Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Largely through interviews with family, friends and colleagues and through archival footage, a profile of entertainer Fred Rogers, best known for his iconic long-running children's television show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968), is presented. Nearing completion of his seminary studies which he would eventually complete to become an ordained minister, he became interested in the relatively new medium of television in being dismayed by what he considered the cheesiness of children's fare in his interest in not either dismissing children or their feelings. All his shows bucked the trends of the time in their sheer simplicity, especially in their visual design partly out of budget, but more so in his focus on what he wanted to convey. While those messages were borne out his religion and his conservatism, philosophical and political, religion and right-wing politics were not front and center of the message, which were straightforward in addressing what many children were feeling about real world issues. Such adult issues of the day covered included assassination (of Senator Robert F. Kennedy), war (Vietnam), race relations (especially black-white), the Challenger explosion, divorce, and, after the end of the show, 9/11. His philosophy also borne out of his own childhood insecurities in being the proverbial fat kid, the many parodies done of his "Mister Rogers" persona is addressed and if the real Fred Rogers was truly any different than Mister Rogers. Criticism of him and the show are also brought up, such as the homosexual orientation of Francois Scarborough Clemmons, who portrayed Officer Clemmons, coming to light, he who could not officially "come out" as being against the show's overarching messages, and whether his message that every child is special has resulted in an entitled generation. As an epilogue, interviewees muse about what the world would be like today if there were more Fred Rogers, including what he would do in addressing today's world problems if he were still alive.