0:00

Hey everyone, it's Carvel and before

0:02

we get into this episode, I want to ask

0:04

you a favor. Throughout this

0:06

series, we've talked a lot about how Fred Rogers

0:09

has helped show us how to make the world a

0:11

kinder place, a better place. But

0:13

now we want to hear from you.

0:15

We want to hear a story about when

0:18

someone in your life showed

0:20

you what it means to be

0:22

a helper. Maybe it's someone in your

0:24

family, or someone in your community, or

0:26

someone that you haven't seen since you were a kid,

0:28

but that you still think about something they

0:31

did to help you. Whoever they are, wherever

0:33

they are, however they're helping, we want

0:35

to hear about it. So give us a call at

0:37

three three six five one five zero

0:40

five to nine. Again, that's three three six

0:43

five one five zero five

0:45

to nine, and tell us a story about

0:47

someone who has shown you how to be a helper

0:50

and we might just play it on an upcoming

0:52

episode. Again that number is three

0:54

three six five one five zero

0:57

five two nine, or you can tweet

0:59

you're still with the hashtag finding Fred.

1:02

Okay, now let's start the show. Here's

1:05

a question. Did Fred

1:08

Rogers do enough

1:12

by he had lived

1:15

and breathed children's television for

1:17

more than twenty years. He had

1:19

found kid friendly ways to cover death

1:21

and assassination and segregation,

1:24

but also haircuts and doctors

1:26

visits and moving to a new home. And

1:29

he felt like he'd done enough. He

1:32

felt that he created a library of television

1:34

visits that covered everything a child

1:36

needed to know about growing up.

1:39

So Mr Rogers decided

1:42

he was done.

1:46

In a week of episodes slated to be his last,

1:49

Mr Rogers takes us out to his garage,

1:52

where he shows us a big cabinet filled

1:54

with dozens and dozens of VHS

1:57

tapes, all neatly lined up in rows.

2:00

See those are all different visits,

2:03

television visits that we have on tape.

2:08

Share this

2:10

one Justice. He is about to pop one

2:12

of these tapes into the VCR. Mr

2:15

McFeeley stops by and the two

2:17

get to talking about how McFeeley has

2:19

changed since his earliest visits to the

2:21

neighborhood. I remember the

2:23

days when it was very, very hard

2:25

for you to sit still, Mr McFeeley. Well,

2:28

I used to talk louder then, and talk faster.

2:30

I'll show you a tape on that machine

2:32

over there, and see if you remember that

2:35

visit. I'd like to see that visit. You know, my

2:37

video tape machine over here, see

2:41

if you remember this time

2:44

when you came to

2:47

visit me already. Fred

2:49

plays the tape and the two watch what is

2:52

essentially a rerun of a Mr. Rogers

2:54

neighborhood segment from a few years before. Then,

2:57

Fred explains, we'll be seeing a lot

2:59

of reruns from now on. Well,

3:02

next week we'll start to show all

3:04

of these visits so everybody

3:06

can see them the whole way through. Well, I'll

3:09

look forward to that. And with that Mr

3:11

Rogers signed off. I'm

3:14

Carvela Wallace and this is Finding Fred,

3:17

a podcast about Fred Rogers from I Heart

3:19

Media and Fatherly in partnership

3:21

with Transmitter Media.

3:33

Fred Rogers felt like he'd done enough.

3:36

He created an encyclopedia of

3:38

programs that anticipated the questions

3:40

and anxieties that children have as

3:42

they grow and learn, like,

3:45

for instance, getting poked and prodded or

3:47

stuck with a needle. Over the years,

3:50

Fred had made several visits to optometrists

3:52

Barbour's Doctors. Producer

3:54

Arthur Greenwald worked with Fred in a series

3:57

of episodes about going to the hospital. You

3:59

had a long time interest in how

4:02

children are frightened or overwhelmed

4:04

by hospitalization. You

4:07

know, I was really struck by There was this

4:09

moment where he was talking about X rays.

4:11

He was talking with the physician about X rays, and the physician

4:14

was explaining, well, even we can see your bones,

4:16

And then Fred said, I know some children who

4:18

will wonder if if you can see

4:21

my bones, can you X ray my head and see

4:23

my thoughts? If you can see

4:25

the inside of a hand with X ray,

4:28

could you see the inside of somebody's

4:30

head and know what that person is thinking? No,

4:33

uh, the X ray picture won't show

4:36

thoughts, feelings. Those

4:38

are things that we really can't see

4:40

a touch. Our thoughts are

4:42

very own, all right, Thoughts are our

4:44

own. That's good to know. When

4:47

I watched that, I laughed out loud because

4:49

he was a grown man, and

4:52

but it wasn't like silly. It was like kind

4:54

of phenomenal and magical that he

4:56

was able to capture a very specific,

4:59

very clear thought of a child. That was important.

5:01

And of course some people look at you like you're

5:03

insane, But who

5:06

said anything about an X ray seeing my thoughts

5:09

and feelings? But by God,

5:11

that is exactly what a preschool was

5:13

thinking. Fred was always

5:15

working to eliminate misunderstandings,

5:18

and that was a real gift for television audience

5:20

of toddlers who weren't necessarily used

5:22

to being seen and heard and responded

5:25

to. But this kind of deep

5:28

focused listening made adults

5:30

uncomfortable because they're socially

5:32

just not used to people paying

5:35

attention to their every word, and

5:37

so a lot of the things will casually say

5:39

as a passing joke, Fred

5:41

would pause an interpret it out loud,

5:44

which would be either illuminating or

5:46

embarrassing, depending on you know, how

5:49

comfortable you are with that sort of conversation.

5:52

It seems like Fred was betting on most people

5:54

being comfortable with that kind of thing, because

5:56

when he left Mr Rogers Neighborhood, he

5:59

set out to make a new television

6:01

program for adults. He

6:04

developed a new show with PBS called

6:06

Old Friends, New Friends. It

6:09

featured Fred talking with other adults

6:11

about what they're passionate about and

6:13

where their inspiration comes from.

6:16

That's what he was interested in. This

6:18

is TV critic David b. And Cooley. It's

6:20

like, if you're a musician, where

6:22

does the music come from? You know? What

6:26

was it like that made

6:28

you become a musician and

6:31

sort of get to the bottom of what

6:33

what is art and what is an artist.

6:36

The show was documentary style. Fred

6:38

visited different locations around the country. He

6:41

talked to famous and not so famous

6:43

people about their lives and show them

6:45

at work. Pittsburgh baseball legend

6:47

Willie Stargel opened up about resilience.

6:50

Comedian Milton Burrow talked about the rewards

6:52

of fame. Fred visited Robert

6:54

Frost's daughter An NPR hosts

6:56

Susan Stamberg. Old

6:58

Friends, New Friends was conversational,

7:01

warm, and because this

7:03

was still Fred Rogers after all, it

7:06

was slow. Responses

7:09

to the show were mixed. I

7:11

saw them and and I

7:14

loved what he was doing with them,

7:17

but you have to you have to

7:19

be open to it and be interested. Not everybody

7:21

loved it. Fred's biographer Max King

7:24

told me he didn't think it was very good.

7:26

I watched a lot of it. It's not particularly compelling.

7:29

The approach that he brought to children's television

7:32

just didn't translate to adult

7:34

television. Betsy Siemens had

7:36

worked with Fred and Mr Rogers Neighborhood. She

7:39

later helped produce episodes of Old Friends,

7:41

New Friends, the idea that he was going to

7:43

quit doing the neighborhood. I thought, good for you,

7:45

you know, I mean, I I found like people

7:48

move on. I mean I I think

7:54

I think I was aware that it was hard

7:57

for him because

8:00

he had been doing this other work for so

8:03

long, and

8:06

I think, you know, it's hard to just really

8:08

switch gears and work for a completely

8:11

different audience and in a in a really profoundly

8:13

different medium. The show featured

8:16

extreme close ups of people's faces,

8:18

long silent pauses, deep

8:20

reflection on family histories, and

8:23

many of Fred's signature moves, slow

8:25

pacing, intimate production, emphasis,

8:27

and emotions, but these

8:30

didn't necessarily translate for

8:32

most grown ups. Fred's

8:34

show was illuminating, but many

8:36

viewers found the intimacy embarrassing

8:39

or even worse on TV boring.

8:43

One New York Times critic wrote that for

8:45

some viewers, This Quiet Man may

8:48

appear to have taken one volume too

8:50

many, But I

8:52

watched it the only episode you can

8:54

really find online an interview with concert

8:56

pianist Lauren Hollander, and

8:58

honestly, I found it brilliant.

9:01

The intimacy, the patient's

9:04

Fred's willingness to hover over difficult

9:06

topics, with sometimes difficult people.

9:09

Was transfixing. You're

9:11

the only pianist who

9:13

has ever communicated to me

9:18

the feeling that this

9:21

instrument is a place, that

9:26

it is a country,

9:30

that it's somewhere that

9:32

you go to

9:35

say something. And

9:38

I've felt that today. Were

9:42

Beethoven, the throws

9:45

of his deafness kept

9:47

a little chimberpot under the keyboard,

9:51

and he used to keep his head pressed here

9:53

against the wood. He

9:57

could not leave the instrument long enough to take care

9:59

of his needs. And

10:02

we who grew up here know that

10:06

it's an answer, because

10:09

there's a way of dealing with that incredibly

10:12

complex reality. When

10:16

I heard that, it occurred to me

10:19

that maybe that is the case

10:21

for Fred too, that he

10:23

was like Beethoven or Lauren

10:25

Hollander, and that in a sense, the

10:28

precision and love and kindness

10:30

of Mr rogers neighborhood was

10:33

his place, his country

10:36

where he could deal with the incredibly

10:38

complex reality. And

10:42

he got to go back there when he returned

10:44

to Mr Rogers neighborhood. More

10:48

than that, after a break in,

11:05

Fred Rogers wrote himself a note. It's

11:08

typed neatly on a piece of yellow legal

11:10

paper, the kind Fred used for early

11:13

drafts of his scripts. Am

11:15

I kidding myself that I am able to

11:17

write his script again? He wrote? Why

11:20

don't I trust myself? He

11:23

continues, after all

11:25

these years, it's just as bad

11:27

as ever. Oh well,

11:30

the hour cometh and now is when

11:32

I've got to do it. Get to it, Fred.

11:36

Just a few weeks prior, a

11:39

four year old boy named Charles Green

11:41

died after jumping from his grandmother's

11:43

seventh story apartment in Brooklyn. His

11:46

mother told reporters he'd been trying

11:48

to fly like Superman. Fred

11:52

Rogers had already started working on a new episode

11:54

to The Neighborhood Program, but he was shaken

11:57

by the story of little Charles Green, the

11:59

kid trying desperately to be like

12:01

a hero he saw on screen. When

12:05

Fred left The Neighborhood Program five years

12:07

earlier, he thought he'd said everything

12:10

there was to say, But the world

12:12

itself had changed. Daycare

12:15

was now a widespread and normal thing, but

12:17

clearly a terrifying thing to a toddler,

12:20

and what to say to kids about divorce as

12:22

it became more and more prevalent. Television

12:24

itself had evolved, had become

12:26

a never silent fixture in every

12:28

home, and there were more channels and programs

12:31

spraying all sorts of violence and

12:33

fantasy at children. So

12:36

Fred did what he knew how to

12:38

do best. Remember

12:41

when I was a boy, I

12:43

used to take a sweater and

12:45

put it around my

12:48

my shoulders like that, hold

12:51

the arms out like that, and pretend that I was

12:53

flying. Yeah, let's go

12:55

out here. I'll show you what. Had

13:00

a couple of steps there at the porch, and I

13:02

would girl like this. But

13:06

of course I never took off. Because

13:10

only birds and bats and bugs

13:13

can fly. People

13:16

can't. Only

13:18

birds and bats and bugs

13:21

can fly. I want to sing that with

13:23

me. Only birds and bats

13:26

and bugs can fly. Sometimes

13:30

I wish I could fly, but

13:34

only birds and bats

13:37

and bugs and

13:40

fly. Fred

13:43

made an entire week of programming about

13:45

how superheroes aren't real. He

13:47

even visited the Universal Studio sound

13:49

stage where The Incredible Hulk was filmed,

13:52

and he showed the star looferign no putting

13:54

on and taking off his costume. That's

13:58

all part of his work, all part. And

14:02

here's the special solution that takes the green

14:04

makeup off. I

14:06

like seeing the makeup coming off just as

14:08

well as going on. But I was glad to show

14:11

my television friends that because

14:13

it's important to realize that

14:15

people just don't change shape

14:17

and change color. That's all

14:19

just sort of movie business, isn't

14:22

it. It's it's just makeup pretend. Of

14:24

course, you

14:27

remember the note Fred wrote to himself.

14:30

A few weeks later, he added a handwritten

14:32

PS. It wasn't easy,

14:35

but it was good. This I

14:37

must remember. In

14:40

the sixteen years since Fred passed,

14:43

he's been turned into a TV superhero himself,

14:46

someone who was born with extra powers

14:48

of intuition and communication and

14:51

self control and love.

14:54

Fred Rogers wasn't a superhero.

14:57

His biographer told me that Fred himself would

14:59

be horror hid that anybody might think he was

15:01

a saint. But producer

15:03

Margie Whitmer told me that Fred did believe

15:06

that his show mattered. It's hard,

15:09

I think when you when you become famous,

15:12

there's lots of people who tell you how wonderful

15:14

you are. You know, he had lots of followers.

15:16

You tend to believe that you're making a difference.

15:19

The audience was national, even international.

15:22

There were enormous lineups to meet Mr Rogers

15:25

when he did public appearances. He was

15:27

Mr Rogers, but the program

15:29

was bigger than him. I just had

15:31

a letter the other day. It

15:34

was from this woman who said,

15:37

fourteen years ago, I

15:40

had a baby who was sixteen

15:43

months old, and

15:47

I had that baby in the

15:49

backseat of the car, and

15:52

I was in such a terrible

15:54

depression my heart. I

15:57

didn't even know that I had put him

15:59

back there. And she said,

16:01

I was driving along and I saw this truck

16:03

coming and I thought, I'm

16:06

just gonna end it all. I'm just gonna

16:08

go straight into the truck.

16:11

Because she was desperate, and

16:15

she said, I started turning to the left,

16:18

and all of a sudden, I

16:21

heard this little voice singing,

16:24

It's a beautiful day in this And

16:27

she said, I veered my car

16:29

to the right, and

16:32

I thought of life and

16:34

love. And

16:38

now it's fourteen years later, and

16:42

I just need to thank

16:44

you. Well.

16:48

You know, to hear that

16:50

your works can be used

16:53

in such wonderful

16:57

ways

17:00

is a great blessing. When

17:07

I started interviewing people for this project,

17:10

there were two questions. I asked almost

17:12

everyone who knew Fred, did

17:14

you think he did enough? Do

17:17

you think Fred thought he did

17:19

enough? And

17:21

while the responses varied, a lot of people

17:24

told me the same thing, Yes, they

17:26

think Fred did enough, but he

17:29

always wanted to do more. Fred

17:32

returned to the Neighborhood Program in nine.

17:35

The show ran until two thousand one. He

17:37

kept at it almost three times as

17:39

long as his first run, for

17:42

decades and for generations of kids.

17:45

He was a voice of comfort, of

17:47

stability, and of reason.

17:50

He'd made a special episode when Bobby Kennedy

17:52

was assassinated. He'd recorded p S

17:54

A S in the middle of the Gulf War. Fred

17:57

finally retired in two thousand one, after

18:00

nine episodes and thirty

18:03

years on the air. But

18:05

we don't know if Fred ever actually

18:07

felt like he did enough. We

18:11

do know that just a few weeks

18:13

later, planes flew into

18:15

the Twin Towers in New York. When

18:18

nine eleven happened, he

18:22

was so distraught.

18:25

I don't think that I ever really until

18:29

that day, I didn't think

18:33

on a real internal level about his

18:37

mission as saving

18:40

the world. I thought. I

18:42

think I just thought about it in more practical

18:44

terms, we of

18:47

helping people try and do the

18:49

best they can. I

18:51

think it really hit

18:53

home to him when those when

18:55

the Twin Towers got hit that

18:59

he's not the savior.

19:01

He can't save the world. Some

19:04

of Fred's producers including Marty

19:06

Whitmer, convinced him to send

19:08

one final message in

19:12

his office. I went up to get him to come down

19:14

to the studio and

19:17

he was. He was a mess. He

19:19

was said, why am I doing these? These aren't

19:21

going to do any good. I said, you

19:23

have to do them. And I said, Fred, people

19:26

care about you, People listen to

19:28

you. You have got to do these.

19:31

None of us can save the world. We can do the best

19:33

we can do. In

19:39

the p s A Fred recorded after September

19:41

eleven, he repeated his story

19:43

he'd often told about his mother comforting

19:46

him when he was young. She told

19:48

him, notice the people who

19:51

are helping during times of crisis.

19:54

Look for the helpers. She said, there's

19:57

always someone trying to help. Look

20:01

for the helpers. Has become this sort of

20:03

stock meme, one that gets reposted

20:05

all over social media after a catastrophe,

20:08

whether a natural disaster or mass

20:10

shooting. But there's something I

20:12

want you to notice about Fred's final

20:15

message. Listen closely. Who

20:18

is he talking to. I'm

20:21

just so proud of all of you who have

20:23

grown up with us, and

20:25

I know how tough it is some days

20:28

to look with hope and confidence

20:31

on the months and years ahead. But

20:34

I would like to tell you what I often

20:37

told you when you were much younger. I

20:40

like you just the way you are.

20:43

And what's more, I'm so

20:46

grateful to you for helping the

20:48

children in your life to

20:50

know that you'll do everything

20:52

you can to keep them safe

20:56

and to help them express their feelings

20:59

in ways that will bring healing

21:02

in many different neighborhoods. It's

21:05

such a good feeling to know that we're

21:07

lifelong friends. He's

21:12

talking to us, to

21:14

the adults in the room.

21:17

His producer, Betsy Siemens says, this

21:20

is the message of friends that we

21:22

need now. Look for the

21:24

helper. Was advice to

21:26

children, and we are

21:28

not children. And I've

21:30

heard a lot of adults saying, oh well, Fred Rogers

21:33

made me feel so much better because he said look for the

21:35

helpers and no, no, that was advice to children,

21:37

and that was not advice

21:39

to the parent. It's an interesting

21:42

distinction though, between the child

21:44

and the parents and the adult. Uh,

21:47

because the

21:49

harm that comes to many of us in our childhoods.

21:52

I think this is my theory my therapist

21:54

agrees is that is

21:56

that it we get frozen

21:58

in moments in time and we don't ever overcome

22:01

our childhoods in that way, and so we constantly

22:03

have this child in us that is crying

22:06

out for the things that we need as children, crying

22:08

out for safety or for acknowledge,

22:11

manner for because we don't get those things as young people.

22:13

And so I think that that may even

22:16

be we may be experiencing a mass

22:19

level of fact as a country. Maybe it's

22:21

one of my theories. And so when people hear that quote,

22:24

that's the child in them, the unhealed child

22:27

who's still going, oh great, now I know what to do.

22:30

It's it's hard to be an adult, and it's hard

22:32

to be an adult when your

22:34

own child hasn't been raised.

22:38

Absolutely, however, it is the universal

22:40

human condition. It's

22:42

true for all of us, and it was true for him,

22:46

and I still think I know

22:48

that one of the things that was very important

22:50

to him on the program

22:53

was that he always be the adult,

22:55

the adult who can play with children,

22:58

and I mean, he acknowledged all of our inner children

23:01

in his own but he

23:03

also understood that

23:05

there comes a time in life when we also

23:08

have to be the adult. And I

23:11

think that was one of the fine points of

23:13

his work. We're

23:15

the grown ups doing

23:17

what we can. Doing enough doesn't

23:20

mean fixing a tragedy as

23:22

massive as nine eleven, but

23:25

it does mean helping every

23:28

one of us has something essential inside

23:30

of us that we can use to help.

23:34

For Fred, that meant sitting at the bedside

23:36

of a comatose kid, or staying

23:38

on the air for thirty years, helping

23:40

children grow into adults who could help other

23:42

people. What does it mean

23:45

for you? I think

23:48

he drove himself very hard, and I think

23:50

his expectations of himself were extraordinary,

23:53

So I would guess

23:56

that he never thought he did enough. Because

23:59

here's the thing. There

24:01

is no enough, There

24:04

is no finish line. The problems were

24:06

faced with are so big, so

24:08

many, that no one of us can address

24:11

them alone. It's

24:13

not easy to keep trying, but

24:16

it's one good way to grow. It's

24:19

not easy to keep learning, but

24:22

I know that this is so. When

24:25

you've tried and learned, you're

24:27

bigger inside than

24:30

you were a day ago. It's

24:33

not easy to keep trying,

24:36

but it's one way to

24:38

grow. You've got

24:40

to you

24:43

see every little bit,

24:45

You've got to do it, do it,

24:48

do it, do it, and when you're through,

24:51

you can know who

24:53

did it for you. Did it.

24:56

You did it. You

24:58

did it, And

25:01

when you've done something that you wanted

25:03

to do and you've done it well,

25:06

you can get such a good feeling from

25:08

that next

25:16

time. I think it was the first

25:18

time in my life where

25:23

I felt seen by an adult, like

25:27

when he got down to my eye level, introduced

25:29

himself and looked me in the eye. Of course,

25:31

I've had adults introduced themselves to me a million

25:33

times up into that point and asked me what my name was,

25:36

But the way that he looked at me, I

25:41

felt like you saw me. Finding

25:45

Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. The

25:47

team is Dan O'donald, Jordan Bailey, and Maddie

25:50

Foley. Our editor is Sarah Nicks.

25:52

The executive producer for Transmitter Media is

25:54

Greta Cohne. Executive producers

25:56

at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and Andrew

25:58

Berman. Thanks to the team of a I Heart

26:00

Media, Fred Rogers interviewed tape

26:02

courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation

26:04

Interviews. The full interview is available

26:07

at Television Academy dot com

26:09

slash Interviews. Our show is mixed

26:11

by Rick Kwan, music by Blue Dot Sessions

26:13

and Alison Layton Brown. If you like

26:16

what you're hearing, rate the show, review

26:18

the show and tell a friend I'm

26:20

Carvell Wallace. Thanks for listening.