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• Entertainment extra • 2/13/98 thru 2/19/98
Fred Rogers: a big
career caring for the
little things
By Suzanne Gill
©TYData Features Syndicate
The soft-spoken, cardigan-wear
ing gentleman who likes us all “just
the way we are” is marking his 30th
anniversary as the host and driving
force behind PBS’ Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood in two ways.
First, Fred Rogers has prepared a
new batch of Neighborhood episodes
for his young viewers. The shows, on
the theme of “Giving and Receiving,”
air daily beginning Monday. Feb. 16
(check local listings). In Monday’s
show, Mister Rogers visits author and
illustrator Eric Carle, sends Trolley
to the Neighborhood of Make-
Believe and -of course - feeds his
fish.
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Fred Rogers
Next, Rogers has a message for
adults, too, particularly the press, and
he uses the occasion of a 30th
anniversary press conference to share
his thoughts.
“More than 50 years ago,” Rogers
reads from notes, “Adolf Hitler said,
‘We will train young people before
whom all the world will tremble. I
want young people capable of vio
lence - imperious, relentless, cruel.’ ”
In his customary thoughtful
cadence, Rogers says, “I wonder
what you might have written or
broadcast the day that Hitler said
that.”
Rogers speaks of the 14-year-old
West Paducah, Ky„ boy who fatally
shot three classmates. A few days
before the incident, Rogers says, the
boy had told people, “Something big
is going to happen.” The shooting,
-• Rogers concludes, was his “some
thing big.”
“When I hear that story and others
like it,” Rogers says, “I wonder how
much our society has encouraged
children to idolize the big and the
flashy and the loud.
Series host Fred Rogers marks 30 years on PBS with
five new episodes of Mister Rogers ’ Neighborhood.
The programs, with the theme of “Giving and
Receiving,” air this week on most public television
stations (check local listings).
“There have been and continue to
be (TV) programs which encourage
people to believe that big is best, that
loud is necessary. And that violence
and cruelty are the ways we human
beings must solve our problems.
How do children know that what they
see on television isn’t part of the tra
dition of their family?
“You know, the most holy people
of every tradition have always
encouraged us to celebrate the good,
the simple, the modest, the truthful,
because that’s what lasts forever.
“You and I must encourage the
producers and purveyors of all mass
media to help us raise children who
will, reject violence and cruelty.
Reject it because they have become
aware, at the deepest levels of their
being, that they are lovable. Not
because they’re big and loud and
noisy, but because they’re one of a
kind.”
When asked how it feels to know
that the first generation of his one
of-a-kind viewers is now raising the
second, Rogers replies,
“Wonderful.”
“One of the greatest dividends of
having done a program for so long
(is) that the parents who are now
offering the Neighborhood to their
children have a chance of ... remem
bering what their own childhood was
like,” he says.
Rogers’ concern for his first view
ers - now middle-aged baby boomers
and Generation Xers - is unflagging.
For those longtime “television
friends,” his message is the same:
Celebrate the small and the quiet.
“But how do we celebrate? (By)
being attentive to what is authentic,
mysterious and whole, not seduced
by the announcement that big things
are going to happen,” he says.
“There is so much more in this life
than ever meets the eye,” Rogers
says. “We don’t know why we’re
here today. We think that we’re here
because we have a job to do. Well,
it’s much more than that. Life is a
great mystery.”
Or, perhaps, many small ones.
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