've
been discussing for the last three hours.
Mr. Rogers and the narcissistic society
that he gave birth to
because he told every kid
that they were important.
Do you believe his philosophy
destroyed a generation?
[woman] This evil, evil man.
The criticism goes like this...
"You told everyone they're special.
"They don't have to do anything
to earn that special.
"That's what's wrong with our country.
"That's what's wrong with children today."
[man] He didn't say,
"If you wanna be special,
"you're gonna have to work hard."
And now all these kids
are growing up, and they're realizing,
"Hey, wait a minute,
Mr. Rogers lied to me. I'm not special."
[Junlei] I'm sure by then
Fred had heard the criticisms,
but he's not talking about entitlement.
And if you don't believe
that everyone has inherent value,
you might as well go against
the fundamental notion of Christianity.
That you are the beloved son
or daughter of God.
Hi, Mr. Rogers,
it's a pleasure to meet you.
Hi. I'm glad to meet you. Thank you.
I watched your show as a youngster.
I wasn't allowed to go to preschool,
'cause I had a disability,
and my mom made me
watch your show every day.
-So, thank you...
-Bless your heart and here you are.
For my preschool education.
And thank you for inspiring me today.
[Junlei] At the very end of Fred's
very last commencement speech,
he said what he meant
when he say, "You're special."
And what that ultimately means, of course,
is that you don't ever
have to do anything sensational
for people to love you.
It is really a matter of believing that
you're endowed by your creator with good.
"You know there are many
different ways of saying I love you.
"In fact, I like to think about times
"when I've seen people
showing their love." Okay.
[man speaking indistinctly]
Mm-hmm.
[man] Show 1765.
This is the last scene of the last show
of the last day, the last taping day
of the interior
of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
[Fred singing]
It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up ready to say
I think I'll make a snappy new day
It's such a good feeling
A very good feeling, the...
[laughs]
This place has been condemned.
-Oh, it's been condemned. Oh, well.
-You got two days to move out.
Okay, thanks. See ya.
[all laughing]
That was wonderful! [laughing]
Years ago, it wasn't so weird that
somebody as nice as Fred was around.
Now, there isn't room
for a nice person on TV.
-[people laughing]
-So, we must have regular reunions.
Yeah. How about Tuesday?
[both laughing]
Yeah, I'll have forgotten
about everyone by Monday.
So, Tuesday will bring it all back.
[laughing]
[playing a tune]
-We did it! Can you believe it?
-We did it!
Mercy!
[Joanne] When he did
stop making the programs,
I felt that he was depressed.
And I mentioned it to him,
and he said,
"Well, I miss my playmates."
[man speaking indistinctly]
-[man] Okay?
-[Fred] That's fine.
[man] Okay, slate out.
[Margy] We decided to have Fred back
to do some promos about 9-11.
He was very troubled,
and I said, "Fred, what's wrong?"
And he said, "I just don't know
"what good these are going to do."
And I just remember saying,
"Fred! How can you say that?"
[playing a tune]
When the horror of 9-11 really hit him,
I think it was a real eye-opener.
He was realizing that it was just so big.
It's always going to be
an ongoing struggle to overcome evil.
I remember thinking, "Okay, this is
"the time that you need
to pump him up because
he doesn't understand
this is really important."
People listen to you.
Okay.
No matter what our particular job,
especially in our world today,
we all are called to be tikun olam,
"repairers of creation."
Thank you for whatever you do,
wherever you are,
to bring joy and light and hope
and faith and pardon and love
to your neighbor and to yourself.
[playing a tune]
[Max] Fred didn't like
going to the doctor's office.
He had stomach problems for a long time.
I mean, for several years.
[Fred] Oh, what's that right down there?
[cello music playing]
Take a look at the aquarium.
Do you see a dead fish?
A dead fish would be one
that isn't swimming
or breathing or anything at all.
Look down there and see, will you?
See if you see anything.
Oh, yes, right there, isn't it?
[Yo-Yo Ma]
He told me that he was sick.
I played a Bach Sarabande
for him over the phone.
It's like sending a little loving message.
[Joanne] When he was very ill,
he talked a lot about dying well,
to die with the hopes...
With the hopes intact.
Before he became comatose, he said,
"Do you think I'm a sheep?"
And we knew what he was talking about
because he had been reading
in the Bible about the Last Days,
with the Judgment.
It will be decided at the end,
who is a sheep and who is a goat.
And I think the need was always there
for being loved,
for being capable of being loved.
There was a little silence,
and then I said,
"Fred, if ever
there was a sheep, you're one."
[cello music continues]
Well, I suppose it's an invitation,
"Won't you be my neighbor?"
Uh, it's an invitation for...
Uh, somebody to be close to you.
You know, I think everybody
longs to be loved,
and longs to know
that he or she is lovable.
["Won't you be my neighbor"
playing on the piano]
And consequently,
the greatest thing that we can do
is to help somebody know...
That they're loved, and capable of loving.
[Tom] Across the street
from Fred's funeral, there's this hubbub,
and there's all these people
holding up signs saying, "God hates fags."
And I went and talked to them
because Fred would have it
no other way. [chuckles]
I said, "Are you condemning Fred?
Are you saying that he was gay?
"What's happening?"
And they were saying that,
"No, no, he just... He tolerated gays."
And so they were
intolerant of the tolerance.
And the thing that struck me that day,
more than anything else,
was the children that were there.
Children that had been drafted into
doing this work into standing there
with their parents,
and holding up signs and screaming.
And those kids looked so unhappy.
Those kids looked so exhausted.
Those kids looked so ill-treated.
It was just heart-breaking.
And I knew that if Fred had seen that,
that's where his heart would have gone.
[Joanne] I can't think
how he would feel about the things
that have come out
that seem to set us back so far.
[Susan] And I wonder if he wouldn't
simply put down his tiger
and just stay home,
forget about even trying.
He's not a person who would've given up,
but this is daunting.
I think he would be trying to mend...
Mend the...
The split.
He would be trying to find some way
to find something positive.
[Fred] When I was a boy
and I would hear about something scary,
my mother would tell us, "Always look
for the people who are helping.
"You'll always find
somebody who's trying to help."
I think there are a lot
of people out there like Fred Rogers.
A lot more than we really want to believe.
[Junlei] In response to the question,
"What would Fred Rogers do?"
It's not a question that you can answer.
The most important question is,
"What are you going to do?"
From the time you were very little,
you've had people
who have smiled you into smiling.
People who have talked you into talking.
Sung you into singing.
Loved you into loving.
[Rev. George Wirth] When he was
giving speeches, he would say,
"Now, think about somebody
who's helped you along the way,
"for one minute. I'm going to time you."
[Fred] Let's just take some time
to think of those extra special people.
Mmm.
[Fred] Some of them may be right here.
Some may be far away.
Some may even be in heaven.
No matter where they are,
deep down you know
they've always wanted
what was best for you.
They've always
cared about you beyond measure,
and have encouraged you to be true
to the best within you.
[chuckles]
[interviewer speaking]
My mother.
How I got to this point
because it was my grandfather's doing.
There was this woman named Viola,
who used to take care of me
when I was little. She was our babysitter.
I thought about Fred.
How about you?
[interviewer speaking]
Yeah.
[sighs softly]
Thank you.
["It's Such a Good Feeling" playing]
[Fred singing]
It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up ready to say
I think I'll make a snappy new day
It's such a good feeling
A very good feeling
The feeling you know
That we're friends
[woman]
Please welcome, Jeffrey Erlanger.
[audience clapping]
-I am so glad to see you.
-Thank you. You too.
Oh! What a surprise!
It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up ready to say
I think I'll make a snappy new day
It's such a good feeling
A very good feeling
The feeling you know
That we're friends
You help to make each day a special day
by just you're being yourself.
There is nobody else
in the whole world who's exactly like you.
And people can like you
exactly as you are.