Trivia / Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

• Acting for Two:
  • There's been at least one case where Bob Dog and Robert Troll were on screen at the same time, both of which were played by Bob Trow.
  • Fred Rogers voiced most of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe puppets, including King Friday XIII, Queen Sara Saturday, Cornflake S. Pecially, Henrietta Pussycat, X the Owl, Lady Elaine Fairchild, and Daniel Striped Tiger, many of whom had conversations with each other that involved Rogers supplying all of the relevant voices.
• Actor-Inspired Element: Betty Aberlin was very involved with her scenes, giving Rogers feedback and suggestions for them.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
  • For some reason, Mister Rogers is famous for saying, "Can you say ____?" The line appears in several parodies but aside from asking his viewers to say "pentagon" in an early episode (Death of a Goldfish, 1101), he almost never said it on the show, and in fact thought the phrase would be an insult to the intelligence of even his very young audience. He did ask his viewers "Can you _____ now?" at least once, though. He did say it again in Episode 1021 from 1969, when Trolley rolls up, and he points to the writing on it and says "Can you say 'Neighborhood Trolley'? Good!" So there is some precedent (though he doesn't say it every other line, as the parodies would have you believe).
  • This trope also applies to the show's theme song. Many people remember the opening line as "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood", when it's actually "It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood". (Granted, it's not too difficult to hear it as "the neighborhood" due to Rogers' Pennsylvania soft drawl.) This can be justified for a couple reasons. The first is that even though the song's official title is "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" the track is sometimes titled "It's a Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood," such as on this album by cast member Joe Negri. Secondly, those who watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood may have gotten used to this line, because in the opening theme of that show, the line is performed as "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood."
• Bury Your Art: The "Conflict" arc, a pro-disarmament Cold War allegory made during renewed tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, stopped airing after 1996 and was never officially re-released in any form. While neither the Fred Rogers Company nor PBS ever explained why, they were adamant that the episodes never see the light of day again, to the point of withholding them from Twitch's otherwise comprehensive marathon in 2017. Material from them wouldn't surface again until March of that year, when a fan uploaded the first two episodes to YouTube; the full arc would later be uploaded by another netizen on MySpleen and the Internet Archive the following year.
• The Cast Show Off
  • Francois Clemmons only agreed to play Officer Clemmons on the condition that it not interfere with his reputation as a singer, resulting in several singing opportunities of Clemmons on the show. Despite ribbing him about it, Fred Rogers told him that he appreciated Clemmons' having the confidence and self-respect to even ask because it meant he wasn't going going to "kiss [Rogers'] ass."
  • Many of Betty Aberlin's scenes have her showing off both her singing and dancing skills.
  • Mister Rogers himself got to play piano in a few episodes while Joe Negri regularly gets to play guitar.
• Colbert Bump: The popularity of spin-off Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood lead to people re-watching or introducing themselves to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which the show is a spin-off of, depending on whether they had heard of the original series during their childhood. The effect that Daniel Tiger had on the original Mister Rogers series was so huge that Twitch held two marathons of the show and two different movies about the show were produced in response to the show's boom in popularity. In addition, PBS brought back reruns of the show to their Sunday morning schedule, produced new DVDs of the show, and greenlit another Mister Rogers Neighborhood spin-off called Donkey Hodie...which itself caused more interest in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, to the point where reruns were added to the regular PBS Kids channel schedule.
• Contractual Purity:
  • This was reason that Rogers didn't let Betty Aberlin star in Night of the Living Dead (1968), a film by his protégé George A. Romero, who had actually directed a segment for the show. Note that his personal protectiveness did not extent to the film itself; when Romero screened it to his mentor, the sweet, harmless Pennsylvania minister was delighted with his protégé's gory, nihilistic horror film and told Romero it was great fun.
  • Rogers also discouraged François Clemmons from going out to gay bars or being open about his sexuality, although he was personally very affirming of gay people. Clemmons (who's now publicly out) has said in interviews that he doesn't bear any ill will for this or think it diminishes Mr. Rogers' message of acceptance at all; societal attitudes toward homosexuality were very different in The '60s, and being openly gay could have been a serious risk to Clemmons' career or even personal safety. Moreover, it unquestionably would've made the show a target during its more fragile early years (when Fred had to fight for PBS funding to start with!) and might well have put Fred in a position of being forced by pressure to fire Clemmons.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Given how it was Mr. Rogers himself that requested the Conflict episodes be not repeated again (well, depending on what your source of information is; there has never been any straight answer given by the company), one wonders if Fred suddenly regretted writing and filming it the way he did, or realizing if the episodes could be taken out of context, only after production for the week's episodes wrapped.
  • Likewise, Rogers expressed regret for selling off the rights to some of his older songs in several interviews.
• The Danza: Rogers was, by all indications, really fond of this trope. Examples include Bob Trow as Robert Troll and Bob Dog, Joe Negri as Handyman Negri, Keith David as Keith the Handyman, Don Brockett as Chef Brockett, Audrey Roth as Audrey Paulifficate, Maggie Stewart as Mayor Maggie, Betty Aberlin as Lady Aberlin....
  • One episode reveals Mr. McFeely's first name as David, which is the first name of the actor playing Mr. McFeely, David Newell. Similarly, when Mrs. McFeely became an onscreen character in 1972, she was given the first name Betsy, which is the first name of the actress who plays her, Betsy Nadas.
    • A bit of a sideways one, Fred Rogers' middle name was McFeely. (It was his mother's maiden name.)
• Edited for Syndication: When the episodes from the first run (1968-1976) were rerun after their initial air dates, a new stinger was added to the end of each of them signifying what episode code number they were and thanking any new sponsors that were originally not around during their first airings. Many of the episodes have also gone through several Vanity Plates throughout their run; for example, early color episodes originally had the NET vanity plate, but they now have the 1970 PBS logo^note  except for when Episode 1101 reran on PBS in 2018, when it had no logo at all at the end and just cut to some promos. Likewise, almost all the episodes from the early 70s to 1979 still have the 1989 PBS logo from past reruns, and most of the episodes from 1979 onward having the 1999 PBS Kids logos, except a few episodes which have the 1993 and 1996 PBS Kids idents.
  • For the 2018 rebroadcasts, episodes were fitted with borders, in order to account for PBS's aspect ratio having changed since the show went off the air. For a time, though, some stations have cropped the image for broadcast by zooming in.
• Fanwork Ban: It's surprisingly common for online videos based on this show to be taken down by Fred Rogers Productions. This has been happening since at least the late 2000's, when the company was still known as Family Communications.
• He Also Did:
  • Michael Keaton and George A. Romero both had behind-the-scenes jobs on the show early in their careers. Tom Savini did the makeup on Christmastime with Mr. Rogers.
  • Rogers himself had one acting role that wasn't As Himself: Reverend Thomas in an episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. He was a big fan of the show so he was invited to appear.
  • Rogers put Neighborhood on hiatus in 1976 so he could work on some projects for an older audience, including Old Friends... New Friends, an interview show that ran for two years on PBS.
• In Memoriam:
  • Episode 1610 ("Josephine the Short-Necked Giraffe") features a dedication to John Reardon, who passed away in April 1988.
  • Episodes 1711 through 1715 ("Mister Rogers Talks about Sharing") are dedicated to longtime musical director Johnny Costa:
    Family Communications Inc.
    dedicates this week
    of programs to
    John Costa
    who shared his friendship
    and musical genius with
    us for many years
  • The last episodes recorded by Bob Trow (who played himself, Robert Troll, Bob Dog, AND Harriet Elizabeth Cow) and "Chef" Don Brockett before their deaths were dedicated to their memories; Brockett's last episode was Episode 1686 in August 1995 and Trow's last episode was Episode 1740 in February 1999.
  • Episode 1605 featured a dedication to Margaret B. McFarland, a child psychologist and one of the psychological consultants on the show until her death in September 1988 at the age of 83.
• Inspiration for the Work: Fred Rogers decided to devote himself to gentler television planning after he turned on a TV for the first time and saw a Pie in the Face segment, which disgusted him with how violent it was.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Joe Negri freely admitted that he wasn't very handy in Real Life. Rogers told him not to worry, since it was the Neighborhood of Make Believe, so he was just pretending to be a handyman.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The "Conflict" episodes have effectively fallen into this, with the only surviving copies being YouTube postings of old VHS recordings. In fact, they weren't even shown for the 2017 Twitch marathon, which further cements them into this category. Four more random episodes from various weeks were also skipped in the Twitch marathon, though presumably because of either wiping ^note The practice of taping over a show or the masters simply no longer existing for any other reason.
  • Heck, nearly every episode before the second run (so anything before 1979) was pretty much in this category until the Twitch marathon, presumably because the first run phased out due to the second run still ongoing on PBS at the time, leaving less room for the first run. Only a very small number of episodes were possible to watch via Amazon Prime from the first run, and most of them were simply "highlight" episodes such as the death of the goldfish. The black and white episodes took the cake, however, as the last time they had ever been seen on television was on August 21, 1970. Aside from the first week of shows which was also available on Amazon Prime, the Neighborhood Archive was the only place to see any snippets, and they were limited to screenshots. It was known that the episodes did exist in an archive safe and sound, but the fact that they hadn't been viewable by the public for that long is still something quite remarkable. Thank goodness for the Twitch stream, or they may have never found a good home.
  • Also, due to the show's No Export for You status outside the US, this is how people from outside the US got to sample episodes of the show prior to the official Twitch stream after hearing about it from various sources.
  • Rogers was one of the few public figures to actively encourage this practice, going so far as to testify on behalf of VCR technology in legal proceedings regarding the question of recording copyrighted broadcasts, stating, "I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important."
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Since the show was never aired outside the U.S., many of the characters from this series first made their debuts in the spin-off series Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (for many countries in Europe and Asia) and Donkey Hodie (for Australia and Spain so far).
• The Merch: Largely averted for the sake of personal and artistic integrity, though a few tie-in books, music albums, and plush toys of Daniel Striped Tiger were made.
• Missing Episode:
  • "Conflict", aired in 1983, concerned the Land of Make-Believe going into a panic after King Friday becomes convinced that Corny the Beaver is building a nuclear arsenal. At the time, this was a very relevant plot; after all, it was The '80s, one of the most tense periods of the Cold War (not to mention the fact that The Day After had aired a few months prior). The five episodes from this week last aired the week of April 1-5, 1996, partially due to controversy and partially due to not being quite as current anymore.
  • While not as well-known as the Conflict episodes, a few weeks of the early color episodes were also removed from the rotation early on (before the first run was phased out entirely by 1995). These include 1036-1040, 1051-1055, 1056-1060, and 1071-1075. The actual reasons for these being removed are not officially known (some suspect that they simply never got around to rerunning these after some time); but there has been some speculation, such as how 1071-1075 features Bob Dog having a cage put over his head to prevent bad behavior. Again, though, none of it has been confirmed.
  • Sadly, this status holds true for the lesser-known predecessors The Children's Corner (which aired on WQED in 1954-61) and Misterogers (which aired on CBC in 1961-64, then on commercial Pittsburgh station WTAE in 1964-66, then on the Eastern Educational Network in 1966-68 as Misterogers' Neighborhood). The Neighborhood Archive has so far only documented two episodes of The Children's Corner and one episode of the EEN run, although plot summaries of all the CBC/WTAE/EEN episodes are known. Four episodes from the CBC run are held at the Paley Center for Media in New York and Los Angeles and the three documented episodes seem to be in circulation if the screenshots are any indication.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: Heeded this aphorism, both to make his show more intimate, and because kids and animals are notoriously unreliable. Although once can argue that he learnt this through experience- since he did have animals and kids on earlier episodes of the show (one episode has a group of preschool kids visit his studio. Another episode featured Robert Trow's basset hound. While they went fine, it was clear that Mr. Rogers had to constantly improvise in those episodes to keep them going). There was the occasional exception, however; an entire week during the 80s was centered on pets and even had him keeping after Bob Trow's golden retriever Barney over the course of two episodes, and episode 1507 involved him visiting a group of kids to play some games with at the start of the episode (though here, it was clear they had been given much more direction than in the past, since they overall seemed more controlled and reserved).
• No Export for You: Oddly enough, despite being wildly popular in his native U.S., the show was never broadcast or even released on home media outside of America, though many Canadians were able to watch the show due to the widespread availability of PBS on cable. However knowledge of the show was exported by expatriates and through Pop-Cultural Osmosis via references by shows that do get exported.^note The scene with the TV showing an episode of Mister Rogers in Short Circuit 2, which was important that it kickstarted one of the B-Plots of the movie, was actually shown uncut in cinemas and on TV worldwide. So was David Copperfield's abovementioned magic trick in the Great Wall of China special. However, the closest most people around the world has gotten to see Mister Rogers was most likely the Sesame Street crossover and the season 2 Arthur crossover. The Twitch marathon stream was practically the first time anyone outside the US and Canada officially got to watch the show.
• The Pete Best: On his first show, The Children's Corner, which debuted on local Pittsburgh TV in 1954, Rogers was more of a behind-the-scenes guy whose main role was performing the show's puppets, while an actress/comedian/singer named Josie Carey was the host. Carey did various other local children's shows in Pennsylvania and South Carolina after The Children's Corner ended in 1961. A few of the songs she wrote with Rogers ended up getting used in the early years of Neighborhood, most notably the closing song "Tomorrow".
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • One oft-repeated myth is that Fred Rogers was a sniper in the Korean War who scored over 150 confirmed kills, and the reason he always wore long-sleeved shirts was to hide the arm tattoos he got in the military. Where this idea came from is anyone's guess^note Though one theory is that it originated from somebody getting Rogers confused with fellow PBS nice guy Bob Ross, who was an Air Force master sergeant, and other details were added as the false claim spread, but Rogers never served in any branch of the US Armed Forces and he wore long sleeves to maintain an air of quasi-formality with the children in his audience.
  • There is also a frequently-repeated though completely uncited story about his car getting stolen and being returned when the thieves learned whose car it was with an apology note attached to it. While certainly a heartwarming story, its validity has never been confirmed.
  • For one actually related to the show, the "Conflict" episodes are usually said to have been written as a direct response to the TV movie The Day After. This was never verified by any sources and the two things aired way too close to each other for this to be likely in any capacity, given the turn-around time for producing episodes.
• Reality Subtext: Two of Fred Rogers' biggest personal insecurities were being unable to express anger (he had been discouraged from doing so as a child) and being laughed at when he didn't understand something, which are reflected in the songs "What Do You Do With The Mad You Feel?" and "Please Don't Think It's Funny," respectively.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Episode 0022 had Coach Saunders lip-syncing to Chicken Fat, which was written by Meredith Wilson and performed by Robert Preston under commission by JFK. Impressively, they used the long version of the song.
• The Resolution Will Not Be Identified:
  • The last episode was treated like any other, with the understanding that the show would live on in reruns. Mr. Rogers did show some pictures of his neighbors, and he shook hands with Mr. McFeely.
  • Averted, however, with the end of the show's first run. The single week of episodes produced in 1976, though not a Grand Finale by any stretch, still spent a lot of time paying tribute to past episodes and stated numerous times that the older episodes would be reran starting with the following week. This included spending time in the garage showing tapes of and props from past episodes.
• Schedule Slip: An average season would have three to four sets of five episodes (15-20 in total), which would air every three to six months. The most noteworthy example of this trope was when an episode was produced to promote the show's Crossover with Arthur, which showed the creation of said episode. Originally slated to air the same week as this episode in September of 1997, it wound up airing in July of 1999, almost two years later.
• Series Hiatus: The show went on a three-year production hiatus starting from 1976 and lasting through to 1979 before the show was Un-Cancelled. During this period, only repeats were shown of the series proper, but two holiday specials (a Christmas special and a springtime special) were made and aired on PBS.
• Throw It In!:
  • Occasionally the mistakes Fred Rogers found interesting would stay in the final episode. Examples of this are him once messing up at zipping his cardigan (which causes him to mess up the opening song due to his laughter), and another incident where he accidentally got the zipper stuck to his sleeve while throwing the shoes at the start of the show.
  • Also enforced in other areas; some of those who worked on or appeared in the show have stated mistakes would often get left in so that Rogers could get the point across that you won't always do it perfectly when it's your first time. This would especially occur quite often when Mister Rogers volunteered to play a musical instrument, for example.
• Technology Marches On:
  • Surprisingly not quite as prevalent as one would think, even though the show ran for a bit more than thirty years. One easy to spot case, however, is that Picture Picture for all of the show's first run used actual film to show films. Beginning with the second run, however, he used VHS tapes to show them; had the show run any longer, there is no doubt he likely would have been using DVDs in due time.
  • In the episode where Mister Rogers goes out and buys a TV set, one thing that immediately dates the episode (aside from the aesthetic of the TVs quite clearly coming from the 70s) is Fred asking, "Can this TV do color?"
  • One of the final episodes immediately dates itself to the late 90s by having Mister Rogers access the show's website on a bulky desktop computer, as well as treating the internet as something new and extraordinary.
  • The last week of episodes from the show's first run (from 1976) has Mister Rogers going through moments from past episodes by looking through a bunch of old tapes. Back then, the VCR was a fairly new concept to the average consumer and still had yet to reach the US (the machine he was using was likely a player for professional grade tapes like U-matic; the closest thing in familiarity to most people at the time was probably an audio cassette), so as a result he explains how the player works and uses more newcomer-friendly terminology like "tape machine" instead of "VCR" to describe it. Only a few years down the road, the average American family (including kids) would become more than familiar with how VCRs work, firmly planting this episode in the pre-VCR world.
• Un-Cancelled: The series was initially set to end production in 1976, but later got another renewal in 1979 with somewhat of a Retool.
• What Could Have Been:
  • When Sesame Street's Big Bird appeared on the show, Rogers' original script called for his performer, Caroll Spinney, to remove his costume and discuss the inner-workings of the Big Bird puppet. Spinney objected, however, because he didn't believe in ruining the illusion of Big Bird for the children, having been advised not to by Jim Henson. Big Bird ended up appearing as himself in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. As a compromise, the same episode had Rogers donning a giraffe costume and telling the viewers, "When you see big make-believe creatures in parades or in plays or on television, you can know that the people inside are just pretending to be something else."
  • According to Betty Aberlin (yes, THE Lady Aberlin) during the Twitch marathon, Rogers himself didn't originally want to talk about divorce on the show, feeling it was too difficult to talk about with his target audience. However, since Betty was a child of divorcees herself, and due to a number of other parents believing it to be too important a topic to hide even from the young ones, he eventually decided to go for it, which led to the week-long "Divorce" arc. Many agree this worked out for the better (often considered one of the show's most important moments), and it was a case of good timing too since the series was made when the nationwide divorce rate had reached an all-time high.
  • Also according to her, one of the ideas proposed before the show ended was Passing the Torch to Chuck Aber as a potential new show host (which may in part explain his A Day in the Limelight moment somewhat late in the show's run) in a spinoff to keep the show's legacy alive. For reasons unknown, this idea never came to see the light of day.