Doobie Doo
Veteran
He was really difficult to interview
As a man billing himself as everyone's neighbor, Mr. Rogers was in high demand as an interview subject for much of his career. The problem was that he was well-known as one of the toughest interviews in television. Why? He was just too gosh-darned nice.
The friendly and curious demeanor we all saw on the show was in no way an act. Mr. Rogers was just as neighborly and kind offscreen as he was on it. This made him nearly impossible to interview, as he would often steer interviews off course to make an earnest effort to befriend anyone who talked to him. This made it exceptionally difficult to ever get Rogers to open up and talk about himself because he was always way more interested in how his interviewer was doing.
The effect Rogers had on those who interviewed him was profound. Rogers would end interviews by telling people with the utmost sincerity that he'd enjoyed meeting them before giving them a little photo album of the time they'd literally just spent together. Rogers was even known to call up interviewers he'd befriended for years after the fact just to see how they were doing. So yeah, you could interview Mr. Rogers — you just had to be ready to welcome another parent into your life.
Read More: Ways Mr. Rogers was even more amazing than we knew
He was really particular about his weight because...
Mr. Rogers was a man who took exceptional care of himself. He didn't smoke or drink and adhered to a strict vegetarian diet, both for health reasons and because he didn't "want to eat anything that has a mother." In addition to this, Rogers had a fixed regimen of exercise that would be punishing for a young man, let alone a guy in his 60s and 70s, waking up everyday at 5 a.m. to swim for several hours before praying and starting work.
One of the reasons Rogers took such good care of himself is because he had a morning ritual of sorts that involved looking at his bathroom scales, seeing the number 143, and smiling to himself. Mr. Rogers thought 143 was very special because he found a special pattern in it.
As he put it: "It takes one letter to say 'I,' and four letters to say 'love,' and three letters to say 'you.' One hundred and forty-three."
The story goes that Mr. Rogers woke up one morning, saw that his scales registered his weight as 143 pounds and at that moment decided he'd do everything in his power to be reminded of love every morning. He apparently succeeded: the Fred Rogers Center says he kept his weight right on the love-money for his last 30 years gracing our planet.
He (apparently) responded to every piece of fan mail he ever received
He (apparently) responded to every piece of fan mail he ever received
Mr. Rogers got a lot of fan mail at the height of his fame, and, like Ringo Starr in that one episode of The Simpsons, he wanted to answer it all. Now, it's often claimed that Mr. Rogers answered every piece of fan mail he ever received, which is a comically outrageous claim. Mr. Rogers must have received tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of letters throughout his lifetime. How could one man possibly answer all that mail? Surely he had other things to do, like washing his extensive sweater collection or making almost 900 episodes of a beloved children's television show.
But here's the thing, it seems that Mr. Rogers may have done just that. We couldn't find even a single anecdotal story of someone claiming to have written to Rogers and not getting a reply. In fact, it seems that Mr. Rogers possibly did answer every letter he ever got in the mail from a fan. Now here's the really crazy part, it's also noted that Rogers' responses to his fans, far from being generic niceties or canned responses as you'd expect from a lesser human, were deeply personal in nature. Rogers would read every letter and email he got intently, writing back to let each fan know know how much their message meant to him because they sent it, going out of his way to make sure they knew he was both proud of them and happy to call them his friend.
While it's probably impossible to prove whether Mr. Rogers actually did answer every piece of fan mail he received, it's entirely fair to say that if anyone could do it, it'd be Fred.
He inadvertently made bold racial statements just by being nice
Francois Clemmons was the kindly black man who played the resident beat cop in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. According to Clemmons he was initially hesitant to take on the role after being approached by Rogers after the latter had heard his impressive vocal range while singing in church, stating: "I grew up in the ghetto. I did not have a positive opinion of police officers. … I really had a hard time putting myself in that role. So I was not excited about being Officer Clemmons at all."
Rogers persisted, and Clemmons eventually relented and accepted his offer, becoming the first African-American man in television history to have a recurring role on a television show. Rogers knew exactly the statement he was making by having a black man in position of power and authority on a show airing in the '60s, treating Clemmons both on and off set the same way he did everyone else: like a friend.
Perhaps the boldest racial statement made by Rogers though was when, in one early episode, he invited Clemmons to soak his feet in his pool alongside his own. This may not sound like a big deal today, but this episode aired in 1969, just five years after the passing of the Civil Rights Act and a time when segregated swimming pools were still very much a thing. Clemmons was moved by the gesture and the symbolism of showing a black man and a white man as equals in a time when such an idea was considered radical to a significant percentage of the population.
Rogers and Clemmons remained friends for life, and Rogers even went as far as revisiting the scene in Clemmons' last episode in 1993. Upon being asked by Clemmons during the episode what he was thinking about all those years ago as they were soaking their feet, Rogers smiled and said, "I was just thinking of all the different ways people say I love you".
He loved zombie movies and helped George A. Romero get his first filming gig
When you think of Mr. Rogers, you might imagine him wearing one of his favorite cardigans on a cozy couch somewhere reading a book. While that might be a fair and realistic scenario, you'd also be right if you pictured him hunkering down to enjoy an amazing zombie flick. That's right, folks — Fred Rogers got down with the undead, and he helped you do the same.
You see, when George A. Romero, the king of zombie films, was just starting out, he had a hard time finding someone willing to give him a chance. That is, of course, until he met Mr. Rogers. Recognizing that this aspiring filmmaker needed some camera experience, he offered him a job on the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood crew (along with other notable names such as Michael Keaton!).
It's one thing to give someone a job, but did Mr. Rogers, the ordained minister, the nicest man not named Bob Ross ever, actually watch any of Romero's gore-work? The answer is, obviously … yes! He watched both Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, actually, and apparently loved them. When Romero asked what Rogers thought of his work, he reportedly said: "It's a lot of fun, George." He did, after all, watch more than one movie, so he must have liked them! Though he did draw the line at letting Romero cast Lady Aberlin in the flicks, since having to explain to the little children why the good Lady just got eaten by zombies might've proven a little difficult.
He didn't shy away from the dark stuff
It's easy to look at zombie movies or violent shows and see the darkness being depicted, but Fred Rogers believed the pain that exists in our lives every day is even more difficult to process. For this reason, he kept it real on his show, despite how much of his target audience couldn't even spell "real." In fact, he believed that it was even more important to equip them early on with the tools they needed to navigate life's most treacherous moments.
If you watched his show, you might recall that he covered a wide-range of topics, and many of them involved things that even adults struggle to confront. In one episode of Neighborhood, the prince has gone missing, and people correctly assume that it's because he can't deal with his parents' constant fighting at home. In a story arc that lasts several days, people search for him and, when he is found, a classmate tells him that he had been scared the prince was dead.
You know why that's important, that the prince disappeared because of real reasons and not "evil dragon" ones? Because kids at home probably wondered the same thing when Mr. Rogers and his friends couldn't find the prince. Instead of skirting around the issue, he faced it head on, as he did with many issues on his program, showing children that they can learn to cope with difficult emotions like fear, shame, and anger. He understood that kids might be innocent, but they still needed to understand how to live in the real world. He taught them to be open, brave, and resilient while owning their feelings, which was something they could carry with them for the rest of their lives. It wasn't all sweaters and fish-feeding, you know.
He invited the Wicked Witch onto his show just so kids wouldn't be scared of her
Mr. Rogers wrote or had a hand in writing nearly every one of the 895 episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood he was in. As it would be impossible for even a man as dedicated as Rogers to maintain that kind of creative output, many episodes were inspired by prompts or ideas from friends, fans, or sometimes simply things Rogers observed during his day-to-day habit of being the nicest man in the entire world.
One of the more adorable examples of this is the time David Newell (who played Mr. McFeely on the show as well as acting as an associate producer) mentioned that a lot of children were terrified of Margaret Hamilton, specifically her character The Wicked Witch of the West. Newell proposed maybe bringing her onto the show so kids could see she wasn't an evil witch who'd melt if you spilled a tumbler of water on her.
Rogers loved the idea and immediately reached out to Hamilton, asking if she'd like to appear on his show to talk about being misunderstood and to explain to children that the Wicked Witch was just a character she played in a movie to his younger fans. Hamilton accepted the offer without a moment's hesitation and even donned her old costume one last time because who wouldn't want to hang out with Mr. Rogers while dressed as a cool witch?
As a man billing himself as everyone's neighbor, Mr. Rogers was in high demand as an interview subject for much of his career. The problem was that he was well-known as one of the toughest interviews in television. Why? He was just too gosh-darned nice.
The friendly and curious demeanor we all saw on the show was in no way an act. Mr. Rogers was just as neighborly and kind offscreen as he was on it. This made him nearly impossible to interview, as he would often steer interviews off course to make an earnest effort to befriend anyone who talked to him. This made it exceptionally difficult to ever get Rogers to open up and talk about himself because he was always way more interested in how his interviewer was doing.
The effect Rogers had on those who interviewed him was profound. Rogers would end interviews by telling people with the utmost sincerity that he'd enjoyed meeting them before giving them a little photo album of the time they'd literally just spent together. Rogers was even known to call up interviewers he'd befriended for years after the fact just to see how they were doing. So yeah, you could interview Mr. Rogers — you just had to be ready to welcome another parent into your life.
Read More: Ways Mr. Rogers was even more amazing than we knew
He was really particular about his weight because...
Mr. Rogers was a man who took exceptional care of himself. He didn't smoke or drink and adhered to a strict vegetarian diet, both for health reasons and because he didn't "want to eat anything that has a mother." In addition to this, Rogers had a fixed regimen of exercise that would be punishing for a young man, let alone a guy in his 60s and 70s, waking up everyday at 5 a.m. to swim for several hours before praying and starting work.
One of the reasons Rogers took such good care of himself is because he had a morning ritual of sorts that involved looking at his bathroom scales, seeing the number 143, and smiling to himself. Mr. Rogers thought 143 was very special because he found a special pattern in it.
As he put it: "It takes one letter to say 'I,' and four letters to say 'love,' and three letters to say 'you.' One hundred and forty-three."
The story goes that Mr. Rogers woke up one morning, saw that his scales registered his weight as 143 pounds and at that moment decided he'd do everything in his power to be reminded of love every morning. He apparently succeeded: the Fred Rogers Center says he kept his weight right on the love-money for his last 30 years gracing our planet.
He (apparently) responded to every piece of fan mail he ever received
He (apparently) responded to every piece of fan mail he ever received
Mr. Rogers got a lot of fan mail at the height of his fame, and, like Ringo Starr in that one episode of The Simpsons, he wanted to answer it all. Now, it's often claimed that Mr. Rogers answered every piece of fan mail he ever received, which is a comically outrageous claim. Mr. Rogers must have received tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of letters throughout his lifetime. How could one man possibly answer all that mail? Surely he had other things to do, like washing his extensive sweater collection or making almost 900 episodes of a beloved children's television show.
But here's the thing, it seems that Mr. Rogers may have done just that. We couldn't find even a single anecdotal story of someone claiming to have written to Rogers and not getting a reply. In fact, it seems that Mr. Rogers possibly did answer every letter he ever got in the mail from a fan. Now here's the really crazy part, it's also noted that Rogers' responses to his fans, far from being generic niceties or canned responses as you'd expect from a lesser human, were deeply personal in nature. Rogers would read every letter and email he got intently, writing back to let each fan know know how much their message meant to him because they sent it, going out of his way to make sure they knew he was both proud of them and happy to call them his friend.
While it's probably impossible to prove whether Mr. Rogers actually did answer every piece of fan mail he received, it's entirely fair to say that if anyone could do it, it'd be Fred.
He inadvertently made bold racial statements just by being nice
Francois Clemmons was the kindly black man who played the resident beat cop in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. According to Clemmons he was initially hesitant to take on the role after being approached by Rogers after the latter had heard his impressive vocal range while singing in church, stating: "I grew up in the ghetto. I did not have a positive opinion of police officers. … I really had a hard time putting myself in that role. So I was not excited about being Officer Clemmons at all."
Rogers persisted, and Clemmons eventually relented and accepted his offer, becoming the first African-American man in television history to have a recurring role on a television show. Rogers knew exactly the statement he was making by having a black man in position of power and authority on a show airing in the '60s, treating Clemmons both on and off set the same way he did everyone else: like a friend.
Perhaps the boldest racial statement made by Rogers though was when, in one early episode, he invited Clemmons to soak his feet in his pool alongside his own. This may not sound like a big deal today, but this episode aired in 1969, just five years after the passing of the Civil Rights Act and a time when segregated swimming pools were still very much a thing. Clemmons was moved by the gesture and the symbolism of showing a black man and a white man as equals in a time when such an idea was considered radical to a significant percentage of the population.
Rogers and Clemmons remained friends for life, and Rogers even went as far as revisiting the scene in Clemmons' last episode in 1993. Upon being asked by Clemmons during the episode what he was thinking about all those years ago as they were soaking their feet, Rogers smiled and said, "I was just thinking of all the different ways people say I love you".
He loved zombie movies and helped George A. Romero get his first filming gig
When you think of Mr. Rogers, you might imagine him wearing one of his favorite cardigans on a cozy couch somewhere reading a book. While that might be a fair and realistic scenario, you'd also be right if you pictured him hunkering down to enjoy an amazing zombie flick. That's right, folks — Fred Rogers got down with the undead, and he helped you do the same.
You see, when George A. Romero, the king of zombie films, was just starting out, he had a hard time finding someone willing to give him a chance. That is, of course, until he met Mr. Rogers. Recognizing that this aspiring filmmaker needed some camera experience, he offered him a job on the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood crew (along with other notable names such as Michael Keaton!).
It's one thing to give someone a job, but did Mr. Rogers, the ordained minister, the nicest man not named Bob Ross ever, actually watch any of Romero's gore-work? The answer is, obviously … yes! He watched both Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, actually, and apparently loved them. When Romero asked what Rogers thought of his work, he reportedly said: "It's a lot of fun, George." He did, after all, watch more than one movie, so he must have liked them! Though he did draw the line at letting Romero cast Lady Aberlin in the flicks, since having to explain to the little children why the good Lady just got eaten by zombies might've proven a little difficult.
He didn't shy away from the dark stuff
It's easy to look at zombie movies or violent shows and see the darkness being depicted, but Fred Rogers believed the pain that exists in our lives every day is even more difficult to process. For this reason, he kept it real on his show, despite how much of his target audience couldn't even spell "real." In fact, he believed that it was even more important to equip them early on with the tools they needed to navigate life's most treacherous moments.
If you watched his show, you might recall that he covered a wide-range of topics, and many of them involved things that even adults struggle to confront. In one episode of Neighborhood, the prince has gone missing, and people correctly assume that it's because he can't deal with his parents' constant fighting at home. In a story arc that lasts several days, people search for him and, when he is found, a classmate tells him that he had been scared the prince was dead.
You know why that's important, that the prince disappeared because of real reasons and not "evil dragon" ones? Because kids at home probably wondered the same thing when Mr. Rogers and his friends couldn't find the prince. Instead of skirting around the issue, he faced it head on, as he did with many issues on his program, showing children that they can learn to cope with difficult emotions like fear, shame, and anger. He understood that kids might be innocent, but they still needed to understand how to live in the real world. He taught them to be open, brave, and resilient while owning their feelings, which was something they could carry with them for the rest of their lives. It wasn't all sweaters and fish-feeding, you know.
He invited the Wicked Witch onto his show just so kids wouldn't be scared of her
Mr. Rogers wrote or had a hand in writing nearly every one of the 895 episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood he was in. As it would be impossible for even a man as dedicated as Rogers to maintain that kind of creative output, many episodes were inspired by prompts or ideas from friends, fans, or sometimes simply things Rogers observed during his day-to-day habit of being the nicest man in the entire world.
One of the more adorable examples of this is the time David Newell (who played Mr. McFeely on the show as well as acting as an associate producer) mentioned that a lot of children were terrified of Margaret Hamilton, specifically her character The Wicked Witch of the West. Newell proposed maybe bringing her onto the show so kids could see she wasn't an evil witch who'd melt if you spilled a tumbler of water on her.
Rogers loved the idea and immediately reached out to Hamilton, asking if she'd like to appear on his show to talk about being misunderstood and to explain to children that the Wicked Witch was just a character she played in a movie to his younger fans. Hamilton accepted the offer without a moment's hesitation and even donned her old costume one last time because who wouldn't want to hang out with Mr. Rogers while dressed as a cool witch?
or is that just a rumor?
what is the context of this?
