WEBVTT - Invisible to the Eye 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.559 Teething can be a real nightmare for your little ones. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.960 Highlands Naturals Baby oral pain relief tablets can help ease 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:09.119 the pain. It's gentle, natural active ingredients like camemeo and 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.240 arnica suite your baby's mouth, and gums made with ingredients 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.640 derived from plant minerals and other sources free of harsh chemicals. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.319 You can count on Highlands for serious pain relief for 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.079 your teething baby. Highlands is a kinder way to care 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.239 for teething. Visit Highlands dot com slash kind. That's h 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.160 y l a n ds dot com slash kind claims 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:29.840 based on traditional homeopathropractice, not accept the medical evidence, not 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.159 ft evaluated. Our lives are filled with choices. What's not 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.960 a choice addiction to opioids. But even with opioid use disorder, 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.520 you still have a choice. Choose treatment and choose change. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.640 California bond medically proven treatment options at Choose Change see 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:50.680 a dot org. Hi. I'm Abnemone and I'm Ricked Schwartz 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.880 and we're here from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.880 the global conservation organization behind the world Chame of San 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:02.080 Diego Zoo and so far a park and together. We're 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:07.720 excited to announce the podcast Amazing Wildlife. Here incredible stories 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.360 about wildlife and the global efforts to save it as 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.200 we explore the connection between humans, wildlife, and the environment. 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.160 Listen to Amazing Wildlife on the I Heart Radio app, 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:25.600 Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I Yeah, 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.720 we're excited. What I want to do is a long 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.679 distance grandparent podcast, because I grew up with grandparents in 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.240 the home. Head A Shapan was a producer on Mr. 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.240 Rogers Neighborhood. She has a story she likes to tell 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:46.240 about her grandkids. When I babysit for my grandchildren in Chicago, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:52.680 when the phone rings, they both scream out, don't answer it, 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.279 don't answer it. It might be a telemarketer. Don't answer, 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.480 don't answer it might be a telemarketer. With this fervor 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:04.400 and terror almost so, one day, the four and a 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.240 half year old came to me and she said, Grandma, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.919 I never asked this question before, but I really want 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.600 to know what happens if you do answer it and 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:20.000 it's a telemarketer. She said, do the police come. This 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:24.320 is a phenomenal world we live in, and it's very complicated. 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:30.160 To a young child. There's so many things that kids 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.320 just don't understand, and that's why they ask why all 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.440 the time, why the street lights turn red, why water 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.200 goes down the drain, where someone goes when they leave 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:46.160 the room, or whether they will even come back. Kids 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.760 fill that void with wonder, sometimes with magical ideas, and 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.519 sometimes they fill that void with monsters and with fear. 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:01.000 There's a quote from Mr rogers favorite book, The Little Prince. 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:07.320 What is essential is invisible to the eye. Fred spent 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.040 his whole life learning how to see the invisible insides 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:14.160 of children in his audience, learning about that essential thing, 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.800 how kids make sense of the world, how we all 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:22.480 make sense of the world. Fred understood that childhood is 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:27.119 the essence of who we become, and these things that 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.640 we work on in our childhood and the way we 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:39.200 resolve them stay with us through our lives. I'm Carvel 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.840 Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.400 Rogers from I Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership with 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:55.400 Transmitter Media. For years, for centuries, maybe we didn't know 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.880 much about children. They were assumed to be like tiny 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.480 adults who just did some discipline, some training to grow 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.080 up and be well mannered people. But after World War Two, 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.560 a new field of research emerged, child development, and with 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.520 it the revolutionary idea that kids aren't simply blank slates 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:18.279 waiting to be stamped with ideas and personalities. People started 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.719 to understand that kids are constantly sampling the world around 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.440 them and assembling an identity a way of being in 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.520 the world. Because the important question is not so much 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.320 what can we give children onto them, what can we 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:36.000 produce for them? The really important question is what are 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.240 they bringing to us. For more than fifty years, Head 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.040 to Sharepan has worked with the production company founded by 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:46.560 Fred Rogers in Pittsburgh. What's fascinating is that Pittsburgh was 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:52.680 such a hub for understanding early childhood as the beginning 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:57.359 of the journey to adulthood. In the nineteen fifties, the 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.400 University of Pittsburgh was home to pioneering work in field 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.480 of child development. Eric Erickson, who coined the term identity crisis, 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.880 was a professor there. He was among the first psychologists 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.679 to take seriously the inner lives of children. Benjamin Spock 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.279 was also there for much of the twentieth century. His 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.279 book on Children was the second best selling work after 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.880 the Bible. But then there was doctor Margaret McFarland, not 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.200 as well known as the other two, but perhaps the 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.159 most gifted of them all. Ericson himself once said that 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.920 quote she knew more than anyone in this world about 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:37.080 families with young children. It was Margaret McFarland that Fred 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.880 Rogers chose as his mentor. I was a student of 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:46.360 Margaret McFarlane's in grad school, and one thing she would 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:51.360 do was tell stories. She would give us the context 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.000 for things. She would talk about a child who was 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.200 sad because his mother had to go out and he 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:02.080 was left with the babysitter, and he sulked for a 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.320 while and cried. But then what he did was he 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.839 got up into her rocking chair and he took a 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.640 magazine and sat there with it in his hands. It 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.480 was even upside down, but that's what she would do. 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.840 It was as if he needed to recreate her and 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.840 have her with him so that he wouldn't miss her 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:28.720 so much. One of the beauties of Fred's work with 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.800 Margaret is that, and with all of us, is that 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:37.120 she would help us see the things that were beyond 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.120 our eyes. Fred met Dr McFarland in the nineteen fifties, 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.040 he took her graduate level child development classes at the 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.159 University of Pittsburgh. Later, when he was making television, he 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.200 encouraged had to Sherepin to do the same. They were 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.800 taping at night, so it worked out with my schedule. 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:01.120 In the daytime, I was learning this complex our development theory, 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.880 and at night I would come into the control room 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:09.360 and I would see Fred live out all the things 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.560 I was learning about. How do you help children with aggression? 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:14.679 What do you do with the mad that you feel? 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.880 Ritual transitions? He says, we are going to go now 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.440 into it's time for the neighbor to make but he 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:28.440 led us to the next step, separation. Separation anxiety was 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.640 a kind of recurring theme on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Fred 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.440 found all sorts of ways to talk with kids about 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:43.960 that scariest thing, being abandoned. Oh really, sorry, Daniel, are 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:51.960 you I can see by your face that you really sad. Yeah, 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:58.480 it feels so awful to get forgotten. I know, why 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.960 did you forget me? Yeah? I was hurrying around so much. 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.320 I just wasn't thinking straight. Has that ever happened to you? 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:16.600 What somebody forgetting you? Yes? It has. Oh, could you 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:23.320 tell me about it. Well, it was my birthday party 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.520 and my very best friend forgot to come to my party. 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:32.000 She did. I waited and waited for her to come 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:36.560 to the door with a present, and what happened. She 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:40.760 was gone to her grandmother's house. I couldn't even get 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.960 her on the telephone. Was she mad at you? No, 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:51.559 she just forgot. Could you tell me again why you 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:59.040 didn't come for me one more time? I forgot? I know. 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.840 There are over nine hundred episodes of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.720 and each week Fred would walk down the street script 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.520 in hand to Dr McFarland's office. I can remember one 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.000 time when I wrote something about bees and she said, well, 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.480 do you know what bees mean to young children? Betsy 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.440 Siemens worked on Fred's show in the nineteen seventies. She 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.400 told me that Margaret McFarland helped them make a show 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.640 that spoke right to kids experience. She's, well, you know, 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.560 they if they sting you, you know, it has to 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.640 do with body integrity, and they you know, it's a violation. 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.600 And she wouldn't say don't use bees. She's just saying, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.400 if we're going to have bees, we have to deal 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.960 with bees. You have to understand the implications. You have 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:48.760 to understand what that's about from this magical world that 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.120 we have hard time accessing, you know. But she had 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.880 full access, She had a passport right into that world, 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.480 and she could go there all the time. Margaret could 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.760 go there all the time, and she opened the door 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.960 for Fred, and Fred he held the door open for 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.040 the rest of the neighborhood. And one of the things 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:13.280 I always understood from Fred that um, until basically children 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.800 lose their milk teeth as you you know, like surround six, 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.160 they live in a magical world. And so I think 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.680 his thing was to to listen so hard and to 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.480 think so hard about how someone who lives in another world, 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:31.680 literally in a magical world where where there's little men 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:33.960 up in the street lights that are making them turn 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.959 different colors, it's hard to access that child and hard 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.080 to communicate with that child. What a special assignment that 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.800 is to try to get access to that magical world. 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:55.440 And Mr Rogers neighborhood. Fred brought kids magical worlds to life. 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.320 The neighborhood of make Believe was a place where puppets 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.320 were in charge, wars could be solved with balloons, where 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.079 a striped tiger named Daniel lived in a clock. Are 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.000 you ready for the Neighborhood of Make Belief? Okay, here's 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.520 the trolley. Make the trolley come right around the castle. 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:20.760 And think of the Neighborhood of Make Belie. I mean, 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:25.520 and you tell you yea, yeah, really worried Mima Daniel? 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:30.400 You know, I think Daniel has been coughing ever since yesterday. 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.480 The trip to Make Believe could be playful and full 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.679 of wonder, but it could also be a safe place 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.600 where kids could encounter their fears and figure out how 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.400 to deal with them. Betsy told me that the Land 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.400 of Make Belief segments were the most carefully made parts 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.680 of the show. I would go to Margaret before I 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.120 ever wrote out dialogue for the neighbor to Make Believe, 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.559 and then she would talk to me about the implications. 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.319 There would be a through line in the Neighborhood of 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.640 Make Believe, like a little soap opera. And on Monday 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.560 something happens and then trouble. I mean, I'm thinking of 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:10.480 a week where Daniel got left behind. Lady Everland forgot 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:16.080 to take him somewhere, and and and he was left alone. 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.719 Could you tell me again why you didn't come for 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:31.280 me one more time? I forgot? I know. Does it 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.040 make you feel like we aren't really friends? Kind of 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:44.960 but I don't know why, but not really. No, we're friends, Daniel, Yes, 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:52.640 it seems like we just are. I'm still so sorry. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.800 I'm not as sad as I was before before you 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.800 came and talked to me. M oh good. The stories 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.360 in the Land of Make Believe, we're reinforced by things 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.440 that happened in the rest of the show. In Mr 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.880 Rogers House, in the real life neighborhood, the opening reality 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:16.240 of the program, we deal with the stuff that dreams 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.640 are made of, and then in the Neighborhood of make Believe, 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:25.480 we deal with it as if it were a dream. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.880 And then when it comes back to me, we deal 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:34.120 with the simple interpretation of the dream. Anything can happen 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:39.760 and make believe and we can talk about anything in reality. 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.679 One of Fred's favorite sayings was if it is mentionable, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.800 it is manageable. The quote is from Margaret McFarland. She, 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.160 like Fred, believed that this is the real value of 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:57.559 TV for kids. Communication. It is less a show for 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:03.199 children and more real communication with him and That's the 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.120 only way I understand that is that to the child, 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.320 the television program between you and the child is a 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.760 real relationship, and that you were speaking to the child. 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:19.040 As soon as the television artist becomes a child before 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:28.160 the screen, then the adult child relationship is lost. Mr 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.520 Rogers Neighborhood did more than entertained kids. Margaret and Fred 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.000 listened carefully to children and then made a show that 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.240 spoke to them, that helped them make sense of the world, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.520 that lovingly showed them how to be in the world. 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.160 But needless to say, that is not how most of 0:14:47.320 --> 0:15:09.000 children's television turned out. More after the break. Teething can 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:10.800 be a real nightmare for your little ones. So are 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.400 you looking for the best relief to soothe teething pain? 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.960 Or Highlands Naturals Baby oral pain relief can help use 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.320 the pain. It's gentle, natural, active ingredients like cameramil and arnica. 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.400 They'll soothe your baby's mouth and gums. 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Ask your dermatologist about con centics. 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.080 When I was a parenting advice columnist for Slate, one 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.199 question we always got from parents was about how to 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.600 protect kids. From media and from all the bad things 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.879 they might find on YouTube in the Internet. For a 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.080 lot of us, this fear leads to a suspicion of 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:49.560 maybe even an outright panic about media and technology, because 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.840 it does feel next to impossible to figure out how 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:57.080 to shield your kids when so much stuff is flying 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:02.240 at them. But that feeling of threat is not new. Television, 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:08.639 in terms of children's TV started nationally in with Howdy 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.879 Dooty and it couldn't be more manic. David B. And 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.560 Cooley is a long time TV critic. Some of the 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:19.320 characters were more violent, were more rowdy. We can't play 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.280 you any of the footage from those early days of 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:25.600 TV because it is all astronomically expensive, even seventy plus 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:44.040 years later. But the show's basically sounded like this, kids, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:49.160 tell your parents you want Oval Team, Tutsie Rolls, Twinkies, Coldgate, toothpaste, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.880 Wonder Brad, shoes and hats and toys and Whirlpool dryers. 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.560 The children who were in the TV studio were called 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.159 the Peanut Gallery, and they were all amped up on 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.240 sugar products and it was a crazy place, and it 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:09.439 was hugely promotional in terms of pushing products for the 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:16.200 Kids to Buy a catalog had twenty four pages filled 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.000 with products licensed by how to Duty alone. It included 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:25.720 puppets and toys, clothing, cereals, and candies. There are those 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:34.359 people who sometimes say the television doesn't affect us all 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:39.600 that much, while all I can say is, then why 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:46.040 would advertisers pay so much money to put their messages 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.920 on a medium that doesn't affect us all that much? 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:56.280 In Fred Rogers came home to the trope from his 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.520 college in Florida. He discovered that his parents owned one 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:04.959 of the roost TVs in town. His first reaction was curiosity. 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.600 His next, as best we can tell, was discussed. It 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.520 was a program where people were dressed up in some 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.160 kinds of costumes or something and they were they literally 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.960 were putting pious in each other's faces on it. I 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:27.720 was astounded at that, and I thought this could be 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:33.560 a wonderful tool for education. Why is it being used 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.919 this way? And so I said to my parents, you know, 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.080 I don't think i'll go to seminary right away. I 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.240 think maybe i'll go into television. And I said, but 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:46.760 you've never even seen it, And I said, well, I've 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:51.280 seen enough of it here I just thought, Hey, let's 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.359 see what we can do with this. He was a 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.200 music major who was getting up to go to theological seminary, 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.240 and suddenly he was shipping off to NBC in New 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.960 York to make TV. He starts making connections, climbing the ladder. 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:10.479 He's making it in New York City, and then Pittsburgh calls. 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.200 Not only was Pittsburgh a hub for studying child development 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.919 in the nineteen fifties, it was also one of the 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.439 most innovative places in the country for technology, R and D. 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.320 It was the home to Alcoa Westinghouse, the forerunner of 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.880 what became Carnegie Mellon University, and early in the decade, 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.399 the city's mayor had his own technological eureka moment. He 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:46.920 dreamed up the idea of a community funded, non commercial, 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:54.600 educational public television station. In that dream became a reality, 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.119 w q e D, the first such public TV station 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:02.359 in the country. I told some of my friends at 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:04.960 NBC that I thought that I'd put my name in 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.960 and apply for the station. They said, you are nuts. 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.840 That place isn't even on the air yet, and you're 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:17.320 in line to be a producer or a director or anything. 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.399 You want to be here, and I said, now I 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:25.040 have I have the feeling that educational television might might be, 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:31.199 at least for me, the way of the future. And 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.320 I applied and was one of the first I think 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:39.439 one of the first six to be hired at w 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:44.040 q e D, which true, it wasn't on the air yet. 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.399 We didn't go on the air until April first of 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:53.359 nineteen fifty four. Fred was part of a new show 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:58.119 called The Children's Corner. Fred wasn't the host, that was 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.600 a local actor named Josie Ry, but it was present 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:05.440 in every scene, composing and playing the music and performing 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:09.840 with some very familiar puppets. I'd like everybody to meet 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.199 a very very good friend of mine, a tame tiger 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:18.200 is not wild? Was ready? Yes, stand up say, I'd 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:23.320 like you to meet my friend, Daniel F Tiger. Do 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:31.000 you do. One of my very earliest TV memories is 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:34.040 I remember Children's Corner. It was just a local TV 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:40.800 show in Pittsburgh, but it was captivating then because of 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:45.960 how sweet it was and how different from everything else 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:50.439 on TV. It was quiet, it was it was laid back, 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:55.000 and it took its time. A few years and a 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:59.080 few more puppets. Later, Fred was center stage on camera. 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:02.920 From the very beginning, Fred stood apart from his on 0:24:03.160 --> 0:24:07.119 air peers, he wasn't pandering to kids. He wasn't selling 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:11.800 them toys or candy. He was using his complex understanding 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:17.080 of child psychology to create a real relationship with his audience. 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:23.719 He understood the value of repetition for young viewers. He 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:29.840 understood the value of structure to offer the same sort 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:35.360 of elements over and over again. He understood slow pacing 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:39.440 and which is not the same thing as being boring, 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:45.040 but it's just taking your time. Television is an exceedingly 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:58.400 personal medium. It reflects the story back to us whatever 0:24:58.640 --> 0:25:04.160 we happened to be watching. We bring our own story 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:09.960 to the screen, and so consequently it's it's like a dialogue. 0:25:12.119 --> 0:25:18.359 I do feel that what we see and hear on 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:25.119 the screen is part of who we become. After World 0:25:25.119 --> 0:25:29.639 War Two, a television boom hit the US. In a 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:32.840 couple of years before Fred Rogers started making programs, fewer 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:35.480 than a million households in the US had a TV. 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:39.440 But two decades later, in nineteen sixty nine, when Fred 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:42.880 rogers neighborhood was a year old, there were forty four 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:48.960 millions such households. Advertisers got more aggressive. This flashy new 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:53.000 medium could make people feel sweeping emotions and then sell 0:25:53.040 --> 0:25:57.800 them on toys and gadgets, maybe even on ideas. Meanwhile, 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:01.440 to attract new audiences to sell more stuff, shows got 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:06.119 louder and faster and more violent. During the sixties, you 0:26:06.160 --> 0:26:09.200 see a wave of growing violence and unrest in the world, 0:26:09.680 --> 0:26:14.080 assassinations and uprisings, and people wanted to know whether TV 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:20.000 was playing a role in this escalating mess. One such 0:26:20.080 --> 0:26:26.760 person was John pass Story. By nineteen sixty nine, he 0:26:26.800 --> 0:26:29.000 had served as the governor of Rhode Island and was 0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:32.760 now a sitting senator. President Nixon was leaning on Congress 0:26:32.800 --> 0:26:35.879 to shrink its funding to public broadcasting, and past Story 0:26:36.080 --> 0:26:39.920 was skeptical about whether there was anything worth salvaging in TV. 0:26:40.960 --> 0:26:44.160 A small delegation of public broadcasters was called to Washington 0:26:44.520 --> 0:26:47.399 to advocate for and defend the medium in front of 0:26:47.440 --> 0:26:55.960 Senator pas Story. Fred Rogers was among them. Head A 0:26:56.000 --> 0:26:59.080 Sheapan was working with Fred by this time and recalls 0:26:59.119 --> 0:27:02.159 how invested he was in reaching past Story with his 0:27:02.320 --> 0:27:07.480 finely crafted message. Fred worked long and hard on his speeches, 0:27:08.480 --> 0:27:14.440 revision and revision revision. So when I heard the Senator 0:27:14.520 --> 0:27:17.520 past Story, who was the head of the Communications Committee, 0:27:18.200 --> 0:27:21.400 said I don't want anyone to read their speeches any 0:27:21.680 --> 0:27:24.880 I'm tired of hearing people read. Just tell me what 0:27:24.960 --> 0:27:32.840 you want, I thought, Oh, good luck. Fred past Story 0:27:32.920 --> 0:27:36.560 had sat through two days worth of testimony, mostly people 0:27:36.640 --> 0:27:40.119 reading prepared statements focused on the dollars and cents involved 0:27:40.119 --> 0:27:43.359 in cutting public TV's budget. He barks that he's not 0:27:43.520 --> 0:27:49.399 interested in anymore reading Senator past Story, this is a 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:53.919 philosophical statement and would take about ten minutes to read, 0:27:54.080 --> 0:27:58.000 so I'll not do that. My first children. Make you 0:27:58.119 --> 0:28:01.680 happy if you read it, I'd just like to talk 0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:05.919 about it if I'm very much concerned, as I know 0:28:06.080 --> 0:28:10.560 you are, about what's being delivered to our children in 0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:18.200 this country. I read an article about Senator past Story 0:28:18.240 --> 0:28:22.840 that he was really troubled by the violence on television, 0:28:24.359 --> 0:28:27.360 and I have a sense that Fred did his homework 0:28:28.600 --> 0:28:31.919 and understood that that was something important to him. Because 0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:35.119 Fred was like that, he wanted to know who his 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:40.040 audience was. He wanted to know who you are so 0:28:40.120 --> 0:28:45.200 that he could relate in most meaningful, relevant kind of way. 0:28:45.560 --> 0:28:48.960