Speaker 1: I yeah, we're excited. What I want to do is
Speaker 1: a long distance grandparent podcast because I grew up with
Speaker 1: grandparents in the home head. A. Shapin was a producer
Speaker 1: on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. She has a story she likes
Speaker 1: to tell about her grandkids. When I babysit for my
Speaker 1: grandchildren in Chicago, when the phone rings, they both scream out,
Speaker 1: don't answer it, don't answer it. It might be a telemarketer.
Speaker 1: Don't answer, don't answer it might be a telemarketer. With
Speaker 1: this fervor and terror almost so, one day, the four
Speaker 1: and a half year old came to me and she said, Graham,
Speaker 1: I never asked this question before, but I really want
Speaker 1: to know what happens if you do answer it and
Speaker 1: it's a telemarketer? She said, do the police come. This
Speaker 1: is a phenomenal world we live in, and it's very
Speaker 1: complicated to a young child. There's so many things that
Speaker 1: kids just don't understand, and that's why they ask why
Speaker 1: all the time, why the street lights turn red, why
Speaker 1: water goes down the drain, where someone goes when they
Speaker 1: leave the room, or whether they will even come back.
Speaker 1: Kids fill that void with wonder, sometimes with magical ideas,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they fill that void with monsters and with fear.
Speaker 1: There's a quote from Mr rogers favorite book, The Little Prince.
Speaker 1: What is essential is invisible to the eye. Fred spent
Speaker 1: his whole life learning how to see the invisible insides
Speaker 1: of children in his audience, learning about that essential thing,
Speaker 1: how kids make sense of the world, how we all
Speaker 1: make sense of the world. Fred understood that childhood is
Speaker 1: the essence of who we be calm, and these things
Speaker 1: that we work on in our childhood and the way
Speaker 1: we resolved them stay with us through our lives. I'm
Speaker 1: Carvel Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers from I Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership
Speaker 1: with Transmitter Media. For years, for centuries, maybe we didn't
Speaker 1: know much about children. They were assumed to be like
Speaker 1: tiny adults who just needed some discipline, some training to
Speaker 1: grow up and be well mannered people. But after World
Speaker 1: War Two, a new field of research emerged, child development,
Speaker 1: and with it the revolutionary idea that kids aren't simply
Speaker 1: blank slates waiting to be stamped with ideas and personalities.
Speaker 1: People started to understand that kids are constantly sampling the
Speaker 1: world around them and assembling an identity a way of
Speaker 1: being in the world, because the important question is not
Speaker 1: so much what can we give children onto them, what
Speaker 1: can we produce for them? The really important question is
Speaker 1: what are they bringing to us? For more than fifty years,
Speaker 1: head A. Shapan has worked with the production company founded
Speaker 1: by Fred Rogers in Pittsburgh. What's fascinating is that Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: was such a hub for understanding early childhood as the
Speaker 1: beginning of the journey to adulthood. In the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: the University of Pittsburgh was home to pioneering work in
Speaker 1: the field of child development. Eric Erickson, who coined the
Speaker 1: term identity crisis, was a professor there. He was among
Speaker 1: the first psychologists to take seriously the inner lives of children.
Speaker 1: Benjamin Spock was also there for much of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: His book on Children was the second best selling work
Speaker 1: after The Bible. But then there was doctor Margaret McFarland,
Speaker 1: not as well known as the other two, but perhaps
Speaker 1: the most gifted of them all. Ericson himself once said
Speaker 1: that quote, she knew more than anyone in this world
Speaker 1: about families with young children. It was Margaret McFarland that
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers chose as his mentor. I was a student
Speaker 1: of Margaret McFarlane's in grad school, and one thing she
Speaker 1: would do was tell stories. She would give us the
Speaker 1: context for things. She would talk about a child who
Speaker 1: was sad because his mother had to go out and
Speaker 1: he was left with the babysitter, and he sulked for
Speaker 1: a while and cried. But then what he did was
Speaker 1: he got up into her rocking chair and he took
Speaker 1: a magazine and sat there with it in his hands.
Speaker 1: It was even upside down, but that's what she would do.
Speaker 1: It was as if he needed to recreate her and
Speaker 1: have her with him so that he wouldn't miss are
Speaker 1: so much. One of the beauties of Fred's work with
Speaker 1: Margaret is that, and with all of us, is that
Speaker 1: she would help us see the things that were beyond
Speaker 1: our eyes. Fred met Dr McFarland in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: He took her graduate level child development classes at the
Speaker 1: University of Pittsburgh. Later, when he was making television, he
Speaker 1: encouraged had to Sherepin to do the same. They were
Speaker 1: taping at night, so it worked out with my schedule.
Speaker 1: In the daytime, I was learning this complex child development theory,
Speaker 1: and at night I would come into the control room
Speaker 1: and I would see Fred live out all the things
Speaker 1: I was learning about. How do you help children with aggression?
Speaker 1: What do you do with the mad that you feel?
Speaker 1: Ritual transitions? He says, we are going to go now
Speaker 1: into it's time for the neighbor to make but he
Speaker 1: led us to the next step separation. Separation anxiety was
Speaker 1: a kind of recurring theme on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Fred
Speaker 1: found all sorts of ways to talk with kids about
Speaker 1: that scariest thing, being abandoned. I'm really sorry, Daniel, are you.
Speaker 1: I can see by your face that you're really sad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels so awful to get forgotten. I know, why
Speaker 1: did you forget me? I was hurrying around so much.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't thinking straight. Has that ever happened to you?
Speaker 1: What somebody forgetting you? Yes? It has. Oh, could you
Speaker 1: tell me about it? Well? It was my birthday party
Speaker 1: and my very best friend forgot to come to my party.
Speaker 1: She did. I waited and waited for her to come
Speaker 1: to the door with a present, and what happened? She
Speaker 1: was gone to her grandmother's house. I couldn't even get
Speaker 1: her on the telephone. Was she mad at you? No,
Speaker 1: she just forgot. Could you tell me again why you
Speaker 1: didn't come for me one more time? I forgot? I know.
Speaker 1: They are over nine hundred episodes of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and each week Fred would walk down the street script
Speaker 1: in hand to Dr McFarland's office. I can remember one
Speaker 1: time when I wrote something about bees and she said, well,
Speaker 1: do you know what bees mean? Too? Young children? Betsy
Speaker 1: Siemens worked on Fred's show in the nineteen seventies. She
Speaker 1: told me that Margaret McFarland helped them make a show
Speaker 1: that spoke right to kids experience. She's, well, you know,
Speaker 1: they if they sting you, you know, it has to
Speaker 1: do with body integrity, and they you know, it's a violation.
Speaker 1: And she wouldn't say don't use bees. She's just saying,
Speaker 1: if we're going to have bees, we have to deal
Speaker 1: with bees. You have to understand the implications. You have
Speaker 1: to understand what that's about. From this magical world that
Speaker 1: we have hard time accessing, you know, but she had
Speaker 1: full access. She had a passport right into that world
Speaker 1: and she could go there all the time. Margaret could
Speaker 1: go there all the time. And she opened the door
Speaker 1: for Fred, and Fred he held the door open for
Speaker 1: the rest of the neighborhood. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I always understood from Fred that um until basically children
Speaker 1: lose their milk teeth as you you know, like surround six,
Speaker 1: they live in a magical world. And so I think
Speaker 1: his thing was to to listen so hard and to
Speaker 1: think so hard how someone who lives in another world,
Speaker 1: literally in a magical world where where there's little men
Speaker 1: up in the street lights that are making them turn
Speaker 1: different colors. It's hard to access that child and hard
Speaker 1: to communicate with that child. What a special assignment that
Speaker 1: is to try to get access to that magical world?
Speaker 1: M then Mr Rogers neighborhood. Fred brought kids magical worlds
Speaker 1: to life. The neighborhood of make Believe was a place
Speaker 1: where puppets were in charge, wars could be solved with balloons,
Speaker 1: where a striped tiger named Daniel lived in a clock.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for the Neighborhood of make Belief? Okay,
Speaker 1: here's the trolley. Make the trolley come right around the
Speaker 1: castle and think of the neighborhood of make Beliey yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and you tell you yeah, yeah, I really
Speaker 1: worried Daniel. You know, I think Daniel has been coughing
Speaker 1: ever since yesterday. The Trip to Make Believe could be
Speaker 1: playful and full of wonder, but it could also be
Speaker 1: a safe place where kids could encounter their fears and
Speaker 1: figure out how to deal with them. Betsy told me
Speaker 1: that the Land of Make Belief segments were the most
Speaker 1: carefully made parts of the show. I would go to
Speaker 1: Margaret before I ever wrote out dialogue for the neighbor
Speaker 1: to Make Believe, and then she would talk to me
Speaker 1: about the implications. There would be a through line in
Speaker 1: the Neighborhood of Make Believe, like a little soap opera,
Speaker 1: and on Monday something happens and then trouble. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of a week where Daniel got left behind.
Speaker 1: Lady Everland forgot to take him somewhere, and and and
Speaker 1: he was left alone. Could you tell me again why
Speaker 1: you didn't come from me one more time? I forgot?
Speaker 1: I know. Does it make you feel like we aren't
Speaker 1: really friends? Kind of but I don't know why, but
Speaker 1: not really. No, we're friends, Daniel, Yes, it seems like
Speaker 1: we just are. I'm still so sorry. I'm not as
Speaker 1: sad as I was before before you came and talked
Speaker 1: to me. Oh good. The stories in the Land of
Speaker 1: Make Believe were reinforced by things that happened in the
Speaker 1: rest of the show in Mr Rogers house, in the
Speaker 1: real life neighborhood, the opening reality of the program, we
Speaker 1: deal with the stuff that dreams are made of, and
Speaker 1: then in the Neighborhood of make Believe, we deal with
Speaker 1: it as if it were a dream. And then when
Speaker 1: it comes back to me, we deal with a simple
Speaker 1: interpretation of the dream. Anything can happen and make believe
Speaker 1: and we can talk about anything in reality. One of
Speaker 1: Fred's favorite sayings was if it is mentionable, it is manageable.
Speaker 1: The quote is from Margaret McFarland. She, like Fred, believed
Speaker 1: that this is the real value of TV for kids communication.
Speaker 1: It is less a show for children and more real
Speaker 1: communication with him. And that's the only way I understand
Speaker 1: that is that to the child, the television program, between
Speaker 1: you and the child is a real relationship, and that
Speaker 1: you are speaking to the child. As soon as the
Speaker 1: television artist becomes a child before the screen, then the
Speaker 1: adult child relationship is lost. Mr Rogers Neighborhood did more
Speaker 1: than entertained kids. Margaret and Fred listened carefully to children
Speaker 1: and then made a show that spoke to them, that
Speaker 1: helped them make sense of the world, that lovingly showed
Speaker 1: them how to be in the world. But needless to say,
Speaker 1: that is not how most of children's television turned out
Speaker 1: more after the break. When I was a parenting advice
Speaker 1: columnist for Slate, one question we always got from parents
Speaker 1: was about how to protect kids from media and from
Speaker 1: all the bad things they might find on YouTube in
Speaker 1: the Internet. For a lot of us, this fear leads
Speaker 1: to a suspicion of maybe even an outright panic about
Speaker 1: media and technology, because it does feel next to impossible
Speaker 1: to figure out how to shield your kids when so
Speaker 1: much stuff is flying at them. But that feeling of
Speaker 1: threat is not new. Television, in terms of children's TV,
Speaker 1: started nationally in with Howdy Dooty, and it couldn't be
Speaker 1: more manic. David being Cooley is a long time TV critic.
Speaker 1: Some of the characters were more violent, were more rowdy.
Speaker 1: We can't play you any of the footage from those
Speaker 1: early days of TV because it is all astronomically expensive,
Speaker 1: even seventy plus years later. But The show's basically sounded
Speaker 1: like this, Ye kids, tell your parents you want Ovaltine,
Speaker 1: tutsie rolls, Twinkies, Colgate, toothpaste, wonder Bread, shoes and hats
Speaker 1: and toys and Whirlpool dryers. The children who were in
Speaker 1: the TV studio were called the Peanut Gallery, and they
Speaker 1: were all amped up on sugar products. And it was
Speaker 1: a crazy place, and it was a hugely promotional in
Speaker 1: terms of pushing products for the kids to buy. A
Speaker 1: catalog had twenty four pages filled with products licensed by
Speaker 1: Howdy Duty alone. It included puppets and toys, clothing, cereals,
Speaker 1: and candies. There are those people who sometimes say the
Speaker 1: television doesn't affect us all that much. Well, all I
Speaker 1: can say is, then why were advertisers pay so much
Speaker 1: money to put their messages on a medium that doesn't
Speaker 1: affect us all that much? In Fred Rogers came home
Speaker 1: to the Trobe from his college in Florida. He discovered
Speaker 1: that his parents owned one of the first TVs in town.
Speaker 1: His first reaction was curiosity. His next, as best we
Speaker 1: can tell, was discussed. It was a program where people
Speaker 1: were dressed up in some kinds of costumes or something
Speaker 1: and they were. They literally were putting pious in each
Speaker 1: other's faces. And I was astounded at that, and I thought,
Speaker 1: this could be a wonderful tool for education. Why is
Speaker 1: it being used this way? And so I said to
Speaker 1: my parents, you know, I don't think i'll go to
Speaker 1: seminary right away. I think maybe I'll go into television.
Speaker 1: And I said, but you've never even seen it. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, I've seen enough of it here. I
Speaker 1: just thought, hey, let's see what we can do with this.
Speaker 1: He was a music major who was getting up to
Speaker 1: go to theological seminary, and suddenly he was shipping off
Speaker 1: to NBC in New York to make TV. He starts
Speaker 1: making connections, climbing the ladder. He's making it in New
Speaker 1: York City, and then Pittsburgh calls. Not only was Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: a hub for studying child development in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: it was also one of the most innovative places in
Speaker 1: the country for technology, R and D. It was the
Speaker 1: home to Alcoa Westinghouse, the forerunner of what became Carnegie
Speaker 1: Mellon University, and early in the decade, the city's mayor
Speaker 1: had his own technological eureka moment he dreamed up the
Speaker 1: idea of a community funded, non commercial, educational public television station.
Speaker 1: In that dream became a reality, w q e D,
Speaker 1: the first such public TV station in the country. I
Speaker 1: told some of my friends at NBC that I thought
Speaker 1: that I'd put my name in and apply for the station.
Speaker 1: They said, you are nuts. That place isn't even on
Speaker 1: the air yet, and you're in line to be a
Speaker 1: producer or a director or anything you want to be here,
Speaker 1: And I said, now I have. I have the feeling
Speaker 1: that educational television might might be, at least for me,
Speaker 1: the way of the future. And I applied and was
Speaker 1: one of the first I think one of the first
Speaker 1: six to be hired at w q D, which true,
Speaker 1: it wasn't on the air yet. We didn't go on
Speaker 1: the air until April one nine. Fred was part of
Speaker 1: a new show called The Children's Corner. Fred wasn't the host,
Speaker 1: that was a local actor named Josie Carey, but he
Speaker 1: was present in every scene, composing and playing the music
Speaker 1: and performing with some very familiar puppets. I'd like everybody
Speaker 1: to meet a very very good friend of mine, a
Speaker 1: pame tiger, which is not wild. Ready, stand up, say
Speaker 1: I'd like you to me my friend Daniel F. Tiger.
Speaker 1: One of my very earliest TV memories is I remember
Speaker 1: Children's Corner. It was just a local TV show in Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: but it was captivating then because of how sweet it
Speaker 1: was and how different from everything else on TV. It
Speaker 1: was quiet, it was it was laid back, and it
Speaker 1: took its time. A few years and a few more
Speaker 1: puppets later, Fred was center stage on camera. From the
Speaker 1: very beginning, Fred stood apart from his on air peers.
Speaker 1: He wasn't pandering too kids. He wasn't selling them toys
Speaker 1: or candy. He was using his complex understanding of child
Speaker 1: psychology to create a real relationship with his audience. He
Speaker 1: understood the value of repetition for young viewers. He understood
Speaker 1: the value of structure to offer the same sort of
Speaker 1: elements over and over again. He understood slow pacing and
Speaker 1: which is not the same thing as being boring, but
Speaker 1: it's just taking your time. Television is an exceedingly personal medium.
Speaker 1: It reflects the story back to us whatever we happened
Speaker 1: to be watching. We bring our own story to the screen,
Speaker 1: and so consequently it's it's like a dialogue. I do
Speaker 1: feel that what we see and hear on the screen
Speaker 1: is part of who we become. After World War Two,
Speaker 1: a television boom hit the US. A couple of years
Speaker 1: before Fred Rogers started making programs, fewer than a million
Speaker 1: households in the US had a TV, but two decades later,
Speaker 1: in when Fred Rogersighborhood was a year old, there were
Speaker 1: forty four millions such households. Advertisers got more aggressive. This
Speaker 1: flashy new medium could make people feel sweeping emotions and
Speaker 1: then sell them on toys and gadgets, maybe even on ideas. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: to attract new audiences to sell more stuff, shows got
Speaker 1: louder and faster and more violent. During the sixties, you
Speaker 1: see a wave of growing violence and unrest in the world,
Speaker 1: assassinations and uprisings, and people wanted to know whether TV
Speaker 1: was playing a role in this escalating mess. One such
Speaker 1: person was John pass Story. By nineteen sixty nine, he
Speaker 1: had served as the governor of Rhode Island and was
Speaker 1: now a sitting senator. President Nixon was leaning on Congress
Speaker 1: to shrink its funding to public broadcasting, and past Story
Speaker 1: was skeptical about whether there was anything worth salvaging, and
Speaker 1: TV a small delegation of public broadcasters was called to
Speaker 1: Washington to advocate for and defend the medium in front
Speaker 1: of Senator past Story. Fred Rogers was among them. Head A.
Speaker 1: Sheripin was working with Fred by this time and recalls
Speaker 1: how invested he was in reaching past Story with his
Speaker 1: finely crafted message. Fred worked long and hard on his speeches,
Speaker 1: revision and revision revision. So when I heard the Senator
Speaker 1: past Story, who was the head of the Communications Committee,
Speaker 1: said I don't want anyone to read their speeches any
Speaker 1: I'm tired of hearing people read. Just tell me what
Speaker 1: you want, I thought, Oh, good luck. Fred past Story
Speaker 1: had sat through two days worth of testimony, mostly people
Speaker 1: reading prepared statements focused on the dollars and cents involved
Speaker 1: in cutting public TV's budget. He barks that he's not
Speaker 1: interested in anymore reading Senator past Story, this is a
Speaker 1: philosophical statement and would take about ten minutes to read,
Speaker 1: so I'll not do that. My first children make you
Speaker 1: happy if you read it, I'd just like to talk
Speaker 1: about it if I'm very much concerned as I know
Speaker 1: you are, about what's being delivered to our children in
Speaker 1: this country. I read an article about Senator past story
Speaker 1: that he was really troubled by the violence on television.
Speaker 1: And I have a sense that Fred did his homework
Speaker 1: and understood that that was something important to him. Because
Speaker 1: Fred was like that, he wanted to know who his
Speaker 1: audience was. He wanted to know who you are so
Speaker 1: that he could relate in most meaningful, relevant kind of way.
Speaker 1: I give an expression of care every day to each
Speaker 1: child to help him realize that he is unique. I
Speaker 1: end the program by saying, You've made this day a
Speaker 1: special day by just your being you. There's no person
Speaker 1: in the whole world like you, and I like you
Speaker 1: just the way you are. Well, I'm supposed to be
Speaker 1: a pretty tough guy, and this is the first time
Speaker 1: I've had goose bumps for the last two days. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful not only for your goose bumps, but for
Speaker 1: your interests in in our kind of communication. Fred spoke
Speaker 1: from the heart, with passion, with clarity. It's not just
Speaker 1: to influence someone, it's to help them feel something. That's
Speaker 1: what will help you take it in. I think it's
Speaker 1: one that if it evokes something in you, I think
Speaker 1: it's wonderful. It looks like you're just done A twenty
Speaker 1: million Fred always quoted the Little Prince, what is essential
Speaker 1: is invisible to the eye. The full quote from the book, however,
Speaker 1: is it is only with the heart that one can
Speaker 1: see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the most important feelings we have, the most essential
Speaker 1: ones are the quiet, nearly invisible ones, the tiny feeling
Speaker 1: of regret that nags at us when we think we
Speaker 1: might be hurting someone, the small tingle we feel when
Speaker 1: we see something that we love. And maybe when we
Speaker 1: are children, these feelings are louder in us, more intense.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, as children, we don't yet know
Speaker 1: which feelings are to be ignored, like the fear that
Speaker 1: the police will come if the telemarketers call, and which
Speaker 1: ones are important, like the feeling that someone you trust
Speaker 1: maybe trying to hurt you. We count on the adults
Speaker 1: in our lives to help us sort that out as
Speaker 1: we grow. So what happens when the adults who are
Speaker 1: teaching us are themselves unable to listen with the heart,
Speaker 1: when they don't pay attention to how we're feeling or
Speaker 1: what we need. What happens when adults can't help us
Speaker 1: because their lives are too busy or too loud or
Speaker 1: too full of fear, when we're left alone with feelings
Speaker 1: we don't understand or know what to do with. What
Speaker 1: kind of world does that make for all of us?
Speaker 1: And what kind of world could we have if we
Speaker 1: were better at listening to those quiet cues from children,
Speaker 1: especially the kids that still live somewhere inside us. Next time,
Speaker 1: if you're vulnerable on camera, and if you let people
Speaker 1: know when you don't know, or if you let people
Speaker 1: see you break, or if you let people see you
Speaker 1: like sweat like, then they connect with you on a
Speaker 1: human level. Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. The
Speaker 1: team is Dan O'donnald, Jordan Bailey, and Mattie Foley. Our
Speaker 1: editor is Sarah Nicks. The executive producer for Transmitter Media
Speaker 1: is Greta Cohne. Executive producers that Fatherly are Simon Isaacs
Speaker 1: and Andrew Berman. Thanks to the team at I Heart Media,
Speaker 1: Fred Watchers interviewed tape courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews.
Speaker 1: The full interview is available at Television Academy dot com
Speaker 1: slash Interviews. Our show is mixed by Rick Kwan, music
Speaker 1: by Blue Dot Sessions and Alison Layton Brown. If you
Speaker 1: like what you're hearing, rate the show, review the show,
Speaker 1: and tell a friend I'm Carlo Wallace and thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: H