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It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor.|
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
The Guy Girls' neighborhood is full of nostalgia this week as the sisters return to the gentle, sunny television show that helped raise millions of American children: Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Tracie shares how Fred Rogers' plan to go seminary was changed when he was horrified to see people throwing pies at each other on his parents' brand new television set in the 1960s. (One can only imagine how upset Mr. Rogers would be by 2026 pop culture.)
Instead of becoming a minister right away, Mr. Rogers developed his countercultural television show that made intentional choices about everything from pacing to storytelling to word choice to help protect and develop the mental health and growth of his audience. With every decision Fred Rogers made, he considered the psychology of children, believing them capable of handling straightforward conversations about difficult topics.
Our collective nostalgia for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is well placed, whether you were among the youngest baby boomers watching in 1968 or the eldest Gen Z watching in 2001: Fred Rogers was an authentic, humble, and deeply thoughtful man who really was singing directly to us. His intentionality in creating a program that fed our minds and spirits as children means we can go home again to this neighborhood as adults. It's nostalgia that actually pays off.
Hi, podcast neighbor! We're glad we're together again!
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deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, nostalgia, television, pop culture, storytelling, mental health, psychology, fred rogers, mr rogers’ neighborhood, cultural commentary, religion, public broadcasting, children's television, childhood, land of make believe, king friday, 80s nostalgia
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
As he was dying, he was like, Do you think I'm a
sheep?
By which he meant like he hadbeen studying scripture like
sheep go to heaven.
And his wife was like, Fred, ifever there are any sheep, you're
one.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's just
pop culture?
What others might deem stupidshit, you know matters.
(00:22):
You know what's worth talkingand thinking about.
And so do we.
So come over think with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy Decker, and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts About
Stupid Shit because pop cultureis still culture, and shouldn't
you know what's in your head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
(00:44):
Mr.
Rogers' Neighborhood with mysister, Emily Guy Birkin, and
with you.
And we used to watch thistogether.
So I know that you have seenmany episodes of Mr.
Rogers Neighborhood.
But tell me, what is sort of inyour head?
What is the furniture of yourmind around Mr.
Rogers?
SPEAKER_02 (01:02):
So it's a lot of little things.
So it's things like changing hisshoes when he comes in.
It's him singing.
It's non-toxic masculinity, uh,gentleness.
It's the fact that he wentbefore Congress and convinced
them that TV could be a forcefor good and education.
(01:27):
The fact that he narratedfeeding the fish because one of
his audience members was alittle girl who was blind, I
believe, and was worried thatthe fish never ate.
And so he was like, oh, okay,well, I'll make sure that you
know my my audience who can'tsee what I'm doing know what I'm
(01:47):
doing.
It's there's a quote from himthat goes around every time
there's some sort of horror,horrible tragedy, which is that
after something terriblehappens, look for the helpers.
I don't remember the show havingthis like important effect on me
as a kid.
It was just kind of there in thebackground.
(02:08):
It's as I became an adult and aneducator and recognizing how
good he was at what he did thatI kind of understood what an
icon he was.
And then there's just this onetiny like factoid.
(02:30):
He was friends with Romero ofzombie fame.
And so was like he GeorgeRomero, I think it was blanking
on his first name, was I don'tknow if he like gave money
towards uh Night of the LivingDead, but he was he was an early
like fan of it because they werefriends, and so it's just like
(02:50):
the least Mr.
Rogers thing you can think of,but in the same way, the most
Mr.
Rogers thing you can think of.
And in part because of the waythat Night of the Living Dead
was such a critique of oursystem in a very different way
that Mr.
Rogers is.
He's like kind of the best ofAmerican culture in a lot of
(03:14):
ways.
It's just a lot of sunshine andpositivity.
SPEAKER_01 (03:18):
Ask me why we're doing it.
SPEAKER_02 (03:20):
Oh, tell me, why are we talking about Mr.
Rogers?
SPEAKER_01 (03:25):
Yeah.
So, like you, I feel like I cameto truly appreciate Mr.
Rogers as an adult.
I did enjoy Mr.
Rogers' neighborhood, but I canremember being like, okay, Mr.
Rogers, get to the make-believe.
Like, I didn't really want tolike be with him.
I wanted to be with the puppets.
And it was kind of just what wason while we were waiting for
Sesame Street to come on, or 321Contact, or whatever it was.
(03:45):
And as an adult, I came to likedeeply appreciate who Fred
Rogers was and what he chose todo.
I recently, with one of mypartners, Gary and I went to
Pittsburgh so that we couldvisit the Heinz Center for, I
don't know the official name ofthe museum, but it's a museum in
Pittsburgh where they actuallyhave a number of Mr.
(04:08):
Rogers' artifacts.
He Mr.
Rogers lived his whole life inPittsburgh.
And so I was really excited togo see some of the artifacts
that they have on display.
To be honest, I was a littledisappointed with the museum
exhibit.
They have some great artifacts,but very little interpretive
text to sort of help you put itinto context.
(04:28):
So this is actually like doingthis episode with you was kind
of my like making up for thefact that I didn't get the
context from the museum.
And to prepare for today, Iwatched the documentary from I
believe 2018.
And I watched the biopic,although that's the wrong word,
but the movie that had Tom Hanksstarring as him from a couple of
(04:50):
years ago, I watched both ofthose.
And then I did go back and watchseveral episodes.
So there's again, like in partbecause of why I like what I was
looking for, this is gonna be alittle bit different than our
usual episodes, but I thinkit'll be good.
So a couple of postcards fromthe destination of what I want
to talk about.
In some ways, this is gonna be adifferent episode because often
(05:13):
our job, as we've set ourselves,is to find the sort of
unintentional lessons that werebehind the entertainment that we
watched.
But everything that Fred Rogersdid was so intentional.
That's not what we're gonna betalking about.
I want to talk about pacingbecause Fred Rogers actually
(05:33):
kind of hated television andthat and like was really trying
to give a like use the medium ina different way.
And so I want to talk aboutpacing.
It stood out while he was makingthe show, which was forever.
I mean, he started in 1968 andhe didn't stop until the early
2000s.
He took a couple breaks, butlike there are so, so many
(05:56):
episodes, but it was radicalwhen he was doing it, and it's
only become more radical now.
So I want to talk about that abit.
I want to talk about theimportance of the difference
between what is real and what ismake-believe, and what Rogers
was trying to do with theneighborhood of the kingdom of
make-believe.
This is a subtext that's goingin the background.
(06:16):
I want to talk about his faithand how it shows up in ways that
like often a Christian contentcreator, like I get kind of
turned off because it feels sortof proselytizing in a way that
Fred Rogers never was.
And I want to talk about that abit.
In the like 90s and early 2000s,there was some controversy
(06:39):
around Mr.
Rogers, where people were like,no, no, everybody isn't special.
You're wrong.
I'd like to get into that andwhat that was about.
And that spilled over into athis funeral, he died in 2003.
There were protests of the sortof Scottsboro Baptist Church
variety across the street fromhis funeral.
(07:01):
And that's yeah.
So we'll talk briefly aboutthat.
So before we get to that, let meremind you of sort of the
segments of the show as he didthem, because they stayed the
same always.
And then, you know, some of thethings I learned through through
(07:22):
the the biopic and actually thearticle on which the biopic was
based and the documentary, andthen sort of rewatching some of
the shows.
Every episode of Mr.
Rogers' neighborhood opens onthere's like a little miniature
town, you know, like a thinktrain, miniature train kind of a
town that the camera like pansover to this little house with
(07:42):
yellow shutters.
And then we are inside the houseand Mr.
Rogers comes in and greets us.
And he sings a song.
It's a beautiful day in theneighborhood.
He sings a song while he takesoff his blazer, puts on a
cardigan, and changes his shoesout of loafers into sneakers.
Interestingly, like he leaveshis tie on, you know, like he's
(08:04):
only so casual, he actuallygets.
Yeah.
And then there's a little bit oflike he's talking directly to
the camera, a little bit ofsomething.
He engages with something.
Sometimes he tells us aboutinstruments or he tells us about
blocks.
It's always going to be relatedto some other thing.
Sometimes he'll show us off abrief video on picture, which is
like a framed painting that thenbecomes a screen.
(08:25):
And then it's time for makebelieve.
And he says, Let's pretend.
And he goes, and there's alittle switch that they don't
hide, that he brings Trolleyout.
And Trolley makes a series oflike dings and whistles that
somehow are language.
He talks to Trolley briefly, andthen he sends Trolley to the
neighborhood of the kingdom ofmake believe, and we follow
(08:46):
Trolley there, where there's aseries of characters who are
puppets and a couple of humanswho interact and we see stories.
So there's King Friday the 13th,which I never remembered that he
was the 13th, but I really lovethat.
I don't remember that either.
I just remembered it being KingFriday.
His wife, Queen Sarah.
(09:07):
They have a kid, Prince Tuesday.
There's X the Owl who lives inthe tree, and Henrietta
Pussycat, who says meow a lot,like as punctuation for her
words.
There is Lady Elaine, who is oneof the few human puppets besides
the king and queen, and has likebig red nose and stuff.
(09:27):
She works in the museumcarousel.
And there's Corney, who has likea much longer name and it works
in like a little chair factory,like lives and works in a chair
factory.
And then there's Daniel Tiger.
You learn in the documentarythat Daniel Tiger, to a certain
extent, is Fred Rogers.
Like that it was an alter ego ofFred's.
I mean, they all are, but thesort of the Daniel is the way he
(09:50):
shows vulnerability.
The humans that inhabit thekingdom of make-believe, the
same actors are in the realworld.
We meet them in the real worldand they have the same last
name.
So Betty Aberlin in the realworld is Lady Aberlin, and she's
the niece of the king.
And there are others like that,like Handsyman Negre, Negri in
(10:13):
The Land of Make Believe is Mr.
Negri, who owns the music shopin the neighborhood.
So all of the humans like are inboth places with slightly
different names.
I think that's all we need tolike know about the actual show.
Okay.
The trolley brings us back, andthen there's an end, and then
Mr.
Rogers sings a farewell songthat's always the same about how
(10:37):
he'll be back tomorrow with newideas for you, and you'll have
things to talk about.
And so will he.
And then he says goodbye, andthat's the end.
I'm going to start with thisintentionality piece.
Going back and watching theactual original episodes, and
I'm I'm like looking for thethings like where's the casual
misogyny?
Where's the casual racism thatI'm like that's always there
(11:00):
because they were drawing fromthe same well that had those
things in it.
I'm not saying it's completelybereft of that, but it is so
much less than what I expected.
And I think that's because FredRogers didn't just draw from the
well, he examined every singlecup before he then presented it
(11:22):
to his television neighbor.
And I think part of the way hedid that is just who he was.
And in some ways, the mechanism,like the assumptions that he
made, like he doesn't say,hello, boys and girls, but he
says, hello, you in thesingular.
(11:42):
He in the documentary, you learnthat like that was a very
specific and intentional thing.
He speaks to the camera as if heis speaking to one singular kid.
And he doesn't have a specifickid in mind, but was very
important to him that he speakto the camera to a kid.
And I think when you're doingthat, that becomes then a filter
(12:08):
for examining that thing thatyou drew from the well, right?
So, like I don't remember whereI learned it because I I
consumed all this stuff veryrecently.
So it may, it was either in thedocumentary or it was in the
article that Tom Juneau wrotethat was the basis for the
biopic.
(12:28):
It's called Can You Say Hero?
It was in Esquire.
It was like a feature title,sorry, cover feature in Esquire
in, I believe, '98.
But there was a storyline wherelike they had somebody in the
neighborhood had found a dog.
And the neighbor who found thedog talked about like bringing
(12:50):
the dog back to her owner.
And this was like, they werefilming, and Mr.
Rogers was like, I don't likethat.
I don't like the word owner.
Let's talk about bringing thedog home.
Thinking about that one kidhelped him to recognize that
that I don't like that word inthe same way that he didn't talk
(13:10):
about like asking your parentsfor things, going to your
parents.
He was talking about going to agrown-up you trust.
Because he was thinking aboutlike, what about that one kid
who doesn't have parents orcan't trust their parents?
When you sort of filter thestorylines and the thing, like
through that sort of sense oflike that one avatar on the
(13:34):
other side and imagine many oftheir potential circumstances,
it starts to like I think filterout some of the crap that is in
that well that we were alldrawing from.
This is me speculating.
I think in some ways, just theman was on a different plane of
consciousness.
SPEAKER_02 (13:53):
Yeah.
He well, he was a genius, anemotional genius.
I know, I wish I could rememberwhere I saw this because it's
been years ago, but I rememberseeing something about how a lot
of kids and then adults on theautism spectrum were avid
(14:15):
audience members of Mr.
Rogers.
And so were much older than theexpected audience.
And so saying boys and girlswould have been inappropriate
because these would have been atleast chronologically adults,
(14:36):
but yet it still was anappropriate show and meant so
much to these adults watchingthis, gave so much.
I really wish I could rememberwhere I saw it.
Because it it's probably been 20years ago.
It was when I was working forAmeriCorps, because one of the
program leaders that I workedwith was a huge fan of Mr.
(14:56):
Rogers and was right around whenMr.
Rogers died.
I remember, I think he broughtin something, a documentary or
something like that, talkingabout Mr.
Rogers.
And I feel like that was therethat I that uh was talking about
how much, how meaningful thiswas.
And it really stuck with mebecause I was like, that I
understood in part because ofthe intentionality and the the
(15:19):
repetition, like the sameness ofeach episode, but that also has
the because I know as someonewith ADHD, like there's the
sameness of the episode, butthere's novelty too.
So you know what to expect, butyou get the dopamine hit of the
novelty as well.
So it's the comfort and noveltyat the same time.
SPEAKER_01 (15:37):
Yeah, for sure.
One note the only thing that Iwas like cringing about a little
bit is actually just the waylanguage has changed.
There's an episode that'sfeatured in the documentary that
you can stream Mr.
Rogers on, like, at least inMaryland on public television.
It's like a channel where youcan just like choose.
And they don't have a whole lotof episodes.
(15:58):
It's like maybe 10 episodes.
But of those 10, like four ofthem at least are mentioned in
the documentary.
You see clips in thedocumentary.
So they chose, I'm sure, basedon that.
But one of them that was in thedocumentary, and I also watched
the entire episode, features ayoung man, Jeff Erlinger, I
think was his name, who isdisabled, a wheelchair user, and
(16:20):
had some pretty severe likephysical limitations because he
had had a tumor as a baby.
And Jeff refers to himself ashandicapped, which is not a word
that we would use today.
But Jeff says it.
And that is the language thatwas being used at that time.
It was the 80s or 90s, I don'tremember now.
(16:41):
And then Mr.
Rogers like sings a song withhim.
That's a song that Rogers singsall the time about I like you
just the way you are, notbecause of the things you do,
not because of the way you doyour hair.
And he changes the lyricsslightly for Jeff, not because
of your fancy chair.
And then in the documentary,they show like 15, 20 years
later, there's some like gala orsomething for Rogers, and they
(17:06):
bring Jeff out, and Rogersdidn't know he was gonna be
there, and he like vaults ontothe stage to greet this man.
It's just really heartwarming.
That was the only moment, andJeff himself is the one who used
the word that is now out ofdate.
So, even that, like, it just wasthe time.
It was the language we used atthe time.
Yeah, yeah.
Language changes over time.
(17:26):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So let me talk about pacing alittle bit.
The pacing was in many ways thepoint.
The documentary and also Juno'sarticle and the biopic based on
Juno's article make clear Fredcame from a fairly affluent
(17:46):
family.
And he came home from collegeand he was thinking of going to
seminary, and his folks had justbought a TV.
And so he sat down to watch theTV, and there were people
throwing pies in one another'sfaces.
And he was like, This is awful.
We can use this to do better.
And he decided to put offseminary to try and do
(18:07):
programming for kids.
And originally it was adifferent show that then
eventually sort of some of thepuppets moved into Mr.
Rogers' neighborhood.
He hated the sort of likewhizbang wow flash, flash, flash
that was television in the 60s.
Like I can't imagine what hewould think of it today.
(18:27):
Oh my goodness.
And so he very like the pacing,which even as a kid, I can
remember being like, okay, Mr.
Rogers, get to the puppets.
So, like, even then in the like80s, when I was watching it,
like it felt really slow.
Today, the adult I have becomein 2026, I'm watching these
(18:50):
episodes from the 80s and 90s,and I find myself reaching for
my phone in the middle.
And I was like, no, Tracy, putit down.
You're watching this.
But like it wasn't easysometimes, you know?
Like that's just not, I mean, soslow, in fact, that like
intentionally slow that in thedocumentary they talk about like
(19:10):
a time that he was like, Do youwant to know how long a minute
is?
Let's feel it.
And he set an egg timer and justsat there for a minute.
SPEAKER_00 (19:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
In the in one of the episodes I watch where Yo-Yo Ma
visits, which I watched in partbecause it's in the documentary,
Yo-Yo Ma plays several things todemonstrate things and then
plays one piece of Bach.
And then we come back to Mr.
Rogers' house and he says,Sometimes when you hear really
beautiful ma music played byreally talented, you know,
(19:40):
really good musicians, like it'snice to just sit and think about
what you heard.
Let's do that.
Oh my goodness.
And then for like, I don't know,10 seconds, like he just is like
smiling at the camera while heand I are thinking about the
music we just heard yo-yo maplay.
That is so countercultural.
(20:01):
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
Yeah.
And such an important life skillthat I think like yours and my
kids, my kid in particular,because I'm less screen careful
than you are.
But like our kids don't havethat skill to just sit.
(20:23):
Like, I don't think my kid knowshow to be bored or and how to
just like sit with the boredom,I mean, or with her thoughts.
This 30-minute show didn'tobviously did I I watched it and
here I am all these years later,and I'm like, where's my phone?
But it was like somehow I feellike it was like like a rock in
the river, kind of doing alittle something to divert the
(20:46):
flow when it was on for those ofus who grew up with him.
And so that was just somethingthat I wanted to name that I
don't know that you couldproduce a show today.
You get a green lit.
SPEAKER_02 (20:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:57):
Like if it came from Mr.
Rogers, like when he was alreadythe icon that he was, but like a
young child psychologist, childdevelopment expert who wanted to
use TV the way Rogers used TV,like I don't know that they
could get a green lit today.
So I think that's like justworth noting the pacing and like
(21:18):
he was fighting something in theculture that won.
SPEAKER_02 (21:23):
Well, just to add on top of that, it's very weird to
bring this up when talking aboutMr.
Rogers.
But some of the discourse aboutheated rivalry.
But also about The Pit, which Idon't know if you know anything
about that show.
I don't watch it.
No.
I don't watch it either, but alot of the same audience that
(21:45):
loves heated rivalry loves thepit.
And so there's some mediaanalysts that I've been watching
have been talking about both.
And both of these shows areshows that you have to pay
attention to.
These are not.
Double screen shows.
Whereas Netflix has beenproducing a lot of shows that
(22:05):
are shows that you just have onwhile you're on your phone.
And so I'm bringing that upbecause like the attention
economy has been such that likethe expectation is you're not
actually paying attention.
And so part of what like anyonewho has like who's been like
really negative about HeatedRivalry or The Pit hasn't
(22:28):
actually been watching it.
They've had it on in thebackground while they're
scrolling on Instagram becausethey're like, why do you like
this show?
It's not even that good.
And it's like, well, clearly youaren't watching it because it is
excellent.
Because of the same kind ofthing that you're talking about
is the intentionality.
And there is pacing and thingslike that that you actually have
(22:48):
to pay attention to to actuallycatch.
It's very different from thislike sunny children's show.
SPEAKER_01 (22:57):
It was a sunny children's show.
And also one of the other waysthat he was completely
countercultural is that Mr.
Rogers talked about things.
In his first week, I learnedthis in the documentary.
In the very first week it wason, Bobby Kennedy was killed.
So he talked about it.
In the land of make-believe, hehad Daniel Tiger ask Lady
(23:18):
Aberlin, what does assassinationmean?
In the first week he was on theair rap.
Wow.
And this comes through in thedocumentary and in Juno's work.
He said, Everything ismentionable.
And if it's mentionable, it'smanageable.
And we have to teach our kidsthat.
(23:47):
I knew that he tackled hardstuff, but that blew me away
that in the very first week.
And he was willing to do soearly on.
Yeah.
And the way he did it too, Ilike I was unfamiliar with this.
So the documentary knew thatpeople like me would be.
And so they showed the clips ofwhen it happened.
There was like a balloon likefloating in front of Kennedy
(24:10):
that had his name, you know, acampaign balloon.
And he sort of bats at itmoments before he's shot.
And so the piece, the segmentwhere Daniel asks about
assassination, it's not it'skind of apropos of nothing, but
he actually has a balloon and heasks Lady Aberlin to blow it up
for him and she lets, she blowsit up, and then he has her like
(24:31):
let the air out.
And so he's like building up toit with this balloon, which was
part of the sort of visuals forthe kids who would have been
somewhat aware at the timein '68.
And so again, so muchintentionality, not just like,
oh, I guess we need to talkabout this, but like really
thinking about like, what did achild notice?
(24:54):
What would a child have noticedwho might have seen the news
footage, who might have beenwatching with their parents when
it happened?
And he did that again and again.
Like he he took on hard stuff.
I have a feeling we watched, Idon't remember, but I have a
feeling that when the Challengerdisaster happened, Mr.
Rogers was one of the people whohelped us cope with it.
(25:16):
Right.
Cause like we were in thecafeteria watching the TV, like
millions of other American kidswhen that happened.
This is a thing that, like,along with the pacing that
Rogers did that was like counterto conventional wisdom about how
we produce television forchildren.
(25:38):
One of the things that'sinteresting, this is not a
direct correlation, but I'mgonna make it anyway.
You mentioned knowing that hewent before Congress and sort of
saved public television.
The documentary shows thefootage of that hearing.
There was one senator who wasvery skeptical.
And Roger spoke directly to himand he said, May I tell you the
(26:02):
lyrics of a song that I sing?
And the senator's like, I mean,sure.
Whatever, right?
And then he like said the lyricsof this song about like how you
matter, and I don't even I don'tremember which song it was now.
Like I just watched it a coupleof days ago, but and at the end,
the senator's like, I think youjust got your$20 million.
(26:25):
The lesson I'm taking away isthe authenticity of Fred Rogers,
right?
Like Mr.
Rogers was not a persona he puton, it was who he was.
And when he went beforeCongress, he didn't try to pitch
the thing he thought that wasmost important.
Like he just was himself.
(26:47):
He was like, kids need to knowthis, let's talk about it.
I'm talking to one kid.
What does that one kid need fromme?
And there was there's somethinglike so, I don't know why that's
so hard.
I feel like in 2026, that's sohard.
I mean, even in thinking aboutour project here in this
podcast, what we're doing rightnow, right?
(27:07):
Like we have these conversationslike, what will people want to
hear?
Like, that's not it, becauseRogers was actually wondering
what children needed, but morelike what will sell.
That's the conversation thatsometimes you and I start to go
down that one or the other of uswill be like, oh, I don't, oh,
let's not do it, let's not do itthis way.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And like, it's not selling.
(27:31):
So, like, there's this pressuretoday.
And I'm sure he felt it too.
I'm sure it was on him too.
Yeah.
But he stayed true to sort ofwho he was and frickin' changed
the world.
And that brings me to anotherpiece I want to talk about about
him, and that's his faith.
He was deeply driven by hisfaith.
(27:51):
He had planned to go to seminarywhen he finished college, took a
break to start making TV.
He did go to seminaryeventually.
He was very driven by a love ofChrist.
He was a Christian.
But one of the things that Ihave noticed just in living is
that people who are trulyconfident and comfortable in
(28:18):
their own faith don't feel asort of graspy jealousy about
other people's faith.
They just feel a sense ofcompersion, which is a word I'm
borrowing from the polyamorycommunity.
It means joy in another's joy.
Right?
Like it's like the Dalai Lamasays, There are many paths up
(28:40):
this mountain, and Buddhism ismy path, and it is precious to
me.
There are other paths, and Iwould not try to make you take
my path if it's not the rightpath.
And I think that that that wouldthat is true of Fred Rogers.
And the way that he like hethought of what he was doing as
a ministry, not to convert, butto remind us all that we are
(29:03):
made in the image of God.
And that nothing can changethat.
And holy smokes, does that notlike just make me vibrate
higher?
Like I that just like yes, hewas doing the work of God by
(29:24):
reminding people, children, thatformative time when we when
shame starts to creep in thatyou don't have to do anything to
be worthy.
You're worthy because you arehuman and because you exist.
And that's one of the thingsthat, like, as an adult, I look
(29:45):
back and like I get teary when Ithink about that and the
difference he made in people'slives doing that.
And that's exactly what he gotflack for in the 90s and early
2000s.
There were all these articles,these right wing like articles
that were like, meow meow, helied to me.
Like that was like the aheadline, like a headline was
(30:08):
something like that that hadmeow meow because Henry had a
pussycat says meow meows.
Yeah.
And like Mr.
Rogers was wrong, you're notspecial.
Like Mr.
Rogers is telling everybody thatlike they wanted to say that Mr.
Rogers' message was like theparticipation trophy.
That was the argument.
Was like the argument thatpeople have against the
participation trophy, was whatthey were saying about Mr.
(30:29):
Rogers.
And even at the time, I waslike, those people are idiots.
And I was like, I don't know, inmy like early 20s, maybe when
those articles were beingpublished.
SPEAKER_00 (30:41):
Now, looking back on it, I just think how
hierarchical those peopleobviously believe the world is.
SPEAKER_01 (30:52):
Cause I'm sure they think they are special.
They're not saying like, I'm notspecial, Mr.
Rogers lied to me.
They're saying, you're notspecial, Mr.
Rogers lied to you, which feelslike the root of a lot of the
evil in our society right now.
So I don't know where I'm goingwith that, but I just like
(31:13):
needed to bring it into aconversation about Mr.
Rogers because it is one of thecritique that has been leveled
against him or against his sortof the way you did what he did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:25):
So a few years ago, I'll call him a colleague of
mine, was wrong on the internet.
This is someone who's a kind ofa professional shit stir in the
financial community.
I don't remember how it started,but so it was saying something
about how, like, you know, youneed to marry young because then
(31:47):
you can get a high value woman.
And so, you know, several of thewomen in my my my field were
like, sorry, what now?
And my response is like, oh, soI mean, do does she have fine
Corinthian leather?
Does she have a salted caramelscent or how what what is a high
value woman?
And so, of course, he's justlike, well, no tattoos, a
(32:08):
virgin.
I mean, like, yeah.
And so I was like, all right,I'll bite.
We're all of us, because I knowthis person is a person of
faith.
We'll put that in quotes, butnot like Fred Rogers.
I said, We're all beings ofinfinite worth.
(32:31):
All of us are high value.
And so he's like, oh, so youcould marry anyone.
I was like, that doesn't mean Iget along with and am compatible
with everyone.
You know, just because someonewho I find morally repugnant is
a being of infinite worthdoesn't mean that we are going
(32:54):
to actually get along or likeeach other.
It just means that they alsohave a spark of Hashem within
them.
And like this professional shitstir, as they do, like deleted
all their comments becausethat's what they do.
They stir shit.
That's the sort of thing likegrowing up, I encountered more
(33:17):
Fred Rogers type Christianitythan that.
So I was very surprised thefirst time I met that kind of
response.
I'm no longer surprised.
But that kind of hierarchicalthinking, that kind of like
you're on a spectrum, and ifyou're not high enough on the
spectrum, you're not high enoughon this hierarchy, then you're
not worthy, is so sad and likeso shame-filled.
(33:44):
Yeah.
And it's exactly what Mr.
Rogers was trying to prevent andprotect us from.
SPEAKER_01 (33:53):
Yeah.
And I think that the story of,as it's especially as it's told
in the documentary, which Ihighly recommend if you haven't
seen it yet, uh, the story ofFrancoise Clemens, who played
Officer Clemens on the show, isindicative of that, of what
you're talking about of Rogers,right?
So Francoise Clemens is a blackman.
(34:14):
He was a singer, and he playedsort of Officer Clemens on this
show, a police officer in theneighborhood.
And there was this moment ofintentionality.
It happened a couple of times,more than once this happened,
but it's the first time ithappened was early on the show
in the late 60s when black folkswere fighting to integrate
(34:38):
swimming pools, and like whiteswimming pool managers were like
dumping chemicals in the waterwhile they were in there and
stuff.
Mr.
Rogers is sitting in his frontlawn on the set using a little
baby pool to like wash off hisfeet, and invites Officer
Clemens to join him.
(34:58):
And so they there's this footageof their black man's feet and
the white man's feet and thehose in the little pool.
That happened early in the 60s,happened again in the 80s while
you and I were watching.
That's that episode I remember.
But it happened earlier whenOfficer Clemens was wearing
these weird calf boots and stuffthat he had to take off.
Anyway, Clemens was gay.
(35:21):
And this came to Rogers'attention like fairly early on
because he had been at Mr.
Clemens had gone to a gay cluband had been seen, and the word
got back to the Mr.
Rogers people.
And Mr.
Rogers was like, You can't dothat.
You can't be a part of the Mr.
Rogers neighborhood and go tothe club.
And in the documentary, I'mgoing just based on what Clemens
(35:44):
said, like, he was like, okay,whatever.
And then later, like a coupleyears later, I think, at some
point, Mr.
Rogers was singing, I like youjust the way you are.
This is one of his songs.
And he was like singing it liketo Francoise.
And Francois was like, Wait, areyou singing to me?
(36:04):
To me.
And Fred was like, Yes, I'vebeen singing that to you for two
years.
I'm glad you finally realized Iwas singing to you.
So and Joanne, his widow,Roger's widow, says he met
Francois too early, but he gotthere.
So I'm bringing this up becausethe version of the story that
(36:27):
you and I heard before now wasmuch more generous to Fred
Rogers.
That he was saying you can't dothis because it's not safe for
you.
I can know, but other peoplecan't know.
That's the way you and I hadheard the story.
And maybe that is the true.
(36:48):
But the way this documentarytold the story, it was like, I'm
not gonna fire you, but like Idon't want to know about it.
It was much more of a don't ask,don't tell.
But that changed.
And like Clemens actually liketears up in the documentary
while he's telling about it.
This is an example in my mind,again, of his like authenticity
(37:08):
and integrity as a human being,to sort of be able to like, like
I think our first response toanything is often our
conditioning.
But the thing we then come to,that's our true self.
That's what I believe.
So, like when my first responseto something that I'm unfamiliar
with is like, oh, I don't likethat.
(37:29):
That's my conditioning.
And then when I sit with it, I'mlike, oh why that's it's fine.
Why, why was I, you know, that'smy true self.
That's my true reaction.
That's the way I what I believe.
And I think this hisrelationship with Francois
Clemens is an example of that.
And he lived into it so much sothat I don't know if it was
(37:53):
actually the Scottsmoore BaptistChurch, but it was people like
them with those same signs thatsaid, God hates fags.
Oh, God, who protested at hisfuneral.
And Tom Juno, who wrote thisarticle and like became a
lifelong friend, is in thedocumentary.
And he says, like, I was at thefuneral and I talked to them.
(38:15):
I'm a journalist.
So I went over and I talked tothese people who were
protesting.
And I was like, Do you thinkhe's gay?
And they were like, No, we knowhe wasn't gay, but he tolerated
gays.
And what was really interestingfrom the documentary is that
Juno says, you know, I saw theyhad kids with them, you know,
(38:35):
and these kids were just,they're just exhausted and they
were miserable.
And I just felt so bad for thesekids.
Because I know that's what Fredwould focus on.
And that was like all of that tosay, like Fred Rogers lived his
faith in a way that is really,really admirable.
(38:59):
And that like I only have like asense of affection and
admiration for.
And he did it in such a way thatlike was smart, but he wasn't
doing it to be smart, right?
So Juno tells an another storyin the article.
(39:20):
I'll link to it, but it's inEsquire magazine from the 90s,
but they've read they they'vemade it available.
He makes he tells a story aboutsomebody who was a kid who was
going through a lot, likephysical challenges.
Like, and Mr.
Rogers asked this person, likethis is a young adult, I
(39:42):
believe.
He asked this person to pray forhim.
This person who's going throughchallenges to pray for Fred
Rogers.
And Juno says that was reallysmart to do that, to make him
feel like he had some agencythere.
And Rogers was like, oh no, Iwasn't being smart.
I figure somebody who's goingthrough what he's going through
is close to God.
I genuinely want him to pray forme.
(40:04):
In the movie, the biopic, theyhave him do that with the
fictionalized version of Juno'sdad who is dying.
It's interesting.
Like, I, you know, I say he justhe lived his faith in this way
of integrity.
And that's why you can't make atraditional biopic about this
man, right?
Like, story needs conflict, atleast in the West.
(40:28):
And so to make a biopic starringTom Hanks as Mr.
Rogers, they base it on thisarticle that Juno wrote, but
they make Juno fictionalized asLloyd Vogel into the
protagonist.
He's the one with the conflict.
And like all the like his lifeis falling apart and he doesn't
know how to deal with living.
(40:50):
And he meets Rogers because he'ssupposed to do a little, just a
brief essay about like 400 wordshe's been aside to write about
Fred Rogers for Esquire.
But then it turns into this muchbigger thing that ends up being
because that's how Fred Rogersdid.
And it is fictionalized, right?
Tom Juno wrote an article, LloydVogel didn't exist.
(41:12):
I have no idea if Tom Junoactually had the like things in
his life that Lloyd Vogel has.
I suspect not, but I don't know.
But I think that's reallyinteresting.
Like as a storyteller, like thisicon that we all want to know
more about, but we can't make abiopic about him because it
would be boring.
Yeah.
And I find that reallyfascinating.
(41:35):
I also recommend that movie iffolks haven't seen it.
Like it's a really enjoy in someways, it's more enjoyable than a
traditional biopic because itstill is a form of hagiography
or saint worship in a way thatstill gives you the satisfaction
of like conflicts andresolution.
And in a way that shows it'slike we get to be proxy for like
(41:58):
Lloyd Vogel gets to be proxy forus.
Like this guy can't be real.
Anyway, those are the thingsthat I wanted to talk about.
I think there's, you know, thedocumentary shares this scene.
Mr.
Rogers talks about makingmistakes that they make the
(42:18):
point beautifully.
I don't need to remake it, butbasically they have Daniel Tiger
like feeling shameful.
Like, am I a mistake?
And he ends up singing this duetwith Lady Aberlin where she
says, I think you're great.
I think you're fine.
He's still singing like I'mafraid I'm a mistake because I'm
(42:39):
not like other people, which thedocumentary makes plain.
I guess I am just going to tellyou.
The documentary makes plain,again, intentional.
Like kids who are feeling thoseways, people who are feeling
that way aren't just like, okay,I'm fine now.
When someone they love says, No,you're great.
I love you.
(43:00):
Like it doesn't just go away.
Speaking of Daniel Tiger, that'sthe last thing that I said I was
going to talk about and Ihaven't yet, which is like the
distinction between real lifeand make-believe.
This was very important to Mr.
Rogers and it became moreimportant over the years.
He read about a child who likejumped off the roof wearing a
cape and got hurt because hethought he was Superman.
(43:20):
And this enraged him because weneed to teach our children the
difference between reality andmake-believe so they don't hurt
themselves.
And especially that it happenedthrough like a medium related to
his medium.
It really upset him.
So he actually did a whole weekabout superheroes and talking
about superheroes and you knowwhat's real and what's make
believe.
And we're all super I don't Ididn't watch the episodes.
(43:43):
But the fact that in some waysit was practical, right?
That's why he put on thesneakers.
So we wouldn't hear him walkingaround on the set while he was
doing the puppets, because allthe puppets are him.
But in some ways it was very,very intentional.
The land of Make-believe is adifferent place.
And the people we know arethere, but they're different
(44:05):
people.
And we know like that's notreal.
We're pretending.
We know we're pretending.
But in the real world, in Mr.
Rogers' house, that's different.
Like making that distinction,but having the same actors,
right?
But Fred never shows up.
Mr.
Rogers never shows up in theland of make-believe.
Again, practical, he's the onedoing all the puppets, but also
(44:27):
intentional because he lives inthe real world.
And so the humans that are inboth, like, we understand that
later Lady Aberlin is afictionalized version of Betty
Aberlin in a way that is justkind of foundational.
Not that the five-year-old couldarticulate she's a fictionalized
(44:50):
version.
But they get it.
They get that Lady Aberlin andBetty Aberlin are the same
person, but not the same person.
When the sort of the form is thelesson that feels like, in some
ways, the deepest and like themost important.
That was very, very important tohim, like helping kids
(45:10):
understand the distinction.
And the fact that it was likesort of baked in.
And of course, that was our myfavorite part.
Like I just wanted him to getstraight to the kingdom of
make-believe.
But now looking back on it,having that distinction, having
trolley take us there was partof the lesson I was getting.
So talking about hagiography.
(45:30):
Anyway, this has been my saintworship of Mr.
Rogers.
SPEAKER_02 (45:36):
So he's a reminder of like anytime I get down about
being American, because I dosometimes lately, there's he's a
reminder of like some of thewonderful things that we can
produce here in America.
SPEAKER_01 (45:52):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The documentary makes plain,like he didn't have a big head
about any of this.
As he was dying, he was like, Doyou think I'm a sheep?
By which he meant like he hadbeen studying scripture, like
sheep go to heaven.
His wife was like, Fred, if everthere are any sheep, you're one.
Yeah.
But, you know, and like after9-11 happened, like they brought
(46:14):
him back to like sort of addressthe nation.
And he was like, Why do theyneed me?
And his producers and everyonewas like, They need you.
Yeah.
And like, and we did.
We did.
But like he didn't recognize, hedidn't always recognize.
He didn't recognize just how hisbig humility is part of what
made him so good.
Right.
(46:34):
So good in both senses of theword, both a good entertainer or
edutainer and the good person.
It's also, I think, what allowedhim to stay in that integrity
that I mentioned before, thatauthenticity, because he wasn't
chasing anything.
Yeah.
He wasn't chasing accolades.
He was chasing what was rightfor the kids he was serving.
(46:56):
Yeah.
His North Star never everchanged.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we're running short ontime.
So let me see if I can reflectback to this saint worship that
I have just laid out for you.
So unlike almost anything thatwe talk about on Deep Thoughts
About Stupid Shit, where we'relooking for the unintended
lessons behind the media,everything was intentional for
(47:18):
Mr.
Rogers.
Everything.
And that included the pacing,which felt slow then and it
feels even slower now, but wasimparting really important life
skills.
Mr.
Rogers thought the silence waslike the greatest gift.
And multiple occasions you learnthrough the Juno article,
(47:40):
through the biopic, through thedocumentary.
Like he would invite people tojust take a minute and think
about the people who love theminto being, who love them into
who they are now.
Like he would say, I'll timeyou.
And then they would just bequiet for a minute.
He did that from the stage atlike an Emmy Award.
Then they gave him lifetimeachievement.
And like these famous people inball gowns and tuxedos are like
(48:02):
crying from this minute ofsilence.
Oh my goodness.
So pacing was one of the likethings that he did very
intentionally.
And silence and slowness andintentionality.
Intentionality was intentional.
Talking about hard things.
He met kids.
He knew they were kids.
(48:23):
He let them be kids.
He didn't think they werestupid.
He didn't think they wereunaware.
And he believed they had a rightto know and to talk about.
He said, everything ismentionable, and what is
mentionable is manageable.
That's the way the fictionalizedversion of him says it in the
biopic movie.
But even in the documentary, wehear different versions of that.
(48:47):
What is mentionable ismanageable.
And he believed that for kids aswell.
And so nothing wasunmentionable.
He talked about divorce, hetalked about death, he talked
about hard things.
He was a faithful man.
His Christianity was a drivingforce for everything, but he was
not a proselytizer.
(49:08):
And so he was able to convey hisultimate lesson, was which was
that you, yes, you are made inthe image of God and are
therefore infinitely worthy in away that it didn't matter if the
you on the other side of thecamera was Christian or Jewish
(49:28):
or Hindu or atheist.
It didn't matter.
Because he believed itcompletely.
And the fact that he believed itcompletely made him the target
of the ire of people who don'tbelieve that completely, who are
very hierarchical and insecurein their faith, in my opinion,
(49:49):
including the folks who werewriting these articles, secular
articles, about how no, noteverybody is special, and the
people who would defile afuneral with protest signs and
bring their kids along.
And then the last thing I talkedabout was the distinction
(50:10):
between what is real and what ismake-believe.
And he would say to the camera,let's pretend.
Let's pretend Lady Aberlin isdoing blah, blah, blah.
And then we would go over to thekingdom, make believe, and
that's what she was doing.
And so it gave us as kids,through the mechanism of the
actual, like what's happening onthe screen, ways to understand
(50:34):
the difference between fictionand reality and to celebrate the
fiction and enjoy the fiction.
It was my favorite part of theshow, but not mistake it.
And that is a thing that he sawevidence was needed, you know,
when kids were hurtingthemselves pretending to be
Superman.
And things that I think wecouldn't have articulated when
(50:57):
we were watching him in the 80s,but I think really created a
foundation or helped to createthe foundation.
I don't want to oversell it, forjust understanding how to
interact with the world andother media.
I think I got everything.
So, y'all, if you remember Mr.
Rogers as fondly as I do, gowatch these movies.
(51:20):
Like you won't regret it.
He just, yeah, he was just amagical man.
What are you bringing me nextweek, Em?
SPEAKER_02 (51:26):
So next week, I am bringing you my deep thoughts on
the TV show Night Court.
SPEAKER_01 (51:31):
Oh my God, I love that movie.
I love that show so much.
Oh my God, I loved it so much.
All right, cool.
I'll see you.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon.
(51:52):
There's a link in the shownotes.
Or leave a positive review soothers can find us.
And of course, share the showwith your people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin McLeod from
Incompotech.com.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to Resonate Recordingsfor editing today's episode.
(52:15):
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture.
And shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
As he was dying, he was like, Do you think I'm a
sheep?
By which he meant like he hadbeen studying scripture like
sheep go to heaven.
And his wife was like, Fred, ifever there are any sheep, you're
one.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's just
pop culture?
What others might deem stupidshit, you know matters.
(00:22):
You know what's worth talkingand thinking about.
And so do we.
So come over think with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy Decker, and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts About
Stupid Shit because pop cultureis still culture, and shouldn't
you know what's in your head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
(00:44):
Mr.
Rogers' Neighborhood with mysister, Emily Guy Birkin, and
with you.
And we used to watch thistogether.
So I know that you have seenmany episodes of Mr.
Rogers Neighborhood.
But tell me, what is sort of inyour head?
What is the furniture of yourmind around Mr.
Rogers?
SPEAKER_02 (01:02):
So it's a lot of little things.
So it's things like changing hisshoes when he comes in.
It's him singing.
It's non-toxic masculinity, uh,gentleness.
It's the fact that he wentbefore Congress and convinced
them that TV could be a forcefor good and education.
(01:27):
The fact that he narratedfeeding the fish because one of
his audience members was alittle girl who was blind, I
believe, and was worried thatthe fish never ate.
And so he was like, oh, okay,well, I'll make sure that you
know my my audience who can'tsee what I'm doing know what I'm
(01:47):
doing.
It's there's a quote from himthat goes around every time
there's some sort of horror,horrible tragedy, which is that
after something terriblehappens, look for the helpers.
I don't remember the show havingthis like important effect on me
as a kid.
It was just kind of there in thebackground.
(02:08):
It's as I became an adult and aneducator and recognizing how
good he was at what he did thatI kind of understood what an
icon he was.
And then there's just this onetiny like factoid.
(02:30):
He was friends with Romero ofzombie fame.
And so was like he GeorgeRomero, I think it was blanking
on his first name, was I don'tknow if he like gave money
towards uh Night of the LivingDead, but he was he was an early
like fan of it because they werefriends, and so it's just like
(02:50):
the least Mr.
Rogers thing you can think of,but in the same way, the most
Mr.
Rogers thing you can think of.
And in part because of the waythat Night of the Living Dead
was such a critique of oursystem in a very different way
that Mr.
Rogers is.
He's like kind of the best ofAmerican culture in a lot of
(03:14):
ways.
It's just a lot of sunshine andpositivity.
SPEAKER_01 (03:18):
Ask me why we're doing it.
SPEAKER_02 (03:20):
Oh, tell me, why are we talking about Mr.
Rogers?
SPEAKER_01 (03:25):
Yeah.
So, like you, I feel like I cameto truly appreciate Mr.
Rogers as an adult.
I did enjoy Mr.
Rogers' neighborhood, but I canremember being like, okay, Mr.
Rogers, get to the make-believe.
Like, I didn't really want tolike be with him.
I wanted to be with the puppets.
And it was kind of just what wason while we were waiting for
Sesame Street to come on, or 321Contact, or whatever it was.
(03:45):
And as an adult, I came to likedeeply appreciate who Fred
Rogers was and what he chose todo.
I recently, with one of mypartners, Gary and I went to
Pittsburgh so that we couldvisit the Heinz Center for, I
don't know the official name ofthe museum, but it's a museum in
Pittsburgh where they actuallyhave a number of Mr.
(04:08):
Rogers' artifacts.
He Mr.
Rogers lived his whole life inPittsburgh.
And so I was really excited togo see some of the artifacts
that they have on display.
To be honest, I was a littledisappointed with the museum
exhibit.
They have some great artifacts,but very little interpretive
text to sort of help you put itinto context.
(04:28):
So this is actually like doingthis episode with you was kind
of my like making up for thefact that I didn't get the
context from the museum.
And to prepare for today, Iwatched the documentary from I
believe 2018.
And I watched the biopic,although that's the wrong word,
but the movie that had Tom Hanksstarring as him from a couple of
(04:50):
years ago, I watched both ofthose.
And then I did go back and watchseveral episodes.
So there's again, like in partbecause of why I like what I was
looking for, this is gonna be alittle bit different than our
usual episodes, but I thinkit'll be good.
So a couple of postcards fromthe destination of what I want
to talk about.
In some ways, this is gonna be adifferent episode because often
(05:13):
our job, as we've set ourselves,is to find the sort of
unintentional lessons that werebehind the entertainment that we
watched.
But everything that Fred Rogersdid was so intentional.
That's not what we're gonna betalking about.
I want to talk about pacingbecause Fred Rogers actually
(05:33):
kind of hated television andthat and like was really trying
to give a like use the medium ina different way.
And so I want to talk aboutpacing.
It stood out while he was makingthe show, which was forever.
I mean, he started in 1968 andhe didn't stop until the early
2000s.
He took a couple breaks, butlike there are so, so many
(05:56):
episodes, but it was radicalwhen he was doing it, and it's
only become more radical now.
So I want to talk about that abit.
I want to talk about theimportance of the difference
between what is real and what ismake-believe, and what Rogers
was trying to do with theneighborhood of the kingdom of
make-believe.
This is a subtext that's goingin the background.
(06:16):
I want to talk about his faithand how it shows up in ways that
like often a Christian contentcreator, like I get kind of
turned off because it feels sortof proselytizing in a way that
Fred Rogers never was.
And I want to talk about that abit.
In the like 90s and early 2000s,there was some controversy
(06:39):
around Mr.
Rogers, where people were like,no, no, everybody isn't special.
You're wrong.
I'd like to get into that andwhat that was about.
And that spilled over into athis funeral, he died in 2003.
There were protests of the sortof Scottsboro Baptist Church
variety across the street fromhis funeral.
(07:01):
And that's yeah.
So we'll talk briefly aboutthat.
So before we get to that, let meremind you of sort of the
segments of the show as he didthem, because they stayed the
same always.
And then, you know, some of thethings I learned through through
(07:22):
the the biopic and actually thearticle on which the biopic was
based and the documentary, andthen sort of rewatching some of
the shows.
Every episode of Mr.
Rogers' neighborhood opens onthere's like a little miniature
town, you know, like a thinktrain, miniature train kind of a
town that the camera like pansover to this little house with
(07:42):
yellow shutters.
And then we are inside the houseand Mr.
Rogers comes in and greets us.
And he sings a song.
It's a beautiful day in theneighborhood.
He sings a song while he takesoff his blazer, puts on a
cardigan, and changes his shoesout of loafers into sneakers.
Interestingly, like he leaveshis tie on, you know, like he's
(08:04):
only so casual, he actuallygets.
Yeah.
And then there's a little bit oflike he's talking directly to
the camera, a little bit ofsomething.
He engages with something.
Sometimes he tells us aboutinstruments or he tells us about
blocks.
It's always going to be relatedto some other thing.
Sometimes he'll show us off abrief video on picture, which is
like a framed painting that thenbecomes a screen.
(08:25):
And then it's time for makebelieve.
And he says, Let's pretend.
And he goes, and there's alittle switch that they don't
hide, that he brings Trolleyout.
And Trolley makes a series oflike dings and whistles that
somehow are language.
He talks to Trolley briefly, andthen he sends Trolley to the
neighborhood of the kingdom ofmake believe, and we follow
(08:46):
Trolley there, where there's aseries of characters who are
puppets and a couple of humanswho interact and we see stories.
So there's King Friday the 13th,which I never remembered that he
was the 13th, but I really lovethat.
I don't remember that either.
I just remembered it being KingFriday.
His wife, Queen Sarah.
(09:07):
They have a kid, Prince Tuesday.
There's X the Owl who lives inthe tree, and Henrietta
Pussycat, who says meow a lot,like as punctuation for her
words.
There is Lady Elaine, who is oneof the few human puppets besides
the king and queen, and has likebig red nose and stuff.
(09:27):
She works in the museumcarousel.
And there's Corney, who has likea much longer name and it works
in like a little chair factory,like lives and works in a chair
factory.
And then there's Daniel Tiger.
You learn in the documentarythat Daniel Tiger, to a certain
extent, is Fred Rogers.
Like that it was an alter ego ofFred's.
I mean, they all are, but thesort of the Daniel is the way he
(09:50):
shows vulnerability.
The humans that inhabit thekingdom of make-believe, the
same actors are in the realworld.
We meet them in the real worldand they have the same last
name.
So Betty Aberlin in the realworld is Lady Aberlin, and she's
the niece of the king.
And there are others like that,like Handsyman Negre, Negri in
(10:13):
The Land of Make Believe is Mr.
Negri, who owns the music shopin the neighborhood.
So all of the humans like are inboth places with slightly
different names.
I think that's all we need tolike know about the actual show.
Okay.
The trolley brings us back, andthen there's an end, and then
Mr.
Rogers sings a farewell songthat's always the same about how
(10:37):
he'll be back tomorrow with newideas for you, and you'll have
things to talk about.
And so will he.
And then he says goodbye, andthat's the end.
I'm going to start with thisintentionality piece.
Going back and watching theactual original episodes, and
I'm I'm like looking for thethings like where's the casual
misogyny?
Where's the casual racism thatI'm like that's always there
(11:00):
because they were drawing fromthe same well that had those
things in it.
I'm not saying it's completelybereft of that, but it is so
much less than what I expected.
And I think that's because FredRogers didn't just draw from the
well, he examined every singlecup before he then presented it
(11:22):
to his television neighbor.
And I think part of the way hedid that is just who he was.
And in some ways, the mechanism,like the assumptions that he
made, like he doesn't say,hello, boys and girls, but he
says, hello, you in thesingular.
(11:42):
He in the documentary, you learnthat like that was a very
specific and intentional thing.
He speaks to the camera as if heis speaking to one singular kid.
And he doesn't have a specifickid in mind, but was very
important to him that he speakto the camera to a kid.
And I think when you're doingthat, that becomes then a filter
(12:08):
for examining that thing thatyou drew from the well, right?
So, like I don't remember whereI learned it because I I
consumed all this stuff veryrecently.
So it may, it was either in thedocumentary or it was in the
article that Tom Juneau wrotethat was the basis for the
biopic.
(12:28):
It's called Can You Say Hero?
It was in Esquire.
It was like a feature title,sorry, cover feature in Esquire
in, I believe, '98.
But there was a storyline wherelike they had somebody in the
neighborhood had found a dog.
And the neighbor who found thedog talked about like bringing
(12:50):
the dog back to her owner.
And this was like, they werefilming, and Mr.
Rogers was like, I don't likethat.
I don't like the word owner.
Let's talk about bringing thedog home.
Thinking about that one kidhelped him to recognize that
that I don't like that word inthe same way that he didn't talk
(13:10):
about like asking your parentsfor things, going to your
parents.
He was talking about going to agrown-up you trust.
Because he was thinking aboutlike, what about that one kid
who doesn't have parents orcan't trust their parents?
When you sort of filter thestorylines and the thing, like
through that sort of sense oflike that one avatar on the
(13:34):
other side and imagine many oftheir potential circumstances,
it starts to like I think filterout some of the crap that is in
that well that we were alldrawing from.
This is me speculating.
I think in some ways, just theman was on a different plane of
consciousness.
SPEAKER_02 (13:53):
Yeah.
He well, he was a genius, anemotional genius.
I know, I wish I could rememberwhere I saw this because it's
been years ago, but I rememberseeing something about how a lot
of kids and then adults on theautism spectrum were avid
(14:15):
audience members of Mr.
Rogers.
And so were much older than theexpected audience.
And so saying boys and girlswould have been inappropriate
because these would have been atleast chronologically adults,
(14:36):
but yet it still was anappropriate show and meant so
much to these adults watchingthis, gave so much.
I really wish I could rememberwhere I saw it.
Because it it's probably been 20years ago.
It was when I was working forAmeriCorps, because one of the
program leaders that I workedwith was a huge fan of Mr.
(14:56):
Rogers and was right around whenMr.
Rogers died.
I remember, I think he broughtin something, a documentary or
something like that, talkingabout Mr.
Rogers.
And I feel like that was therethat I that uh was talking about
how much, how meaningful thiswas.
And it really stuck with mebecause I was like, that I
understood in part because ofthe intentionality and the the
(15:19):
repetition, like the sameness ofeach episode, but that also has
the because I know as someonewith ADHD, like there's the
sameness of the episode, butthere's novelty too.
So you know what to expect, butyou get the dopamine hit of the
novelty as well.
So it's the comfort and noveltyat the same time.
SPEAKER_01 (15:37):
Yeah, for sure.
One note the only thing that Iwas like cringing about a little
bit is actually just the waylanguage has changed.
There's an episode that'sfeatured in the documentary that
you can stream Mr.
Rogers on, like, at least inMaryland on public television.
It's like a channel where youcan just like choose.
And they don't have a whole lotof episodes.
(15:58):
It's like maybe 10 episodes.
But of those 10, like four ofthem at least are mentioned in
the documentary.
You see clips in thedocumentary.
So they chose, I'm sure, basedon that.
But one of them that was in thedocumentary, and I also watched
the entire episode, features ayoung man, Jeff Erlinger, I
think was his name, who isdisabled, a wheelchair user, and
(16:20):
had some pretty severe likephysical limitations because he
had had a tumor as a baby.
And Jeff refers to himself ashandicapped, which is not a word
that we would use today.
But Jeff says it.
And that is the language thatwas being used at that time.
It was the 80s or 90s, I don'tremember now.
(16:41):
And then Mr.
Rogers like sings a song withhim.
That's a song that Rogers singsall the time about I like you
just the way you are, notbecause of the things you do,
not because of the way you doyour hair.
And he changes the lyricsslightly for Jeff, not because
of your fancy chair.
And then in the documentary,they show like 15, 20 years
later, there's some like gala orsomething for Rogers, and they
(17:06):
bring Jeff out, and Rogersdidn't know he was gonna be
there, and he like vaults ontothe stage to greet this man.
It's just really heartwarming.
That was the only moment, andJeff himself is the one who used
the word that is now out ofdate.
So, even that, like, it just wasthe time.
It was the language we used atthe time.
Yeah, yeah.
Language changes over time.
(17:26):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So let me talk about pacing alittle bit.
The pacing was in many ways thepoint.
The documentary and also Juno'sarticle and the biopic based on
Juno's article make clear Fredcame from a fairly affluent
(17:46):
family.
And he came home from collegeand he was thinking of going to
seminary, and his folks had justbought a TV.
And so he sat down to watch theTV, and there were people
throwing pies in one another'sfaces.
And he was like, This is awful.
We can use this to do better.
And he decided to put offseminary to try and do
(18:07):
programming for kids.
And originally it was adifferent show that then
eventually sort of some of thepuppets moved into Mr.
Rogers' neighborhood.
He hated the sort of likewhizbang wow flash, flash, flash
that was television in the 60s.
Like I can't imagine what hewould think of it today.
(18:27):
Oh my goodness.
And so he very like the pacing,which even as a kid, I can
remember being like, okay, Mr.
Rogers, get to the puppets.
So, like, even then in the like80s, when I was watching it,
like it felt really slow.
Today, the adult I have becomein 2026, I'm watching these
(18:50):
episodes from the 80s and 90s,and I find myself reaching for
my phone in the middle.
And I was like, no, Tracy, putit down.
You're watching this.
But like it wasn't easysometimes, you know?
Like that's just not, I mean, soslow, in fact, that like
intentionally slow that in thedocumentary they talk about like
(19:10):
a time that he was like, Do youwant to know how long a minute
is?
Let's feel it.
And he set an egg timer and justsat there for a minute.
SPEAKER_00 (19:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
In the in one of the episodes I watch where Yo-Yo Ma
visits, which I watched in partbecause it's in the documentary,
Yo-Yo Ma plays several things todemonstrate things and then
plays one piece of Bach.
And then we come back to Mr.
Rogers' house and he says,Sometimes when you hear really
beautiful ma music played byreally talented, you know,
(19:40):
really good musicians, like it'snice to just sit and think about
what you heard.
Let's do that.
Oh my goodness.
And then for like, I don't know,10 seconds, like he just is like
smiling at the camera while heand I are thinking about the
music we just heard yo-yo maplay.
That is so countercultural.
(20:01):
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
Yeah.
And such an important life skillthat I think like yours and my
kids, my kid in particular,because I'm less screen careful
than you are.
But like our kids don't havethat skill to just sit.
(20:23):
Like, I don't think my kid knowshow to be bored or and how to
just like sit with the boredom,I mean, or with her thoughts.
This 30-minute show didn'tobviously did I I watched it and
here I am all these years later,and I'm like, where's my phone?
But it was like somehow I feellike it was like like a rock in
the river, kind of doing alittle something to divert the
(20:46):
flow when it was on for those ofus who grew up with him.
And so that was just somethingthat I wanted to name that I
don't know that you couldproduce a show today.
You get a green lit.
SPEAKER_02 (20:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:57):
Like if it came from Mr.
Rogers, like when he was alreadythe icon that he was, but like a
young child psychologist, childdevelopment expert who wanted to
use TV the way Rogers used TV,like I don't know that they
could get a green lit today.
So I think that's like justworth noting the pacing and like
(21:18):
he was fighting something in theculture that won.
SPEAKER_02 (21:23):
Well, just to add on top of that, it's very weird to
bring this up when talking aboutMr.
Rogers.
But some of the discourse aboutheated rivalry.
But also about The Pit, which Idon't know if you know anything
about that show.
I don't watch it.
No.
I don't watch it either, but alot of the same audience that
(21:45):
loves heated rivalry loves thepit.
And so there's some mediaanalysts that I've been watching
have been talking about both.
And both of these shows areshows that you have to pay
attention to.
These are not.
Double screen shows.
Whereas Netflix has beenproducing a lot of shows that
(22:05):
are shows that you just have onwhile you're on your phone.
And so I'm bringing that upbecause like the attention
economy has been such that likethe expectation is you're not
actually paying attention.
And so part of what like anyonewho has like who's been like
really negative about HeatedRivalry or The Pit hasn't
(22:28):
actually been watching it.
They've had it on in thebackground while they're
scrolling on Instagram becausethey're like, why do you like
this show?
It's not even that good.
And it's like, well, clearly youaren't watching it because it is
excellent.
Because of the same kind ofthing that you're talking about
is the intentionality.
And there is pacing and thingslike that that you actually have
(22:48):
to pay attention to to actuallycatch.
It's very different from thislike sunny children's show.
SPEAKER_01 (22:57):
It was a sunny children's show.
And also one of the other waysthat he was completely
countercultural is that Mr.
Rogers talked about things.
In his first week, I learnedthis in the documentary.
In the very first week it wason, Bobby Kennedy was killed.
So he talked about it.
In the land of make-believe, hehad Daniel Tiger ask Lady
(23:18):
Aberlin, what does assassinationmean?
In the first week he was on theair rap.
Wow.
And this comes through in thedocumentary and in Juno's work.
He said, Everything ismentionable.
And if it's mentionable, it'smanageable.
And we have to teach our kidsthat.
(23:47):
I knew that he tackled hardstuff, but that blew me away
that in the very first week.
And he was willing to do soearly on.
Yeah.
And the way he did it too, Ilike I was unfamiliar with this.
So the documentary knew thatpeople like me would be.
And so they showed the clips ofwhen it happened.
There was like a balloon likefloating in front of Kennedy
(24:10):
that had his name, you know, acampaign balloon.
And he sort of bats at itmoments before he's shot.
And so the piece, the segmentwhere Daniel asks about
assassination, it's not it'skind of apropos of nothing, but
he actually has a balloon and heasks Lady Aberlin to blow it up
for him and she lets, she blowsit up, and then he has her like
(24:31):
let the air out.
And so he's like building up toit with this balloon, which was
part of the sort of visuals forthe kids who would have been
somewhat aware at the timein '68.
And so again, so muchintentionality, not just like,
oh, I guess we need to talkabout this, but like really
thinking about like, what did achild notice?
(24:54):
What would a child have noticedwho might have seen the news
footage, who might have beenwatching with their parents when
it happened?
And he did that again and again.
Like he he took on hard stuff.
I have a feeling we watched, Idon't remember, but I have a
feeling that when the Challengerdisaster happened, Mr.
Rogers was one of the people whohelped us cope with it.
(25:16):
Right.
Cause like we were in thecafeteria watching the TV, like
millions of other American kidswhen that happened.
This is a thing that, like,along with the pacing that
Rogers did that was like counterto conventional wisdom about how
we produce television forchildren.
(25:38):
One of the things that'sinteresting, this is not a
direct correlation, but I'mgonna make it anyway.
You mentioned knowing that hewent before Congress and sort of
saved public television.
The documentary shows thefootage of that hearing.
There was one senator who wasvery skeptical.
And Roger spoke directly to himand he said, May I tell you the
(26:02):
lyrics of a song that I sing?
And the senator's like, I mean,sure.
Whatever, right?
And then he like said the lyricsof this song about like how you
matter, and I don't even I don'tremember which song it was now.
Like I just watched it a coupleof days ago, but and at the end,
the senator's like, I think youjust got your$20 million.
(26:25):
The lesson I'm taking away isthe authenticity of Fred Rogers,
right?
Like Mr.
Rogers was not a persona he puton, it was who he was.
And when he went beforeCongress, he didn't try to pitch
the thing he thought that wasmost important.
Like he just was himself.
(26:47):
He was like, kids need to knowthis, let's talk about it.
I'm talking to one kid.
What does that one kid need fromme?
And there was there's somethinglike so, I don't know why that's
so hard.
I feel like in 2026, that's sohard.
I mean, even in thinking aboutour project here in this
podcast, what we're doing rightnow, right?
(27:07):
Like we have these conversationslike, what will people want to
hear?
Like, that's not it, becauseRogers was actually wondering
what children needed, but morelike what will sell.
That's the conversation thatsometimes you and I start to go
down that one or the other of uswill be like, oh, I don't, oh,
let's not do it, let's not do itthis way.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And like, it's not selling.
(27:31):
So, like, there's this pressuretoday.
And I'm sure he felt it too.
I'm sure it was on him too.
Yeah.
But he stayed true to sort ofwho he was and frickin' changed
the world.
And that brings me to anotherpiece I want to talk about about
him, and that's his faith.
He was deeply driven by hisfaith.
(27:51):
He had planned to go to seminarywhen he finished college, took a
break to start making TV.
He did go to seminaryeventually.
He was very driven by a love ofChrist.
He was a Christian.
But one of the things that Ihave noticed just in living is
that people who are trulyconfident and comfortable in
(28:18):
their own faith don't feel asort of graspy jealousy about
other people's faith.
They just feel a sense ofcompersion, which is a word I'm
borrowing from the polyamorycommunity.
It means joy in another's joy.
Right?
Like it's like the Dalai Lamasays, There are many paths up
(28:40):
this mountain, and Buddhism ismy path, and it is precious to
me.
There are other paths, and Iwould not try to make you take
my path if it's not the rightpath.
And I think that that that wouldthat is true of Fred Rogers.
And the way that he like hethought of what he was doing as
a ministry, not to convert, butto remind us all that we are
(29:03):
made in the image of God.
And that nothing can changethat.
And holy smokes, does that notlike just make me vibrate
higher?
Like I that just like yes, hewas doing the work of God by
(29:24):
reminding people, children, thatformative time when we when
shame starts to creep in thatyou don't have to do anything to
be worthy.
You're worthy because you arehuman and because you exist.
And that's one of the thingsthat, like, as an adult, I look
(29:45):
back and like I get teary when Ithink about that and the
difference he made in people'slives doing that.
And that's exactly what he gotflack for in the 90s and early
2000s.
There were all these articles,these right wing like articles
that were like, meow meow, helied to me.
Like that was like the aheadline, like a headline was
(30:08):
something like that that hadmeow meow because Henry had a
pussycat says meow meows.
Yeah.
And like Mr.
Rogers was wrong, you're notspecial.
Like Mr.
Rogers is telling everybody thatlike they wanted to say that Mr.
Rogers' message was like theparticipation trophy.
That was the argument.
Was like the argument thatpeople have against the
participation trophy, was whatthey were saying about Mr.
(30:29):
Rogers.
And even at the time, I waslike, those people are idiots.
And I was like, I don't know, inmy like early 20s, maybe when
those articles were beingpublished.
SPEAKER_00 (30:41):
Now, looking back on it, I just think how
hierarchical those peopleobviously believe the world is.
SPEAKER_01 (30:52):
Cause I'm sure they think they are special.
They're not saying like, I'm notspecial, Mr.
Rogers lied to me.
They're saying, you're notspecial, Mr.
Rogers lied to you, which feelslike the root of a lot of the
evil in our society right now.
So I don't know where I'm goingwith that, but I just like
(31:13):
needed to bring it into aconversation about Mr.
Rogers because it is one of thecritique that has been leveled
against him or against his sortof the way you did what he did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:25):
So a few years ago, I'll call him a colleague of
mine, was wrong on the internet.
This is someone who's a kind ofa professional shit stir in the
financial community.
I don't remember how it started,but so it was saying something
about how, like, you know, youneed to marry young because then
(31:47):
you can get a high value woman.
And so, you know, several of thewomen in my my my field were
like, sorry, what now?
And my response is like, oh, soI mean, do does she have fine
Corinthian leather?
Does she have a salted caramelscent or how what what is a high
value woman?
And so, of course, he's justlike, well, no tattoos, a
(32:08):
virgin.
I mean, like, yeah.
And so I was like, all right,I'll bite.
We're all of us, because I knowthis person is a person of
faith.
We'll put that in quotes, butnot like Fred Rogers.
I said, We're all beings ofinfinite worth.
(32:31):
All of us are high value.
And so he's like, oh, so youcould marry anyone.
I was like, that doesn't mean Iget along with and am compatible
with everyone.
You know, just because someonewho I find morally repugnant is
a being of infinite worthdoesn't mean that we are going
(32:54):
to actually get along or likeeach other.
It just means that they alsohave a spark of Hashem within
them.
And like this professional shitstir, as they do, like deleted
all their comments becausethat's what they do.
They stir shit.
That's the sort of thing likegrowing up, I encountered more
(33:17):
Fred Rogers type Christianitythan that.
So I was very surprised thefirst time I met that kind of
response.
I'm no longer surprised.
But that kind of hierarchicalthinking, that kind of like
you're on a spectrum, and ifyou're not high enough on the
spectrum, you're not high enoughon this hierarchy, then you're
not worthy, is so sad and likeso shame-filled.
(33:44):
Yeah.
And it's exactly what Mr.
Rogers was trying to prevent andprotect us from.
SPEAKER_01 (33:53):
Yeah.
And I think that the story of,as it's especially as it's told
in the documentary, which Ihighly recommend if you haven't
seen it yet, uh, the story ofFrancoise Clemens, who played
Officer Clemens on the show, isindicative of that, of what
you're talking about of Rogers,right?
So Francoise Clemens is a blackman.
(34:14):
He was a singer, and he playedsort of Officer Clemens on this
show, a police officer in theneighborhood.
And there was this moment ofintentionality.
It happened a couple of times,more than once this happened,
but it's the first time ithappened was early on the show
in the late 60s when black folkswere fighting to integrate
(34:38):
swimming pools, and like whiteswimming pool managers were like
dumping chemicals in the waterwhile they were in there and
stuff.
Mr.
Rogers is sitting in his frontlawn on the set using a little
baby pool to like wash off hisfeet, and invites Officer
Clemens to join him.
(34:58):
And so they there's this footageof their black man's feet and
the white man's feet and thehose in the little pool.
That happened early in the 60s,happened again in the 80s while
you and I were watching.
That's that episode I remember.
But it happened earlier whenOfficer Clemens was wearing
these weird calf boots and stuffthat he had to take off.
Anyway, Clemens was gay.
(35:21):
And this came to Rogers'attention like fairly early on
because he had been at Mr.
Clemens had gone to a gay cluband had been seen, and the word
got back to the Mr.
Rogers people.
And Mr.
Rogers was like, You can't dothat.
You can't be a part of the Mr.
Rogers neighborhood and go tothe club.
And in the documentary, I'mgoing just based on what Clemens
(35:44):
said, like, he was like, okay,whatever.
And then later, like a coupleyears later, I think, at some
point, Mr.
Rogers was singing, I like youjust the way you are.
This is one of his songs.
And he was like singing it liketo Francoise.
And Francois was like, Wait, areyou singing to me?
(36:04):
To me.
And Fred was like, Yes, I'vebeen singing that to you for two
years.
I'm glad you finally realized Iwas singing to you.
So and Joanne, his widow,Roger's widow, says he met
Francois too early, but he gotthere.
So I'm bringing this up becausethe version of the story that
(36:27):
you and I heard before now wasmuch more generous to Fred
Rogers.
That he was saying you can't dothis because it's not safe for
you.
I can know, but other peoplecan't know.
That's the way you and I hadheard the story.
And maybe that is the true.
(36:48):
But the way this documentarytold the story, it was like, I'm
not gonna fire you, but like Idon't want to know about it.
It was much more of a don't ask,don't tell.
But that changed.
And like Clemens actually liketears up in the documentary
while he's telling about it.
This is an example in my mind,again, of his like authenticity
(37:08):
and integrity as a human being,to sort of be able to like, like
I think our first response toanything is often our
conditioning.
But the thing we then come to,that's our true self.
That's what I believe.
So, like when my first responseto something that I'm unfamiliar
with is like, oh, I don't likethat.
(37:29):
That's my conditioning.
And then when I sit with it, I'mlike, oh why that's it's fine.
Why, why was I, you know, that'smy true self.
That's my true reaction.
That's the way I what I believe.
And I think this hisrelationship with Francois
Clemens is an example of that.
And he lived into it so much sothat I don't know if it was
(37:53):
actually the Scottsmoore BaptistChurch, but it was people like
them with those same signs thatsaid, God hates fags.
Oh, God, who protested at hisfuneral.
And Tom Juno, who wrote thisarticle and like became a
lifelong friend, is in thedocumentary.
And he says, like, I was at thefuneral and I talked to them.
(38:15):
I'm a journalist.
So I went over and I talked tothese people who were
protesting.
And I was like, Do you thinkhe's gay?
And they were like, No, we knowhe wasn't gay, but he tolerated
gays.
And what was really interestingfrom the documentary is that
Juno says, you know, I saw theyhad kids with them, you know,
(38:35):
and these kids were just,they're just exhausted and they
were miserable.
And I just felt so bad for thesekids.
Because I know that's what Fredwould focus on.
And that was like all of that tosay, like Fred Rogers lived his
faith in a way that is really,really admirable.
(38:59):
And that like I only have like asense of affection and
admiration for.
And he did it in such a way thatlike was smart, but he wasn't
doing it to be smart, right?
So Juno tells an another storyin the article.
(39:20):
I'll link to it, but it's inEsquire magazine from the 90s,
but they've read they they'vemade it available.
He makes he tells a story aboutsomebody who was a kid who was
going through a lot, likephysical challenges.
Like, and Mr.
Rogers asked this person, likethis is a young adult, I
(39:42):
believe.
He asked this person to pray forhim.
This person who's going throughchallenges to pray for Fred
Rogers.
And Juno says that was reallysmart to do that, to make him
feel like he had some agencythere.
And Rogers was like, oh no, Iwasn't being smart.
I figure somebody who's goingthrough what he's going through
is close to God.
I genuinely want him to pray forme.
(40:04):
In the movie, the biopic, theyhave him do that with the
fictionalized version of Juno'sdad who is dying.
It's interesting.
Like, I, you know, I say he justhe lived his faith in this way
of integrity.
And that's why you can't make atraditional biopic about this
man, right?
Like, story needs conflict, atleast in the West.
(40:28):
And so to make a biopic starringTom Hanks as Mr.
Rogers, they base it on thisarticle that Juno wrote, but
they make Juno fictionalized asLloyd Vogel into the
protagonist.
He's the one with the conflict.
And like all the like his lifeis falling apart and he doesn't
know how to deal with living.
(40:50):
And he meets Rogers because he'ssupposed to do a little, just a
brief essay about like 400 wordshe's been aside to write about
Fred Rogers for Esquire.
But then it turns into this muchbigger thing that ends up being
because that's how Fred Rogersdid.
And it is fictionalized, right?
Tom Juno wrote an article, LloydVogel didn't exist.
(41:12):
I have no idea if Tom Junoactually had the like things in
his life that Lloyd Vogel has.
I suspect not, but I don't know.
But I think that's reallyinteresting.
Like as a storyteller, like thisicon that we all want to know
more about, but we can't make abiopic about him because it
would be boring.
Yeah.
And I find that reallyfascinating.
(41:35):
I also recommend that movie iffolks haven't seen it.
Like it's a really enjoy in someways, it's more enjoyable than a
traditional biopic because itstill is a form of hagiography
or saint worship in a way thatstill gives you the satisfaction
of like conflicts andresolution.
And in a way that shows it'slike we get to be proxy for like
(41:58):
Lloyd Vogel gets to be proxy forus.
Like this guy can't be real.
Anyway, those are the thingsthat I wanted to talk about.
I think there's, you know, thedocumentary shares this scene.
Mr.
Rogers talks about makingmistakes that they make the
(42:18):
point beautifully.
I don't need to remake it, butbasically they have Daniel Tiger
like feeling shameful.
Like, am I a mistake?
And he ends up singing this duetwith Lady Aberlin where she
says, I think you're great.
I think you're fine.
He's still singing like I'mafraid I'm a mistake because I'm
(42:39):
not like other people, which thedocumentary makes plain.
I guess I am just going to tellyou.
The documentary makes plain,again, intentional.
Like kids who are feeling thoseways, people who are feeling
that way aren't just like, okay,I'm fine now.
When someone they love says, No,you're great.
I love you.
(43:00):
Like it doesn't just go away.
Speaking of Daniel Tiger, that'sthe last thing that I said I was
going to talk about and Ihaven't yet, which is like the
distinction between real lifeand make-believe.
This was very important to Mr.
Rogers and it became moreimportant over the years.
He read about a child who likejumped off the roof wearing a
cape and got hurt because hethought he was Superman.
(43:20):
And this enraged him because weneed to teach our children the
difference between reality andmake-believe so they don't hurt
themselves.
And especially that it happenedthrough like a medium related to
his medium.
It really upset him.
So he actually did a whole weekabout superheroes and talking
about superheroes and you knowwhat's real and what's make
believe.
And we're all super I don't Ididn't watch the episodes.
(43:43):
But the fact that in some waysit was practical, right?
That's why he put on thesneakers.
So we wouldn't hear him walkingaround on the set while he was
doing the puppets, because allthe puppets are him.
But in some ways it was very,very intentional.
The land of Make-believe is adifferent place.
And the people we know arethere, but they're different
(44:05):
people.
And we know like that's notreal.
We're pretending.
We know we're pretending.
But in the real world, in Mr.
Rogers' house, that's different.
Like making that distinction,but having the same actors,
right?
But Fred never shows up.
Mr.
Rogers never shows up in theland of make-believe.
Again, practical, he's the onedoing all the puppets, but also
(44:27):
intentional because he lives inthe real world.
And so the humans that are inboth, like, we understand that
later Lady Aberlin is afictionalized version of Betty
Aberlin in a way that is justkind of foundational.
Not that the five-year-old couldarticulate she's a fictionalized
(44:50):
version.
But they get it.
They get that Lady Aberlin andBetty Aberlin are the same
person, but not the same person.
When the sort of the form is thelesson that feels like, in some
ways, the deepest and like themost important.
That was very, very important tohim, like helping kids
(45:10):
understand the distinction.
And the fact that it was likesort of baked in.
And of course, that was our myfavorite part.
Like I just wanted him to getstraight to the kingdom of
make-believe.
But now looking back on it,having that distinction, having
trolley take us there was partof the lesson I was getting.
So talking about hagiography.
(45:30):
Anyway, this has been my saintworship of Mr.
Rogers.
SPEAKER_02 (45:36):
So he's a reminder of like anytime I get down about
being American, because I dosometimes lately, there's he's a
reminder of like some of thewonderful things that we can
produce here in America.
SPEAKER_01 (45:52):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The documentary makes plain,like he didn't have a big head
about any of this.
As he was dying, he was like, Doyou think I'm a sheep?
By which he meant like he hadbeen studying scripture, like
sheep go to heaven.
His wife was like, Fred, if everthere are any sheep, you're one.
Yeah.
But, you know, and like after9-11 happened, like they brought
(46:14):
him back to like sort of addressthe nation.
And he was like, Why do theyneed me?
And his producers and everyonewas like, They need you.
Yeah.
And like, and we did.
We did.
But like he didn't recognize, hedidn't always recognize.
He didn't recognize just how hisbig humility is part of what
made him so good.
Right.
(46:34):
So good in both senses of theword, both a good entertainer or
edutainer and the good person.
It's also, I think, what allowedhim to stay in that integrity
that I mentioned before, thatauthenticity, because he wasn't
chasing anything.
Yeah.
He wasn't chasing accolades.
He was chasing what was rightfor the kids he was serving.
(46:56):
Yeah.
His North Star never everchanged.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we're running short ontime.
So let me see if I can reflectback to this saint worship that
I have just laid out for you.
So unlike almost anything thatwe talk about on Deep Thoughts
About Stupid Shit, where we'relooking for the unintended
lessons behind the media,everything was intentional for
(47:18):
Mr.
Rogers.
Everything.
And that included the pacing,which felt slow then and it
feels even slower now, but wasimparting really important life
skills.
Mr.
Rogers thought the silence waslike the greatest gift.
And multiple occasions you learnthrough the Juno article,
(47:40):
through the biopic, through thedocumentary.
Like he would invite people tojust take a minute and think
about the people who love theminto being, who love them into
who they are now.
Like he would say, I'll timeyou.
And then they would just bequiet for a minute.
He did that from the stage atlike an Emmy Award.
Then they gave him lifetimeachievement.
And like these famous people inball gowns and tuxedos are like
(48:02):
crying from this minute ofsilence.
Oh my goodness.
So pacing was one of the likethings that he did very
intentionally.
And silence and slowness andintentionality.
Intentionality was intentional.
Talking about hard things.
He met kids.
He knew they were kids.
(48:23):
He let them be kids.
He didn't think they werestupid.
He didn't think they wereunaware.
And he believed they had a rightto know and to talk about.
He said, everything ismentionable, and what is
mentionable is manageable.
That's the way the fictionalizedversion of him says it in the
biopic movie.
But even in the documentary, wehear different versions of that.
(48:47):
What is mentionable ismanageable.
And he believed that for kids aswell.
And so nothing wasunmentionable.
He talked about divorce, hetalked about death, he talked
about hard things.
He was a faithful man.
His Christianity was a drivingforce for everything, but he was
not a proselytizer.
(49:08):
And so he was able to convey hisultimate lesson, was which was
that you, yes, you are made inthe image of God and are
therefore infinitely worthy in away that it didn't matter if the
you on the other side of thecamera was Christian or Jewish
(49:28):
or Hindu or atheist.
It didn't matter.
Because he believed itcompletely.
And the fact that he believed itcompletely made him the target
of the ire of people who don'tbelieve that completely, who are
very hierarchical and insecurein their faith, in my opinion,
(49:49):
including the folks who werewriting these articles, secular
articles, about how no, noteverybody is special, and the
people who would defile afuneral with protest signs and
bring their kids along.
And then the last thing I talkedabout was the distinction
(50:10):
between what is real and what ismake-believe.
And he would say to the camera,let's pretend.
Let's pretend Lady Aberlin isdoing blah, blah, blah.
And then we would go over to thekingdom, make believe, and
that's what she was doing.
And so it gave us as kids,through the mechanism of the
actual, like what's happening onthe screen, ways to understand
(50:34):
the difference between fictionand reality and to celebrate the
fiction and enjoy the fiction.
It was my favorite part of theshow, but not mistake it.
And that is a thing that he sawevidence was needed, you know,
when kids were hurtingthemselves pretending to be
Superman.
And things that I think wecouldn't have articulated when
(50:57):
we were watching him in the 80s,but I think really created a
foundation or helped to createthe foundation.
I don't want to oversell it, forjust understanding how to
interact with the world andother media.
I think I got everything.
So, y'all, if you remember Mr.
Rogers as fondly as I do, gowatch these movies.
(51:20):
Like you won't regret it.
He just, yeah, he was just amagical man.
What are you bringing me nextweek, Em?
SPEAKER_02 (51:26):
So next week, I am bringing you my deep thoughts on
the TV show Night Court.
SPEAKER_01 (51:31):
Oh my God, I love that movie.
I love that show so much.
Oh my God, I loved it so much.
All right, cool.
I'll see you.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon.
(51:52):
There's a link in the shownotes.
Or leave a positive review soothers can find us.
And of course, share the showwith your people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin McLeod from
Incompotech.com.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to Resonate Recordingsfor editing today's episode.
(52:15):
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture.
And shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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