Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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I once met Fred Rogers. He put his hand on my shoulder and asked “How are you?” It sounded like he meant it, rather than just a greeting. I felt like I knew this warm, friendly, lanky man with graying hair. After all, I had visited his neighborhood many times as a television viewer.

Although “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” was a half-hour program on PBS aimed at preschoolers 2 – 5, it welcomed me by stating that it was “appropriate for all ages.”

Burger King once drew his disapproval for mimicking him in a TV commercial (he never sponsored a product), but he found Eddie Murphy’s “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” parody on SNL to be “amusing and affectionate.”

Fred McFeely Rogers was a married Presbyterian minister with two sons. He got into television, he said, “because I hated it so, and I thought there’s some way of using this fabulous instrument to nurture those who would watch and listen.”

One of his first jobs was doing musical programming on such NBC programs as “Your Hit Parade” and “The Kate Smith Show.” Then he took a job as a puppeteer on a children’s TV show in Pittsburgh (he grew up 40 miles from there), eventually moved to Canada to develop his own show, and three years later returned to Pittsburgh’s WQED where he launched “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” in 1966.

Achieving distribution on PBS, his show ran for three decades – 886 episodes in all.

A documentary about Fred Rogers titled “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is currently showing at Tropic Cinema. It profiles the life of this gentle, sneaker-wearing, sweater-clad man who befriended our little ones – and us too.

Directed by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville (“20 Feet From Stardom”), this up-close-and-personal look at Mr. Rogers “focuses on the power that kindness and understanding can have in a community, whether real or imagined.”

His message was one of acceptance and inclusion. He reminded his young viewers: “You always make each day a special day. You know how: By just your being you/yourself. There’s only one person in the whole world that’s like you, and that’s you. And people can like you just/exactly the way you are.”

Mr. Rogers received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, 40 honorary degrees, four Emmys, a Peabody, and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. TV Guide ranked him #35 in its list of the Fifty Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Fred Rogers may have lived far away, but I always enjoyed visiting his neighborhood. And this film reminds me why I was always happy when he invited me, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com