Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is just part of growing up.\nSince 1968, it has grown to become an essential childhood experience -- one that even now we occasionally revisit because the universal lessons are still relative to the life of a college student.\n"In college you spend more time with people just talking than any other time in your life. You know, 'Won't you be my neighbor?' -- what a natural place for that to happen," says Hedda Sharapan, Neighborhood associate producer, who has been with the show since its creation.
LOVING WHAT THEY DO\n"As students, everybody wants to get a good job when they get out of school and make a lot of money. But the important thing when you get out of college is to get something you're going to like doing every day of the year. And you know you might sacrifice some finances, but it's something that makes you feel good and satisfies you," says David Newell, who adds that he has enjoyed playing postman Mr. McFeely for 33 years. \nAnd Mr. Rogers has made it his life's work to try and make each individual feel special.\n"I need to hear the message that 'I'm special and so is everyone else in this world,'" Sharapan says. "And I need to hear that it's okay to be angry, but it's not okay to hurt someone. I think that's something for people of all ages. And college students I hear from say that if they're stressed out or they're having a bad day, there's sanctuary and something comforting in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."\nAnd tomorrow Mr. Rogers will once again promise to "be back when the day is new" doing just that. Although he stopped taping new episodes in February and the final "new" episode aired earlier this month, "It's not as if he's retiring and going off into the sunset," Newell says.\nWhen Rogers created the show, his goal was to create a library of learning for young children.\nAfter filming almost 900 episodes, all of which can be aired interchangeably, he feels he has accomplished that. Now, Rogers will continue his work on support materials, such as books, Web sites and special projects, for that library.\n"He wanted to finish (taping episodes) when he was still as productive and as useful and as active as he is," says Phillip Meyer, general manager of WTIU. "He still swims every morning several miles and weighs the same as he did in college, so it wasn't an age or a retirement issue. It's almost a 'my work here is done' thing. I think it's almost harder on the PBS stations and on viewers than it is on him. He will continue to do this kind of work, it's just that it will be in different media."
PART OF HISTORY\nMister Rogers' Neighborhood has become a part of Americana. As the longest-running show on PBS, the series has won every major television award, including the Emmy and the Peabody.\nEven Mr. Rogers' sneakers and sweaters have become iconic -- one of his sweaters is on permanent display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. And in a Mr. Rogers sweater drive, Bob Knight once donated one of his trademark pullovers. \nUntil she passed away in the late 1970s, Rogers' mother knitted his sweaters for the show. The ones he wore recently come from a company that makes sweaters in the style Mr. Rogers became known for. But the sweaters were white and the costume department dyed them whatever color they needed.\nAs far as his famous shoe-lacing ritual goes, Newell refutes the rumor that Mr. Rogers only puts on one shoe at the end of each episode to save time. But he admits Mr. Rogers doesn't always tie both shoes.
TACKLING TOUGH PROBLEMS\nNewell's favorite episode was one where Barbara Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz," made a guest appearance. Newell says the witch and winged monkeys in the movie were scary to a lot of children, and even himself.\n"We called Barbara Hamilton and asked that she would come on the program and explain that the costume she wears is just pretend and just demystify the witch and just take away the scary part.\nAnd she did, and she took the hat off and said 'Look I'm not that scary' and did the cackle for the kids."\nThat program helped a lot of children separate fantasy and reality, Newell says. \n"She's just having fun telling a story," he says. "It's very important for very young children to separate the two, that's why the Neighborhood of Make-Believe is separate from (the house's) interior."\nAnd Sharapan says the lesson in each episode is repeated several times so children have a chance to let it sink in. \n"When Fred writes the script, he does it with a theme that goes across the whole week, so the problem isn't solved just in the half hour -- it takes a while," she says.\nBut most importantly, Sharapan says, quoting from one of the 600 e-mails the show has received in the last couple of days, she hopes children will learn what one grown viewer says he did -- "to ponder, to question, to imagine and to listen".
REACHING PEOPLE\nNow almost three generations of children have grown up with the man The Village Voice has called the only valid father figure on television.\n"Last weekend I was at a baseball game in Pennsylvania, and standing in front of me are three generations of children, parents and grandparents, and they all have some input into the neighborhood," Newell says. "It's a wonderful feeling that I was a part and am still a part of something that long running."\nThe show has also reached children internationally.\n"Actually, I just got a call from Israel," Newell says. "It was this man -- a rabbi -- and (his children's) teachers said, 'Your children are so well-mannered.' And he and his wife got in the car and said, 'Thank goodness for Mr. Rogers.' Their kids watch it via cassettes shipped over there."\nIn Russia, Rogers once appeared on a show similar to the Neighborhood, called Good Night Little Ones. It was Newell's idea to do an exchange and have the host of the Russian show then appear on the Neighborhood. Mr. McFeely supposedly picked her and her translator up from the airport and "delivered" them to Mr. Rogers.\n"I thought with communism and Russia sort of being our foe wouldn't it be great that we show that people can get along well even though countries sometimes can't," Newell remembers.\nThat was his favorite delivery, but on the first episode, Mr. McFeely delivered an armadillo. When he left Mr. Rogers' house, he ad-libbed the words, "Speedy delivery." It stuck, and from then on Rogers (who writes all the show's scripts and songs) always wrote it in to Mr. McFeely's parts. \nEven when not in character, talking to Newell is like having a conversation with a good friend. He likes meeting new people and learning about them. And he doesn't forget those people the next day or even years later.\nMeyer met Newell and Fred Rogers (although Meyer says he can't refer to him as anything but the respectful "Mr. Rogers") in 1999, but Newell still remembers him as soon as anyone mentions Bloomington.\nMeyer says Rogers and Newell were warm and welcoming people far beyond his expectations.\n"Mr. Rogers is exactly like that in real life and so is David Newell. They're not acting against their own personalities," Meyer says. "It's very natural for them to do those characters on the show."\nBecause of his affiliation with PBS, Meyer and his family were invited to tour the PBS studios in Pittsburgh. So, Meyer, his wife and their three children traveled to Pennsylvania. \n"I was expecting five, 10 minutes, a quick 'This is Mr. Rogers' office, here's the studio, here's Mr. Rogers and thanks for coming,'" Meyer says.\nInstead, Rogers allowed Meyer's children to play with some of the original Land of Make-Believe puppets. And, knowing that Meyer's son, Christopher, was autistic, Rogers was prepared with a flyer about autistic therapy to give the family.\n"He's one of the nicest, if not the nicest person I've ever met," Meyer says. "When you think of the fame he has, that he took an hour-and-a-half out of his time to meet with us and our children to me that is very typical of what the spirit of his show is"
