Mister Rogers
b. Fred McFeely Rogers
March 20, 1928
Latrobe, Pennsylvania, USA.
d. February 27, 2003
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

As the host of the longest-running program on PBS, Mister Rogers has influenced and inspired countless youngsters for four decades with his landmark achievements in children's television and music. His quiet, Zen-like demeanor and small town simplicity was the opposite of Sesame Street's busy and fast-paced urban environment. Although his patient delivery and unassuming manner could easily be dismissed as corny and outdated, it consistently speaks to every generation of 4-to-8 year olds who tune in. In addition to discussing topics like individuality, imagination, and fears, he has introduced his viewers to a world of sounds and taught them the joys of jazz, classical, folk and world music.

Rogers has been a music lover since childhood. He started playing piano at nine years old, and he majored in music composition at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. After graduating in the early 1950s, he was drawn to New York City and the new industry of television. Rogers worked behind the scenes as an assistant producer and floor manager for various NBC programs before returning to Pennsylvania in 1953 to work at Pittsburgh's WQED, the first public television station in the States.

There he developed The Children's Corner, an award-winning program for which he also acted as musician and puppeteer during its seven years on the air. Several of the characters and themes from the show would be carried over to his next creation, MisteRogers, which began as a series of 15-minute episodes for Canadian television in 1963. The format was extended to a half hour when he brought it back to WQED as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood three years later. The program aired locally until it was picked up for national distribution by PBS in 1969.

Every show opened with Rogers singing his theme, "Won't You be My Neighbor?," which was just one of over 200 songs he wrote throughout his career. Music was a major element of the program and much of the material used in the show was collected on a series of children's records. Pianist Johnny Costa acted as music director for the bulk of the program's run, and his elegant, jazzy renditions brought life to the activities of each episode.

In the portion of the program that took place in the Land of Make Believe, the puppets and humans would sometimes spend an entire week putting together an opera for the delight of King Friday the Thirteenth. Rogers wrote over a dozen of these wildly imaginative excursions, whisking the viewer away to even more make believe realms like Spoon Mountain and Bubbleland.

Joe Negri, the Neighborhood handyman, ran Negri's Music Shop, where viewers were often treated to visits with such artists as cellist Yo-Yo Ma, electronics innovator Bruce Haack, theatrical percussion troupe Stomp, homemade instrument collective Bash the Trash, and jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis and his sons.

In the 1990s, Rogers joined the children's music label Youngheart, who issued four new collections of his songs on compact disc. After amassing roughly 1000 episodes, Rogers decided he had covered enough themes to complete a well-rounded cycle of programs for his audience. He taped the final show of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in December of 2000, and moved on to other projects like a traveling planetarium show (The Sky Above Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood), enhancing his interactive web site, and further activities with Family Communications, Inc. After a brief battle with stomach cancer, he passed away on February 27, 2003.

MR. ROGERS at Boston University, click for the video.