Won't You Be My Neighbor (2018)

When the Youtube personality Adam the Woo visited a museum in Pittsburg to view props from the celebrated children's series Mr. Roger Neighborhood he confessed to getting kind of emotional, I suspect I would have cried. Fred Rogers and his television program meant a lot to multiple generations of kids for whom it was a preschool fixture. Mr. Rogers was uniquely suited to do what he did a the time he did it, with a background in ministry, early television, and child development. Coming in at the birth of public broadcasting Fred spent more then 30 years helping young children navigate their emotional development and deal with issues from anger and loneliness to divorce and death.

The new documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor follows Rogers long career in television from producing early morning children's fair in the early 1950's to living legend status in the early years of the 21st century. You find out a lot of interesting little things in the course of the film, like where Mr. Rogers sweaters came from, the origins for the names of many of the characters on the show, as well as why Daniel Stripped Tiger lived in a clock. Watching as the program tries to help children make sense of tragic events such as the Robert Kennedy assassination and the Challenger explosion can be emotionally devastating viewing. Nine months after his retirement Rogers even came back to the studio to record public service spots to aid children in processing the events of 9/11.

Even in the racially fraught times of the shows early years Rogers had a black policeman character name Officer Clemmons as a regular, they would soak their feet in a kiddie pool together even as segregated swimming facilities were not uncommon in large swaths of the country. The quadriplegic boy Jeffrey Erlanger was brought on the show in his wheelchair to teach children not be afraid of people with disabilities. Yo-yo Ma and Izack Perlman were on the show brining classical music to little kids long before Baby Einstein's. The recently departed Coco the Gorilla was on the show as well, encouraging empathy for animals. What Fred Rogers did, was truly impressive.

There of course have been criticisms, Rogers emphasis on how everyone is special has lead to charges that he promoted narcissism, and reward and recognition without hard work. To approach Mr.Rogers as a liberal stooge would be a mistake, the life long Republican was attempting to communicate the very Christian compatible concept of each persons individual worth in a way that preschool children could understands. The man was an ordained minister and the concept he principally preached was that of empathy, almost a Christ in a cardigan. In all times, but especially in times of great political divisions Mr. Rogers message is an important one, and its hard to think of a film that could be of more value today then Won't You Be My Neighbor? ****