Series / Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

"Won't you be my neighbor?"

"It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood,
A neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together, we might as well say,
'Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?'
Won't you please, won't you please,
Please, won't you be my neighbor?"

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (also known as Misterogers and Misterogers' Neighborhood in early seasons) is a syndicated children's program that aired for more than thirty years (1968–2001), making it one of the longest-running programs on PBS. In the show, host Fred Rogers spoke directly to you the viewer as his "television neighbor," gently imparting wisdom about how to deal with the challenges and experiences of childhood and develop healthy emotional understanding. He also took his viewers on virtual tours with him to demonstrate interesting facts such as seeing how things are made, learning how musical instruments are played, and doing exciting activities like going to the museum or circus, interacting with his friends on the show along the way. Each half-hour segment also included a puppet show called the "Neighborhood of Make-Believe," and usually a song or two.

To understand the show's appeal, you have to recognize one thing about Fred Rogers himself: he was not merely an engaging host. He was a genuine honest-to-goodness Nice Guy, practically to the level of All-Loving Hero, whose real care, kindness, and empathy for his neighbors exuded off the screen straight at you, and who was eager to share with you such positive messages as "I'm proud of you" and "People can like you exactly the way you are." Watching any episode of the show is pretty much a surefire cure for the blues, whatever your age.

Rogers' show had its earliest incarnation in 1954 as The Children's Corner, a local program airing on station WQED in his native Pittsburgh. Rogers was still camera-shy in this phase of his career, so Josie Carey hosted the show, with Rogers doing puppeteering, music, writing and production work; several of his iconic puppet characters debuted on this show. The Children's Corner ended in 1961, because Rogers wanted to pursue some other interests, including taking graduate courses in child development and becoming ordained as a Presbyterian minister. The CBC, aware of Rogers' work in Pittsburgh, invited him up to Canada in 1963 to host a 15-minute daily TV program called Misterogers, with Ernie Coombs as Rogers' understudy. After three years, Rogers' visa ran out, and he decided to return to the U.S. while Coombs stayed to eventually became his former boss's iconic Canadian TV counterpart, Mr. Dressup. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, once again produced by WQED and a half-hour in length, debuted on National Educational Television (NET) on February 19, 1968; two years later, NET became PBS, where Rogers' show continued through 2001.

The show would inspire an entire generation of children, and, alongside Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow, anchored PBS' children's programming throughout the '80s and '90s. Reruns of the show are still broadcast occasionally, even after Rogers' death in 2003. It's also frequently been compared with The Joy of Painting, another beloved PBS show from the same era which featured a similarly good-natured host, Bob Ross, who like Rogers was noted for gently interacting with viewers using a peaceful speaking voice.

All good things must come to an end, unfortunately. The show aired its final new episode on August 31, 2001. On September 3, 2012, 11 years after the original series ended, an animated spin-off, called Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and centering around the namesake son of the original Daniel Tiger character, began airing as part of PBS Kids.

The company that produced the show, Family Communications Inc., was renamed The Fred Rogers Company after Rogers's 2003 death, and then Fred Rogers Productions in 2018. The company went on to produce shows in the 2010's onward such as the previously-mentioned Daniel, Peg + Cat, Odd Squad, Donkey Hodie (the second show based on Rogers' creations), and Alma's Way.

In 2017, Twitch was given the rights to do a marathon stream of the show. From May 15 to June 3, the stream showed every NET/PBS episode except the "Conflict" week arc (although certain early episodes were also skipped over). This was also the first time the show was legally available to those outside the US, as the stream is not region-locked.

In 2018, a documentary about the Neighborhood, entitled Won't You Be My Neighbor, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and a general release took place in June 2018, with the PBS broadcast following on February 9, 2019 under the Independent Lens banner; it is, to date, the only PBS program featuring Mister Rogers to be rated TV-14, when everything else had been TV-Y or TV-G. Meanwhile, an hour-long special titled Mister Rogers: It's You I Like, aired on PBS on March 6, 2018. Furthermore, a film entitled A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was announced by TriStar, with the role of Fred Rogers played by none other than Tom Hanks, delving into Rogers' impact on reporter Tom Junod's life, and was released in November 2019.

A 90-episode marathon was started on March 20, 2018, to commemorate what would be Fred's 90th birthday. This was followed a few days later with a repeat of the 2017 marathon, which lasted about 20 days just like the last time.

Now has a character sheet.

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Mister Rogers' Neighborhood provides examples of:

• 555: In a week-long Neighborhood of Make Believe arc King Friday and Queen Sara put Prince Tuesday in the care of Charles Aber when they have to go to a weeklong teaching conference. King Friday gives the phone number for the place they'll be staying as 111-222-3334. Other numbers later in the series use "555" prefixes.
  • In the week-long "Work" arc, the phone number for Patterson Pipes is 555-PIPE.
• Acceptable Break from Reality: The Neighborhood of Make-Believe segments. Rogers would give a very clear distinction by saying the show was moving to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe by traveling there with the Trolley. He also mentions frequently that certain things can only happen there.
• Adaptational Heroism: In some of the last few episodes of the original run, Margaret Hamilton appears in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe segments as a much, much friendlier version of her iconic Wicked Witch of the West character from The Wizard of Oz named Princess Margaret H. Witch.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The Funny Fast Films, which showed sped up footage of someone doing a mundane task.
• Aerith and Bob: King Friday and Queen Sarah. Subverted in that Queen Sarah's last name was Saturday.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": Ana Platypus's full name, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, is the scientific name for a duck-billed platypus. Dr. Bill refers to it as an old family name.
• All-Loving Hero:
  • Mr. Rogers. Pretty much this in real life, too. He was an ordained Presbyterian minister, but he never once mentioned it on his show. He never wore it as a hat or on his sleeve; he just continued to practice his life in that quiet little way he always had. Certain fundamentalist preachers hated him because, apparently not getting the "kindest man who ever lived" memo, they would ask him to denounce homosexuals. Mr. Rogers's response? He'd pat the target on the shoulder and say, "God loves you just as you are." Rogers even belonged to a "More Light" congregation in Pittsburgh, a part of the Presbyterian Church dedicated to welcoming LGBT persons to full participation in the church. He was also a vegetarian, saying "I don't want to eat anything that has a mother."
  • To quote (of all things) Cracked: "A lot of people of a lot of faiths are waiting for the Messiah, but even if one arrives, how are you going to tell the difference between him and Fred Rogers?"
  • Fred gave an interview for the Archive of American Television which pretty much drives the point home; Fred loved talking to people so much that where Bob McGrath's interview has four parts and Carol Spinney's has six, Fred's interview has nine parts, totaling over four hours of footage. ^note  Fred lampshade having a lot to talk about after going off on a tangent for the third or fourth time during the first part.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: A 1987 show about making mistakes has Mister Rogers realize he needs to be at a meeting and briefly hands off hosting duties to Mister Aber.
• And You Were There: In the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, but other characters like Mr. McFeely and Chef Brockett are the same in both neighborhoods!
• "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop:
  • The song "What Do You Do With the Mad that You Feel" talks about how people deal with angry feelings in healthy ways, and acknowledge the feeling itself is not bad.
    I can stop when I want to
    Can stop when I wish
    I can stop, stop, stop any time.
    And what a good feeling to feel like this
    And know that the feeling is really mine.
  • One song is about how "scary mad wishes" (such as a time from his childhood when he got angry at his parents and hyperbolically wished a lion would eat them) don't come true, so the viewers don't need to feel guilty about making them.
• Anthropomorphic Food: One episode shows the residents of the Land of Make-Believe reading fortunes from fortune cookies. One of the cookies comes to life as an anthropomorphic personification represented by a human wearing a fortune cookie costume. The cookie speaks Spanish, but naturally the others have no trouble understanding him.
• Arc Number: Thirteen. In addition to King Friday XIII, early episodes transitioned in and out of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe with 13 blinks of the traffic light, it came up multiple times in Mr. Rogers' drawings, and the number of Neighborhood Operas produced during the show's run? You guessed it, 13. Also, the show's producer, WQED-TV in Pittsburgh, happens to be Channel 13.
  • 143. The documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor mentions the use of 143 on the show to represent I Love You (1 letter, 4 letters and 3 letters respectively). This was due to Fred stating that he was 143 pounds from the late '50s until the end of his life. He had a routine of swimming a mile a day and then checking his weight and it was always 143.
• The Artifact:
  • The red model building once used to show the NET logo; see the Vanity Plate page.
  • Changing into sneakers originated on The Children's Corner, as Rogers found loafers to be too noisy when walking behind sets for the puppets. Since Children's Corner was filmed live, this was a necessity. Later on it simply became part of the opening ritual to transition viewers from the feel of "professional" to "casual" and was strictly symbolic, but no longer necessary as it originally was.
• As Himself: Many of the human cast or guest stars, notably Betty Aberlin, François Clemmons, John Reardon, Charles R. Aber, and of course Mr. Rogers himself.
• As the Good Book Says...: The final episode of the "Conflict" week ends on a Bible verse protesting war (Isaiah 2:4), though the fact that it is one is not alluded to.
  And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
  And their spears into pruning forks;
  Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
  Neither shall they learn war any more.
• Audience Surrogate: Mr. Rogers becomes this any time he goes on one of his field trips.
• Auteur License: Fred Rogers was basically granted this by PBS because of his pioneering status in children's programming. On the Neighborhood he starred not only as the on-screen host but also as chief puppeteer, composer, lyricist, script writer, and executive producer.
• Author Appeal: The week of episodes about Josephine the Short-Necked Giraffe had Mr. Rogers taking pictures at a wildlife park and taking them to be developed. In real life Fred Rogers was himself an avid photographer and often carried a camera with him so he could take pictures of people he met.
• Author Avatar: People who knew Mr. Rogers say that Daniel was the puppet closest to him personality-wise, being shy and sensitive, with King Friday representing his tendency to come up with ambitious, grandiose ideas, and Lady Elaine as his earthy, scheming side. When he was with family and friends he'd sometimes slip into the voices in conversations (especially Lady Elaine's voice when he wanted to say something snarky or off-color).
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Sarah Saturday's coronation as Queen of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe takes place immediately before the royal wedding in episode 1015.
• Be Yourself: Mr. Rogers delivered this Aesop very effectively.
• Big Friendly Dog: Bob Dog, who being a human in a suit is literally this trope in Make-Believe.
• Blatant Lies: While normally the show went out of its way to AVOID this trope, in episode 1477, when Mr. Rogers visits a pretzel maker to learn how to make pretzels, he makes a joke that he might gain a little weight if he ate too many pretzels to which the owner of the shop (who speaks in a very similar vocal cadence to Rogers) tells him that pretzels "aren't fattening" and while Rogers expresses some surprise at this statement, he moves on with the segment. Pretzels, (especially the ones he was making, which were buttered heavily for flavor) are indeed fattening.
• Brand X: Since the show aired on non-commercial PBS, and Rogers himself was strongly against consumerism on children's TV, any grocery products featured on the show were of the made-up "Neighborhood" brand (for example, Neighborhood Cat Food◊).
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Almost on an inception level; obviously, the show runs on No Fourth Wall, but there were occasions where Mr. Rogers would break the Willing Suspension of Disbelief and show that his "home" was actually just a studio and go behind the scenes. For instance, in one of the "Music" episodes, he walks off-stage to show Johnny Costa and the rest of his band who performs during the show. In another case, he also shows his studio in the fifth "Work" episode to explain that it's his own as well as his crew's work place.
  • In episode 1129 (Cousin Mary Owl's debut in the Neighborhood of Make Believe), Lady Aberlin explains that Mary is much bigger than X because she's a dressed-up-person owl, while he's a puppet owl.
• Butt-Monkey: Audrey Duck has this happen to her all throughout the "Making Mistakes" week, from being mistaken for an impersonator by X the Owl, to having her new dress ruined by a frightened skunk, to being misidentified as a goose by no less than King Friday XIII. Thankfully, everything works out for her in the end.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Prince Tuesday does this occasionally, when his father's decisions don't make sense.
• Catchphrase: Robert Troll greets everyone by holding out his index finger and shouting "DOOT!"
  • Lady Aberlin and Daniel Tiger share the phrase "ugga mugga!" with other as their special greeting and goodbye. This falls off later in the series as the cast grows, but it never vanishes entirely.
  • Lady Elaine frequently says "Toot toot!" as her goodbye.
  • King Friday's "[Character], I presume?" and the subsequent response of "Correct as usual, King/Uncle Friday."
  • In both the "real" world and the Neighborhood of Make Believe, Mr. McFeely would both arrive and depart while chanting "Speedy Delivery, Speedy Delivery!"
  • Mr. Rogers himself would very frequently tell the viewer "I like you, just the way you are."
• Christmas Special: Christmastime with Mister Rogers (1977), produced during the series hiatus.
• Clip Show: A week of 1976 episodes had Mr. Rogers taking viewers through old props and video tapes from the show.
• Company Cameo: During the first two years of the show, the intro would begin every episode with a house resembling the NET logo in the model neighborhood and the show would end on a shot of the same house. NET was the channel where the show aired for its first two years before moving to PBS when it replaced NET.
• Continuity Nod: One episode features a "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" segment in which the characters discuss the area's history by looking at a film of the structures appearing one by one on the set. The order in which they appear, starting with Daniel's clock, reflects the order in which Rogers debuted the characters who live in each structure (Daniel and King Friday first appeared in The Children's Corner in the 1950's, followed by X the Owl, Henrietta Pussycat, Lady Elaine Fairchilde, and Grandpere; the other characters were introduced on MisteRogers in the 1960's).
• Cool Old Guy: Towards the end of the show's run, Rogers himself. He was already forty when it began and was seventy when it ended with two grandchildren and his kindness, sincerity and warmth hadn't faded a bit in all that time.
• Correspondence Course: X the Owl took one from Owl Correspondence School.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: There was an opera-episode titled "Windstorm in Bubbleland" with a villain named W. I. Norton Donovan who was running the Bubble Chemical Company, which was selling cans of compressed air... not marketing them as computer-cleaning devices, but as invisible spray-on sweaters that protect the citizens' bubbles. These cans of air were actually generating wind, and this wind actually turned W. I. into a supervillain with Blow You Away powers. You can't make this stuff up!
• Crossover:
  • Mr. Rogers encountered Big Bird on Sesame Street, visited with real life pal Captain Kangaroo, and also showed up in Arthur.
  • Conversely, Big Bird, Captain Kangaroo, and Arthur all appeared in episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
  • In later years, LeVar Burton and Bill Nye came over to visit.
  • There was even a one episode cross over with The Incredible Hulk (1977), specifically Rogers and Mr. McFeely visit the sound stage and meet the cast and crew, including Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno in costume.
  • Julia Child visited to show the neighbors her recipe for spaghetti.
  • In 1988, there was a crossover with the Soviet show Good Night, Little Ones! (Спокойной ночи, малыши!).
• Counterpoint Duet: "Sometimes I Wonder If I'm A Mistake", a moving song in which Daniel's verse about his self-doubts becomes the counterpoint to Lady Aberlin's verse about her love and acceptance of him just the way he is.
• Courtroom Episode: In episode 1210 Mister Rogers gets a parking ticket and goes to the courthouse to deal with it. He shows what happens in a court house and talks with a judge about his traffic violation. Some of the people talking to the judge get a small punishment, but the judge lets Mister Rogers off with a warning telling him not to forget change for the parking meter next time.
• Darker and Edgier: The Conflict week's Make-Believe segments are significantly darker than most others (though the segments at Mister Rogers' house remain pretty upbeat and standard). Several discussions about topics that are otherwise taboo on the show such as violence, war, and bombings take place, and there's even a scene in the Wednesday episode where Harriet Elizabeth Cow teaches to her children about bomb shelters and how to use them in case of a bombing. King Friday also displays some fairly unusual trigger-happy characteristics as he orders bombs to be built under fear of threat. The whole thing turns out to be a big misunderstanding, but still. In addition, the last episode of this week follows the usual "It's Such a Good Feeling" closing song with an unusually somber and melancholic ending where he first sings "Peace and Quiet" before talking directly to the viewer about war before putting up a Bible verse ^note  Isaiah 2:4, to be exact; it's not directly stated or shown in the episode that it is a Bible reference, as only the verse itself is displayed preaching against the troubles of war.
• "Day of the Week" Name: King Friday XIII, Queen Sara Saturday, and Prince Tuesday. King Friday's father was named King Thursday and he had another relative named King Monday IX.
• Deadpan Snarker: Lady Elaine Fairchilde is not afraid to speak her mind to anyone, especially King Friday.
• A Dog Named "Dog": King Friday has two pet birds named Mimus polyglottos and Troglodytes aedon (Mimus and Trog, for short). Those are the actual scientific names of species of birds, namely the mockingbird and the house wren.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Mr. Rogers composed all music for the series, as he held a degree in music composition and began his TV career as a composer.
• Downer Beginning: Episode 1210 begins with an unusually sour Mr. Rogers singing the opening theme, which is played in an unusually staccato-ish and overall downbeat manner, and instead of changing into a sweater and sneakers, fiddles with a parking ticket he'd just gotten. Instead of "Hi, neighbor!", he then proceeds to say the following:
  Mister Rogers: I don't feel like singing "a beautiful day in this neighborhood." Oh, it's beautiful enough outside, all right, but I don't feel beautiful. In fact, I'd like to take this ticket and rip it up. This is a parking ticket. Yes, I parked my car in a... in one of those places that has a meter. You ever seen a parking meter? You know, you have to put nickels or dimes or something in and then... turn the thing and then this... [demonstrates with his hand] this just goes up like that? Pay for parking. Well, I drove downtown, and all I had was a dollar bill in my pocket. I didn't have change to put in there. Well, I went into the drug store and got some change, and when I came out again, there was a lady writing out this ticket. And I had the change right there and I said, "L-look, I just went in there to get the change. Don't give me a ticket." And she said, "Here's your ticket. Tell your story to the judge."
• Drop-In Character: Mr. McFeely, the delivery man, comes by (more or less Once an Episode) with a package for Mr. Rogers.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: While the basic premise of the show was static for the entire run of the series, the sheer length of the show's run meant that some of the details changed over time.
  • In the first episode, Mister Rogers' house is completely different (with a different non-blinking traffic light), and Rogers himself changes into a button-up sweater as opposed to a zip-up cardigan sweater.
  • The first three seasons have the title displayed as "MisteRogers' Neighborhood" (the name "Misterogers" (as seen on Picture Picture) was used during those seasons as well). That was also the name of his earlier Canadian series.
  • One difference for "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" was that the line "A beautiful day for a neighbor" went directly to "Would you be mine?" without a pause. This timing also subverted the rhyme of "neighborhood" in the line before it.
  • Early color episodes have the house with yellow interiors as opposed to the more familiar blue (up through Episode 1326 (1974), where painting the house is actually part of the episode's premise). The model neighborhood also got a redesign at the same time, with more intricate buildings and a slight change in layout.
  • Normally, the transitions between Mister Rogers' house and Make-Believe are accompanied with an Iris shot. However, during the NET color era for seasons 2 and 3 only (1969-1970), there was a different dissolve transition to a sky shot of the clouds.
  • Picture Picture was more of a sentient being in its early years, playing films (or even slides) at Mister Rogers' command rather than inserting them in and hitting play. Mister Rogers would even thank it after showing the material, which it would then respond with "You're Welcome" on its screen. In the show's earliest years, it would also show the word "Hello" or "Hi" when not in use, as opposed to a painting, though this stuck around until the '80s at the least.
  • Up until Season 3, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe was always treated as if it was real and the human characters traveled between it (though Mr. Rogers himself never enters), while Lady Aberlin appears in Mr. Rogers' house on several occasions. Starting with the third season, trips to Make-Believe were explicitly prefaced with "Let's pretend..." and this was reinforced after the return. This lead to the introduction of many more humans in the Neighborhood that had previously only been depicted as characters in Make-Believe. For example, Betty Aberlin and Lady Aberlin became two different characters, and Bob Trow was introduced as a neighborhood artist, even though his character Robert Troll appeared in Make-Believe near the end of the first season. However, none of the previous continuity of the storylines in Make-Believe were discarded. In the last week of the 1976 broadcast, the episodes attempt to retcon this as the neighbors playing make-believe along with Mr. Rogers.
    • Speaking of which, in the first few black and white episodes, Mister Rogers would pull out the sofa bed to go to Make-Believe. Likely because it was such a hassle to set it up and put it away every time, this was thrown away fairly quickly (although it resurfaced in 1988, for episode 1586, beginning a week-long arc on "nighttime"). He would also often pull out a telescope and look through it to get a "view" into there, which admittedly lasted longer than the sofa gimmick (a few seasons), but was still tossed away after a while. On one of his final uses of the telescope, he hangs a lampshade on it by pointing out how long it had been since he'd used the telescope.
  • Originally, David Newell played Mr. McFeely as a much more frantic, rigid character with white hair and a white mustache. He even got Mr. Rogers visibly angry in Episode 1056.
  • Earlier in the show, Robert Troll spoke mostly gibberish with English mixed in and was considered so hard to understand that characters had to work through his feelings to understand what he was saying. Eventually, the gibberish in his speech disappeared after the first few seasons, presumably as he became more fluent in English, and he spoke with only English (but still in his own Troll accent). Later in the '90s during his final appearances, the gibberish returned but he was much easier to understand as it was more of a Verbal Tic and he spoke clear sentences in the middle.
  • Bob Dog's earliest appearances show him as being so prone to bad behavior that he carries a cage around to put on his head when he's thinking of doing something he knows is wrong.
  • Until some point in 1972, the show had a different closing song, "Tomorrow" (no, not the song from Annie).
    • Friday episodes from 1971-72 also had a special closing song called "The Weekend Song"; a slight modification of its first verse would then become the coda of the familiar closing version of "It's Such a Good Feeling".
    • "Good Feeling", in turn, was originally sung at other points in the show, without the "Weekend Song" verse ("I'll be back..."), and with slightly different lyrics ("I think I'll grow 12 inches today!"). Even when it was originally replaced, it was still a bit different from later years; he would sing he'd be back when "tomorrow" is new rather than "the day", he would snap to the rhythm of "a snappy new day" rather than doing two snaps between verses, and would do a small reprise before officially leaving ("It's such a good feeling, a very good feeling, the feeling you know you're alive/that we're friends!").
  • Originally, when Mister Rogers had visitors at his home, he would ask the viewer to look out the window and see who it was. In the second-run episodes, he himself would simply look out the window instead.
  • The first opera (in Episode 0045) is extremely low-key compared to later operas. Most of its songs feel more improvised (some without even having any background music), a good chunk of the ones included are ones that are already sung in the show, and the opera takes a lot longer to actually start. The large bulk of it also takes place on a single set, where other operas had a large number of sets.
  • Originally from 1968-1976, the fundings were announced during the closing credits, which also ended with the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood logo being shown a second time with the copyright info at the bottom. For the 1971 season, there was originally no voice-over (though the fundings were still included in the credits) but it was eventually added beginning with post-1976 reruns of said season. Starting with the post-1979 series, the fundings are announced separately after the closing credits, and the second showing of the Mister Rogers logo at the end of the credits was replaced with the Family Communications logo (of course, with the copyright info still present at the bottom).
  • When the second run began in 1979, instead of transitioning from the model neighborhood to the flashing yellow traffic light inside the living room, the opening dissolved to the porch area outside of the house, where Mister Rogers would be shown entering. Likewise, after Mister Rogers sang his closing song, he would go outside to the porch area to deliver his final thoughts to the viewers before leaving, instead of doing so before going outside. Eventually, starting with episode #1491 (Discipline) in 1982, the usual opening and closing format was brought back for the remainder of the show.
• Edutainment Show: Probably the Trope Maker for the genre.
• Episode Code Number:
  • The first season had its episodes numbered 1 to 130. When the show started broadcasting in color the next season, the numbering jumped ahead to 1001, and stayed on this track for the rest of the run.
  • When the show went on hiatus in 1976, the numbers were added at the end of older episodes.
  • On later episodes, they were included in the Title Sequence.
• Ending Theme: "Tomorrow" from the show's start until the early '70s, and then "It's Such a Good Feeling" from there on out.
• Every Episode Ending: Mister Rogers sang "It's Such a Good Feeling" at the end of every episode (except for some of the operas) from 1972-2001. On earlier episodes, he closed the show with the "Tomorrow" song.
• Fake Interactivity: A little lighter than usual. Mister Rogers never really required the audience to play along, but he did treat the camera as the viewer and invite them to join him in activities.
• The Famine: In the week-long "Food" arc, someone has been taking vegetables from the gardens of X the Owl and Lady Elaine. King Friday has Bob Dog, Handyman Negri, and Lady Aberlin act as garden guards to catch the thief. It turns out to be an old goat from Northwood, who had been taking the vegetables to Northwood because of a famine there. On learning of this, King Friday and Queen Sara declare an all-out effort to help Northwood, not only with food, but with seeds to grow more.
• Fictional Currency: Subverted with the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, in that it has a completely nameless unlabeled currency. The inhabitants will often say things like "I will pay a thousand for that", but never be specific on what they're paying a thousand of.
• Friend to All Children: Fred Rogers, famously so. His entire show, his career, and even his life embodies this trope in its best and purest form.
• Gratuitous English: Fortune Cookie Man, who normally speaks Spanish, has a moment of this in his first episode: "Knock... on the clock!"
• Head Bob: The puppet characters performed by Fred Rogers did not have moveable mouths, so head movements and body language indicated which one was speaking. (However, some of the puppets worked by other performers moved their mouths more naturally.)
• House Fire: Episodes 0063-0066 deal with a fire breaking out in Corney's factory, the aftermath of him losing the entire factory, and the neighborhood rallying together to help him rebuild his business.
  • Episodes 1353 and 1354 cover this topic again, with a fire breaking out inside Henrietta's house.
• Iconic Outfit:
  • The cardigans. His mother made them all. One of them is now on display in the Smithsonian. Rogers chose that one because the color looked bad on camera.
  • His constant changing of shoes. That would become iconic in its own right, with Rogers tossing a shoe from one hand to the other, always in time with the music, and always with a grin.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: In the second run of the show, the episodes that made up a week were referred to as "Mister Rogers Talks About [topic]".
• Improv: Music director Johnny Costa improvised much of the underscore on jazz piano live during taping.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: He can even flip the bird with both hands with no malicious intent.
• Insistent Terminology: Fred consulted with leading child development experts on all the show's scripts to be sure that every idea was conveyed as clearly and positively as possible to a preschool audience, knowing that children take things very literally. The result was a code of strict rules for sentence construction that the show's writing staff affectionally dubbed "Freddish". As one example, they showed how the sentence "It is dangerous to play in the street" would be rewritten to have more positive phrasing such as "Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play."
• Internal Homage: Francois Clemmons final appearance in the series opens by recreating a scene from season 2 where Mr. Rogers and then-Officer Clemmons soaked their feet in a swimming pool on a hot day.
  • Particularly tearful given that the original episode was a moment of incredible personal importance to Clemmons in real life due to the unspoken but overt anti-racism message.
• Iris Out: Used when they go to Neighborhood of Make Believe (via the Neighborhood Trolley).
• Later-Installment Weirdness: Due to the Series Hiatus from 1976 to 1979, the show's filming schedule changed and that caused some subtle changes to the show as a whole.
  • While the first run would normally film 65 episodes a year, the second run tended to only shoot about 10-15. Thus, each week from the 1979 on would have a theme for the week declared at the start of each episode and the shows would all revolve around it. This had little impact on the Neighborhood sequences, but the Make-Believe sequences shifted from having one long continuous story line that could potentially bleed into multiple weeks to having week-long stories based on the theme that started on Monday and ended on Friday.
  • Starting in the second run, the "how people make..." films/videotapes became much more prevalent, to the point that almost every time Mr. McFeely showed up, he had another videotape of such a thing. The general tone of the show also became quite a bit more tranquil and calm due to Mr. Rogers' aging nature.
  • It became more apparent as Mr. Rogers was aging that some of the puppet voices were harder to pull off. Lady Elaine in particular sounds rather ragged as the '90s and '00s episodes wear on.
  • Mr. Rogers travels a lot more in the second run, visiting many locations in the Pittsburgh area and even flying out to Moscow. This led to the phasing out of many of the common locations in the Neighborhood such as Betty's Little Theater. Even before Bob Trow and Don Brockett passed away, we stopped seeing the actual sets for their businesses sometime in the '90s — Chef Brockett's final appearance is in Mr. Rogers' home.
  • Starting in episode 1631, Mr. McFeely always sings the "Speedy Delivery Song" during his appearances.
  • After Johnny Costa passed away in October of 1996, Michael Moricz became the new music director ^note  though Costa still continued to be credited for the rest of the show's run, as requested by Moricz himself and the soundtrack is noticeably different in style from then on out. The trolley chimes also changed, as Costa even performed those live.
  • The Mister Rogers' Neighborhood website was first promoted during the closing credits in 1998.
  • During the later episodes, the residents of Make-Believe would occasionally communicate directly with the viewers. Lady Aberlin would do this frequently during the last week.
• Learning to Ride a Bike: One episode features both Prince Tuesday and Ana Platypus learning how to ride from Handyman Negri.
• Leitmotif: The neighborhood trolley has a pretty distinct and recognizable piano riff that always accompanies it whenever it is onscreen.
• List Song: "Everything Grows Together" is a cumulative form of this (where one verse starts off with one thing, then the next verse adds another thing on top of it).
• Long-Runners: Ran from 1968 to 2001, though there was a production hiatus from 1976 to 1979.
• Machine Monotone: The residents of the Planet Purple, including Purple Panda, speaks like this.
• Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: The plots of the operas tend to border on the surreal. Of course, that's all part of the fun as they're designed to include elements that will be appealing to a child's imagination.
  "Spoon Mountain Opera, a story told in song, weaves together seat belts, a kitten, spoons and popcorn. Prince Extraordinary and a Park Ranger help Wicked Knife and Fork change his behavior..."

  — IMDB episode summary
• Meaningful Name: Prince Tuesday was named for the day of the week upon which he was born.
• Medium Awareness: Since he believed that children should know the difference between real and pretend, Mr. Rogers was up front about the fact that his "house" was a TV studio, showing how the puppets worked, and occasionally even letting viewers see behind the scenes.
• Mickey Mousing: Tiny little piano bits orchestrate Rogers' movements often, especially when he's talking directly to the audience. These were mostly improvised live during taping by pianist/music director Johnny Costa.
  • He even Mickey Moused the factory footage, providing "sound effects" when appropriate.
• Mistakes Are Not the End of the World: This was a big theme on the series. Mister Rogers himself would even insist sometimes when he made a mistake during the filming of the program that it be left in to show young audience members that grown-ups too could make mistakes. There was even an entire week of episodes that was specifically about the subject of making mistakes and how to deal with it.
• Morality Chain: If Queen Sarah is around, she'll minimize and help to reverse her husband's periodic lapses in rationality.
• Musical Episode: The series included thirteen original episode-length operas composed by Mr. Rogers, usually featuring professional opera singers John Reardon and François Clemmons. While of course they're all completely accessible to young viewers, Mr. Rogers clearly didn't believe in underestimating his audience.
• Never Say "Die":
  • Averted more than a decade before Sesame Street had to. He dealt with the death of his pet goldfish in 1970.
  • Even earlier than that is his special that dealt with the death of Robert Kennedy, you'll never again hear a PBS or any kids show repeatedly say the word "assassination" so many times.
  • Averted again in a 1981 episode, where Prince Tuesday has run away from home. Ana Platypus says that she was worried that he might have been dead.
  • He talked about his own introduction to the concept of death through his childhood dog Mitzy, who he buried in the backyard with his parents' help after her death.
• Nice Guy: Try to find a nicer man than Fred Rogers. Just try!
• No Fourth Wall: Besides the constant interaction with the viewer, the fact that Fred's "TV house" was a mere set in a studio was made obvious. For example, Episode 1546 (1985) had Fred walk out of the living room and into the bare studio to introduce viewers to the live band accompanying the show: music director and pianist Johnny Costa, bassist Carl McVicker, Jr., and drummer-percussionist Bobby Rawsthorne. He even revealed the normally hidden controls for Trolley very early on in the series' run, and later even showing Picture Picture's wired remote control on the show.
• Numerological Motif: There are subtle references to the number 143, a number Fred Rogers believed was specially significant because 1, 4, and 3 are the numbers of letters in the words "I love you."
• Open-Door Opening: Every episode begins with Mr. Rogers coming in through the door of his television house and singing, "It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood!"
• Opening Theme: "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"
• Our Trolls Are Different: In the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, they're named Robert and speak a playful gibberish "troll-talk."
• Out-of-Character Moment: There were at least three occasions in the show's run where Mister Rogers, normally the embodiment of friendliness and kindness, gets angry or frustrated at some event:
  • In episode 1056, Mr. McFeely rushes Fred to finish a puzzle in time for delivery. He very bluntly tells McFeely that his case of Motor Mouth and his insistence on rushing him was frustrating him. This makes it a rare time he shows frustration towards somebody else, rather than to something indirect.
  • Episode 1153 has Fred receiving a delivery of nursery rhyme posters, only for him to express frustration when he finds out he has to pay another dollar if he wanted characters on it. "One dollar more nothing!"
  • Episode 1210, also known as the parking ticket episode. When Fred walks in, he has a fairly noticeable agitated look and even spurs the usual routine of changing into a cardigan, opting to stay in his suit instead. After he finishes singing the opening song, he then explains to the viewer about his parking ticket situation (see The Trouble with Tickets).
• Picked Last: Both Mr. Rogers and King Friday both went through this.
• The Piano Player: Music director Johnny Costa showed up on camera from time to time to play some of Fred's tunes. Offscreen, he provided the show's underscore, playing sophisticated jazz improvisations live during taping.
• Poor Communication Kills: Happens near literally in the Conflict week. Due to Corny delivering the information of his part orders in probably the worst possible way ^note  "Well, of course it might be [part of a bomb], but I doubt that it is. I mean, why would anyone want to order that many bombs? I'm making a million of those parts." , King Friday is very quick to assume they're under a large threat. The parts turn out to be for a bridge in another neighborhood, which a few of the Make-Believe inhabitants pretty quickly discover when they visit it.
• Punny Name:
  • Donkey Hodie. Get it?
  • Also, King Friday XIII. (Think about it.) This doubles as a Meaningful Name, since the character was originally created to amuse a child who had been disturbed by superstitions about a certain calendar date.
  • Cornflake S. Pecially?! (corny especially)
  • Dr. Bill Platypus, playing on both "doctor bill" and "platypus bill".
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • According to Dear Mister Rogers (a book that features a collection of letters and responses written to and from the man himself), Mister Rogers would often write scenarios in Make-Believe based on what was happening in his real life. The example he gave was that the "No and Yes" week was written as one of his sons was getting married; as it just so happens, the episode series features a wedding between Betty Okonak Templeton and James Michael Jones in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
  • Francois Clemmons' real-life acceptance into the Metropolitan Opera was written into the show and he occasionally returned to make appearances with references to his actual career.
  • In a more tragic and enforced case, one of the things that inspired Fred to resume production on the show was hearing stories in the news of kids trying to imitate Superman by wearing a cape outfit and diving off a building, resulting in serious injury or even death. One of the very first weeks of the show's second run is on superheroes as a result, and even addresses this exact scenario in one of the Make-Believe segments where Ana Platypus tries to imitate the stunt.
  • 1983's "Conflict Week" aired during one of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War: the Able Archer '83 exercise that nearly triggered a real war. It may have been inspired by the shooting down of a Korean airliner two months earlier; the actual level of danger wasn't made known until much later.
• Real Time: The show eschewed quick cuts and jarring transitions. As described in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: A Visual History, "Each television visit was designed to resemble the flow of real life, with time to think or complete simple tasks." In Episode 1697, after Mister Rogers asked viewers to take a long, careful look at an African violet, the camera stayed fixed on the flower for 25 seconds.
• Replaced the Theme Tune: Well, not the opening theme, but the closing song was changed from "Tomorrow" to "It's Such a Good Feeling" in the early '70s due to copyright issues (see Suspiciously Similar Song on the YMMV tab).
• Retool: The show's second run (which started in 1979) made a few changes to the way the show was filmed. Every week now had a specific theme to it, the model neighborhood was modified, the pace of the show slowed somewhat, there were much fewer episodes per season (anywhere from 5 to 15, where the early seasons were consistently 65 per season or a multiple of that), and a few other changes were made that made the second run feel quite distinct from the first.
• Rewritten Pop Version: A tribute album to this series, "Songs from the Neighborhood", features pop covers of various songs from this series. It also contains a contains a pop cover of a song from another PBS Kids show: "Thank You for Being You" from the The Noddy Shop episode "Noah's Leaving". However, most of the lyrics are changed to be about Mister Rogers. Unlike most examples of this trope, the original songwriter, Dennis Scott, also wrote the new pop version of the song.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Many of the animal puppets in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, including Daniel Tiger and Henrietta Pussycat.
• Rousseau Was Right: The Neighborhood clearly showcased Fred Rogers' deeply positive view of human nature, seen in his constant reminders that people can like you exactly the way you are.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: King Friday may have a small kingdom but he rules with an iron hand. Fortunately, he's usually easily pleased and his subjects seem to know how to get around him pretty easily.
• Safety Worst: One 1981 story arc has King Friday ban all play as a safety measure.
• Santa Claus: Daniel Striped Tiger gets worried when he hears that he's coming to Make Believe because he's heard that he knows if you've been good or bad, and also that he can see you when you're sleeping. When he meets Santa, he tells him that "Good people aren't always good. They just try to be," and that somebody made up the whole thing about him seeing children when they're sleeping and being able to tell if they're good or bad. "I'm not a spy."
• Scenery Porn: The amazingly detailed model town shown at the beginning and the end of every episode. The end of episode 1468 even has Mister Rogers show it off to the viewers before wrapping up.
• Sentient Vehicle: The trolley seemed able to converse to some extent with Mr. Rogers and the inhabitants of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, though it only communicated with dings and whistles.
• Series Fauxnale: Episode 1455, the final show of the 1975 production run, doesn't explicitly state the show is ending production, but the ending of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe segment has the characters mention they will be remembering "all of the things we've done", making general reference to some of the past episodes. The one week produced for 1976 mainly serves as a transition from the later shows to the earlier ones, including several pieces of Lampshade Hanging of Early-Installment Weirdness.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
  • King Friday again. His revised version of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is particularly impressive:
    "Propel, propel, propel your craft
    Gently down liquid solution,
    Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically,
    Existence is but an illusion."
  • Though that's nothing compared to his other favorite song:
    "Scintillate, scintillate diminutive stellar orb. How inexplicable to me seems this stupendous problem of your existence. Elevated at such at an immeasurable distance, in an apparently perpendicular direction from this terrestrial planet which we occupy. Resembling in thy dazzling and unapproachable effulgence, a gem of purest carbon, set solitaire in a university of space."
  • And of course, the existence of Troglodytes Aedon.
• Shout-Out:
  • X and Henrietta, to Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat."
  • And, mentioned above, Donkey Hodie to another literary figure. For additional Parental Bonus points, the donkey lives in a windmill.
  • An outer-space visitor to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe was given the name Yo-Yo LaBelle, after two famous musicians.
  • The town seen at the beginning of every episode is modeled after Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where Rogers was born and raised.
  • And this exchange:
    Queen Sara: Robert Troll, where have you been keeping yourself?
    Robert Troll: Under the bridge over troubled waters.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: An interesting example in that it occurred every episode. Mr. Rogers entered the house and immediately changed from his businesslike suit coat and dress shoes into a more casual cardigan and sneakers.
• Signing-Off Catchphrase: Mr. Rogers closed each show with these words: "You make each day a special day. You know how; by just your being you. There's only one person in this whole world like you. And people can like you exactly as you are."
• Silent Snarker: If you pay attention to other characters' reactions to Trolley's dings and whistles at the beginning and/or end of Neighborhood of Make-Believe segments, it becomes apparent that Trolley has quite a sharp wit.
• Significant Monogram: The antagonist in the opera "Windstorm in Bubbleland" is named W. I. Norton Donovan.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Mister Rogers loved everybody for who they were and showed everyone the amazing things and sad things in life all while being his friendly and caring self.
• So Proud of You: Mr. Rogers would regularly tell his viewers "I'm proud of you, just the way you are". This was even set to music in the song, "I'm Proud of You."
• Special Guest:
  • Several rather big names from the world of art and music made appearances over the show's run. Wynton Marsalis, Yo-Yo Ma, Van Cliburn, Ella Jenkins, Ezra Jack Keats, Eric Carle, Andrew Wyeth, Margaret Hamilton, Michael Keaton, Lou Ferrigno, Big Bird...
  • Yo-Yo Ma in particular appeared so frequently he could almost be called a recurrer. Ma and Rogers were actually close friends, with Rogers even citing the former as one of his heroes. Their families were close as well, a connection that Ma's son Nicholas was able to take advantage of when he co-produced the well-received documentary about Rogers, featuring interviews with his widow Joanne and two sons.
  • Notably, the Neighborhood's Special Guests were just as likely to be ordinary people as well-known celebrities.
• Species Surname: Most of the puppets— Henrietta Pussycat, Daniel Tiger, X the Owl, Dr. Bill Platypus, Harriet Elizabeth Cow, Audrey Duck, and others.
• Spinoff Babies: In 2012, PBS Kids began airing Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, a series focusing on the pre-school aged offspring of characters from the original series, with the adorable son of Daniel Striped-Tiger as the lead.
• Spoonerism: Regularly showed up in the title theme: "It's a neighbourly day in this beautywood..."
• Story Arc: Every episode is actually part of a five-episode long series (sometimes as many as seven), with the idea being one episode would play for each day of the week (since PBS showed their kid shows on weekdays). Each series was structured around one specific topic (sharing, kindness, play, dance, music, etc.), and there was always a story arc in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe that lasted the whole week.
• Super-Fun Happy Thing of Doom: From a Neighborhood of Make-Believe segment with an anti-war aesop:
  X the Owl: [who has been asked to help assemble a bomb] I don't think we should call them "bombs", though. We should call them "surprise treats" or something like that. Bombs are scary things and hurting things.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In Episode 1579, Lady Aberlin and Neighbor Aber go searching for Audrey Duck, who is hiding because King Friday is making a big deal of her poem, making it out to be some long, wonderful epic poem worthy of a massive poetry reading with a bunch of fanfare when it's really not. They encounter Ana Platypus in a rock with holes and a sign which reads "Audrey Duck is not hiding out here." Neighbor Aber asks her if Audrey is hiding any place other than not there; she asks if she has to answer the question. Finally, Audrey Duck emerges from one of the holes.
• Syndication Title: Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as Mister Rogers.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Yo-Yo Ma's tape to King Friday, in Episode 1735 (1998), has him respond to Friday and offer to play his cello.
• Teleportation: Called "The Purple Way" in the show. Using it lets one quickly teleport around the Land of Make-Believe.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Invoked a lot. Justified, as Mr. Rogers was intentionally teaching his viewers that it was OK to deal with their emotions. The concept was even addressed in song, one example being "What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel?"
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: For all his warmth and friendliness, Mr. Rogers was still Mister Rogers to his young viewers. His grown-up neighbors freely called him "Fred," however.
  • Even more evident in later years, where guests who themselves likely grew up with the show insist on "Mister Rogers" than the casual "Fred" of their older counterparts.
• This Is Reality: Mr. Rogers insisted on teaching children the difference between reality and make-believe, which is why he brought Margaret Hamilton in to explain that the Wicked Witch of the West was just a role she played. In the crossover episode featuring Big Bird, Rogers originally wanted Caroll Spinney to take off the Big Bird suit on-screen so that Rogers could interview Spinney as himself, but Spinney said that Jim Henson wouldn't want him to break character like that, so Big Bird was only allowed to appear in the Land of Make-Believe. (Mr. Rogers acted out the part he had scripted for Spinney himself, by donning a full-body giraffe costume and explaining to the viewers how it works - allowing them to infer that Big Bird was also played a human actor/puppeteer.)
• Time Skip:
  • Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood qualifies as this, since it features the original Neighborhood of Make Believe characters as the new main characters' parents.
  • There also seems to have been a Time Skip between the 1968-76 and 1979-2001 runs, because Prince Tuesday and Ana Platypus were aged up from toddlers to preschool level. However, Daniel Striped Tiger was also featured as their classmate in spite of not having apparently aged, so it could also be seen as a soft Continuity Reboot.
• Tin-Can Telephone: Used for many years as the sole method of telephone communication in Make-Believe.
• Toilet Training Plot:
  • One 1998 episode had Mister Rogers reading a book he wrote about toilet training and showing the audience the difference between a potty and a big toilet. He also remembers about what he did as a little boy when he went through that phase and sings a song called "You Can Never Go Down the Drain" to reassure viewers who have fears about the toilet.
  • One of the First Experiences lines of books was Going to the Potty, about this subject. As of 2020, the title is still in print.
• Too Dumb to Live: Subverted. During the superhero week, Ana Platypus tries to use her "super skirt" to fly like a superhero and ends up falling instead, only to be caught by Lady Aberlin just before hitting the ground.
• Transatlantic Equivalent: Mr. Dressup from up north in Canada, although the show was somewhat both broader and more down to earth with the clownish costumes he used and it didn't have the equivalent of the Land of Make-Believe, the puppet characters largely came to him.
• The Trouble with Tickets: Episode 1210 (1972) features Mr. Rogers having received a parking ticket before the episode opens and deciding to go to traffic court to try and get it waived. After several people go through the process, Mr. Rogers gets his turn to explain the circumstances and the judge determines he was being proactive, and lets him off with a warning.
• Truth in Television: During the pets week, much to King Friday's frustration, a parrot who's just come into the neighborhood has learned to say several things, and "Correct as usual, King Friday" was not among them. Parrots take a long time, possibly months, to learn to speak, and so he really shouldn't have expected it to learn to say "Correct as usual, King Friday" in such a short span of time.
• Tuckerization:
  • Queen Sara Saturday was named after Rogers' wife, Sara Joanne Rogers, nee Byrd.
  • Miss Paulifficate was named for one of his friends' children, Paul, Elizabeth ("Iffy"), and Kate.
  • Mr. McFeely was Fred Rogers' own middle name and his mother's maiden name. In a Shout-Out, Rogers' grandfather McFeely was the first person to ever tell him that he could make life special just by being himself, and Rogers paid homage to that idea in the name and in his own Catchphrase. Interestingly, the decision to use the name McFeely was an off-the-cuff choice by Rogers. The character was actually supposed to be named Mr. McCurdy, after William McCurdy, the president of the Sears-Roebuck Foundation, which was the show's main financial backer. McCurdy didn't want it to seem like he was using the show to promote himself, and asked Rogers to change the name a few minutes before the taping of the first episode.
  • Daniel Striped Tiger was named for WQED general manager Dorothy Daniel, who'd given Rogers the tiger puppet just before the debut of The Children's Corner in 1954.
• Undercrank: "Funny Fast Films", sped-up videos of people doing mundane things.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Henrietta Pussycat had more costumes than some of the human characters.
• Ursine Aliens: The Purple Panda comes from Planet Purple.
• Vanity Plate: From 1968 to 1969, When PBS was still called NET, a house featuring its logo was used in the model city in the opening and end credits. It was remodeled twice after that, which explains why the roof has an odd slant to it.
• Verbal Tic:
  • Meow meow Henrietta Pussycat again meow meow meow.
  • Also, Dr. Bill Platypus' usage of the word "bill" in place of "very". For example, "That's bill, bill, bill good".
  • Bob Dog, and how... hooowww... HOOOWWWWWLLLLL!!!
  • Donkey Hodie had a habit of punctuating everything he said with "hee-haw" or "haw-hee".
  • Sammsummaninasummsummm Robert Troll! DOOT!
• Very Special Episode: One of the things that made this show unique was that Fred Rogers discussed and explored topics of this kind with his viewers:
  • On June 7, 1968, as a response to Robert Kennedy's assassination two days before, a special episode using the cast of the show aired explaining what assassination was and teaching kids positive ways to control their anger.
  • Episode 1065 had a scene promoting desegregation in which Officer Clemmons, an African-American police officer, puts his feet in the same pool as Fred to prove that people of different races can get along as well as those who are the same race.
  • Episode 1101 focused on the death of Fred's goldfish.
  • Episode 1478 featured a scene in which a young boy named Jeff Erlanger visited Fred to discuss disabilities and show off his wheelchair. On a similar note, several other episodes of the show featured a girl on crutches named Chrissy Thompson, whose appearance always meant that Fred would teach the audience about how even though some people may have disabilities, they're just the same as ordinary people.
  • The "Conflict" series was made to help kids cope with the topic of wars, and aired during one of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War.
• Video Inside, Film Outside: Normally averted—nearly the entire series was shot on videotape especially during the second run—with a rare exception being a film of Mister Rogers walking Barney (no, not that Barney) during one episode of the Pets week.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Mister Rogers never underestimated the intellect of his audience, speaking very plain and straightforwardly, and even featured full episode-length operas featuring professional opera singers. Notably, he reserved his nominal catchphrase, "Can you say _______?", for words he truly thought his younger viewers wouldn't be familiar with, such as "radamacue", from the third episode of "Mister Rogers Goes to School".
• Viewers Like You: Subverted; rather than using the stock "Viewers Like You" line, the viewer would be indirectly credited as "the people who contribute to this and other Public Television Stations" ("this" referring to whichever station you were watching the show on). Due to the mandate issued in late 1999, Thanking the Viewer came around in 2000 with the addition of the line "We thank you" in the funding credits. May also count as the Ur-Example of standalone funding credits for a PBS show (as early as 1979); although the funders were always credited, they were simply stuck in the opening and closing credits prior to the show's second run, rather than having their own dedicated bumper. The specific voiceover variants during the second run, all spoken by Family Communications executive Eliot A. Daley, were as follows:
  • From 1979 ("Mister Rogers Goes to School") to 1989 ("Mister Rogers Presents Josephine the Short-Necked Giraffe"), when literally everything else on PBS that fell under this trope used the "Public Television Stations" phrase, the credit was spoken as "the people of this and other Public Television Stations".
  • From 1989 ("Mister Rogers Talks About When Parents Go to Work") to 1999 ("When Things Get Broken"), after PBS updated the phrase to either "Public Television Viewers" or the Trope Namer, the spoken credit was updated accordingly to the aforementioned "the people who contribute to this and other Public Television Stations".
  • In the last few weeks, from "Mister Rogers Talks About Curiosity" to "Mister Rogers Celebrates the Arts", after PBS added the Thanking the Viewer mandate, the spoken credit became "the people who contribute to this and other PBS stations", though the onscreen credit remained the same.
• Wedding Episode: The Royal Wedding occurred in episode 1015 when King Friday XIII marries Sara Saturday. Later during the second run in episode 1545, Betty Okonak Templeton marries James Michael Jones.
• What Does This Button Do?: In part 3 of Father and Music when his grandson was about try to control the trolley with the control switch. And Fred tells him it does not work except when the trolley is on the tracks.
• Wham Line: The Public Service Announcement recorded in 1968, after the death of Robert F. Kennedy, begins with Daniel and Lady Aberlin gently playing and talking about balloons and air, until Daniel works up the courage to ask: "What does assassination mean?"
  • This also counts as a Wham Line for the entire genre of children's television, as it was the first time any children's program ever had even attempted to address such a serious real-life subject.
• Who's on First?: There is an area in Make Believe that is named Someplace Else.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In the "Spoon Mountain" opera, when the villain Wicked Knife and Fork is thwarted, he begins to cry and explains that all he ever wanted was for someone to give him a spoon, but they only ever gave him a knife and fork because they considered him evil. This gives the heroes sympathy for him and they arrange to get him a spoon of his own. ^note Yeah, it Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: "Are you brave and don't know it? / Are you brave and can't tell? / Are you brave and just don't show it / While others know it very well?"

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You make each day a special day. You know how; by just your being you. There's only one person in this whole world like you. And people can like you exactly as you are.