For once, Mr. Rogers won’t see you next time

Published 9:00 pm Friday, August 31, 2001

The Washington Post and the boston Globe

Bye, neighbor.

After Lady Elaine awarded everybody first place in an arts contest in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, and the Trolley rang its bell and rolled around the corner, Fred Rogers looked at the camera and said in that voice of unconditional love that could sound more sincere than one’s own parents: "I like being your television neighbor. It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive."

Then Mister Rogers hung up his cardigan and said goodbye to the Neighborhood for the last time Friday in one of the most striking final episodes of a beloved television series in recent years.

But there was no acknowledgement at all that this was the last new installment in the pathbreaking children’s show, the 33-year-old longest-running program on public television.

Everything was exactly as it always was, and always will be. "Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood" passed seamlessly into the ever-everland of reruns.

"I hope that children for years and years to come will be able to be nourished by them," Rogers, 73, said Thursday in a telephone interview from his home on Nantucket.

So it wasn’t a sad day in the Neighborhood.

With his trademark cardigan, blue sneakers, molasses-slow cadence, and unabashedly corny songs, only Mister Rogers would have thought of using the passing of a goldfish to help children explore feelings about death, or have a character dressed in evening clothes sing, "We’re coming back, we’re coming back," to explain that parents really will return after leaving a babysitter in charge.

Rogers always stuck out on TV, always seemed like a visitor from another era, but never more so than today, when the hot kids’ shows are loud, fast-paced cartoons like "Pokemon," "Rugrats" and "Powerpuff Girls." By contrast, Rogers took his young viewers on trips to zoos, farms, or factories where toothpaste and soup are made; staged old-fashioned puppet shows in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe; hosted visits from the likes of cellist Yo-Yo Ma and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (the arts are losing one of their few advocates on TV); or just fed his fish.

At the deep core of the show, though, were Rogers’ quietly conversational lessons in building self-esteem, expressing one’s emotions, and dealing with the whole gamut of childhood experience: happiness, loneliness, hurt feelings, a new sibling, gender differences, adoption, shyness, disability, resolving conflict without violence, going to the doctor, going to school.

Former kids remember what a refuge and a horizon the Neighborhood was for them. And parents took the time to say thanks for all the lessons they learned about raising children from this preternaturally benign ordained Presbyterian minister with a talent for puppetry and piano.

Peggy Charren, the founder of Action for Children’s Television, was in the kitchen when she first encountered "Mister Rogers." Her younger daughter Claudia, then 4, was watching television in 1968, and Mom heard this man on the air singing about how everybody looks different and how that’s OK. Friday, Charren remembered having thought, "For Pete’s sake, they’ve got a singing psychiatrist on public television."

About a year later, Claudia turned on "Mister Rogers" and exclaimed to the screen: "Mister Rogers, Mister Rogers, I started school today."

"She was smart enough to know he’s probably the only character on television who’s interested in the fact she started school," said Charren.

Rogers opened each show by coming through a door with a smile and, while changing into his sweater and sneakers, would sing: "It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood … Would you be mine, could you be mine, won’t you be my neighbor?" Then he offered a heartfelt greeting: "Hi, neighbor. I’m glad we’re together again."

And Mister Rogers closed Friday’s episode with the same promise he’s always made, the one countless children have depended on: "See you next time."