Listening to the latest Tank Riot podcast, about Mister Rogers got me thinking about what I had learnt about him. In New Zealand, I dont think we ever had his show, Mister Rogers Neighbourhood, but I have known about him for a long time through parodies and references on other American shows.
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This podcast is meant to be a very short link to the Tank Riot episode, I hope you decide to download and listen to the Tank Riot Episode about Mister Rogers. I dont have a lot of unique information about the show since I never got to see it myself, I'm hoping that there will be some people listening to this podcast who will learn about what a great person Mister Rogers was, about how relevant his message of peace is to us even in a faraway country thousands of kilometres from being his neighbour.
This was the intro to the show, each episode of Mister Rogers Neighbourhood started with a view of a model town with a "trolley going past, what we might call a Cable Car in New Zealand, before the view settled on Mister Rogers house. Inside Fred Rogers would walk through the door in his suit and formal suit, before taking off the jacket and shoes, to replace them with a zip up jersey knitted by his mother (honestly!), and blue casual shoes as he sung the intro song.
What a nice intro song. Looking on Wikipedia, apparently the song was sung live each and every episode, along with the piano, it was not just recorded once and played back, it was really a live performance being recording by the studio cameras each episode.
Mister Rogers would talk about problems that children faced in their lives, about things that could scare them, and how to express their feelings in a good way. We really could do with more shows like Mister Rogers Neighbourhood, with all the dangerous things in the world today, and the news about the 13 father over in the UK, the mother is 15. The 13 year old boy, he looks about 8, and didnt know what the word "financial" was when asked. The mother, all 15 years of her, she's had over 8 sexual partners who might be the father, the 13 year old boy is presumed to be the father but is to take a DNA test to make sure. Would they be in this situation if they listened to nicer television when they were younger? If they learnt that they were special, that people loved and cared about them, would they do such silly irresponsible things, to fit in, to try and be cool?
Theres a huge number of wonderful stories about Mister Rogers, I'll let you hear them from people who actually grew up with the show, please take the time to download and listen to the Tank Riot podcast episode about Mister Rogers, if you search for " Tank Riot " in iTunes you will find them very easily. Then its a simple as selecting the Mister Rogers episode. They cover things like the PBS funding that Mister Rogers secured, and his defence of the VCR. They also knew about the rumour I heard long ago about his car being stolen, and then returned when the thieves learnt who it belonged to!
Something that wasn't covered in the Tank Riot episode, Mister Rogers was a vegetarian, which is awesome, and he never smoked or drank alcohol. But you really should get Tank Riots hour long episode about Mister Rogers.
Now I'll play a clip of Mister Rogers saying goodbye, its terribly sad.
I'd like to thank the Tank Riot hosts, Viktor, Sputnik and Tor for their great show, it truly is one of my favourite podcasts. I hope the two people listening to my podcast decide to listen to some Tank Riot, my favourites are the Nikola Tesla , Henry Ford and The Worlds Fastest Indian episodes. The World's Fastest Indian is of course about Burt Munro, who is from Invercargill where I live :) A movie starring Anthony Hopkins was made about him, you may have heard about it.
I used the Wikipedia article on Mister Rogers for most of my facts, the two clips I played were the Intro and the final goodbye from Mister Rogers himself. You can find all my sources easily through Google. Again, make sure you download their episode, search in iTunes for " Tank Riot" " T A N K R I O T".
If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.
Have a super happy day, bye.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers
Tank Riot Podcast, Mister Rogers Episode, you can find the podcast itself here, this link will open iTunes
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=84359875 , its easier just to search " tank riot " in iTunes
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