GOOD Magazine just posted this amazing video of Mr. Rogers going to Congress and single-handedly convincing the government not to cut funding to PBS.

He’s totally my hero.

23 replies on “Mr. Rogers Goes to Washington”

  4. I know this may sound amazingly callous- and I must preface this to say that yes, Mr. Rogers is fucking AWESOME- but he is the SLOOOOOOOWEST, dullest speaker I have EVER heard. If you played this clip for me tonight around 11pm I would immediately fall into a coma that only the cartoons he seemingly dislikes could wake me. At full volume with the speakers in my ears.

    I mean really. Wow. I almost fell asleep at my desk listening to him speak.

  9. @4:

    He may be slow, but he still inspires, as the senator attests. He’s not Joe Lieberman slow where you want to blow your brains out after the third syllable. Yeah, he takes a bit to get to the point, but the point is worth it.

  10. Mr. Rogers was a great guy. There is a profile of him that I read once that really sealed the deal for me but I can’t find it. Anybody care to help with their google-fu?

  11. In Mr. Rogers’ day, a lot of media was slower than it is now. I personally find it hard to watch old cartoons from the seventies-early eighties period because the action and dialogue is so much slower paced than what I’ve been conditioned to expect in more recent years. But I think in the context of the media of his time his pace wasn’t as much of an abberation as it seems like in retrospect.

  12. A college friend’s grandma lived across the street from Mr. Rogers, the college friend once announced. Then he said he didn’t want to hear anything against Mr. Rogers, ever. Of course we assumed he was kidding, but he wasn’t. Later, he became a monk.

  13. My heart will remain broken until that Little Red Trolley comes ’round the bend to take me off to the Land of Make-Believe. But this lil video helps.

  14. Mr Rogers was an interesting person; my experiences with him are different from the way he looks in this video;
    I worked as a nurse at Children’s hospital of Pittsburgh; I have watched Mr Rogers come to see a patient who’s family had been able to arrange it, and then walk by an entire playroom of children all calling “Mr. Rogers, Mr; Rogers” and not glance at any of them.
    I realize the guy never got to NOT be Mr. Rogers… but we nurses and the Play therapy folks had to pick up the pieces of a whole room of kids crying because Mr Rogers wouldnt talk to them.

  15. PS — nicest people I met as a result of working at a kids hospital?
    1. Captain Kangaroo. (the nurses were more impressed than the kids, I dont think they knew who he was… I got a pingpong ball)
    2. The midget lady from Poltergist was awesome….

  16. “Awright, Rogehs, you got the floah.” Hilarious. But I truly think that if every “Christian” acted like Mr. Rogers, there would be a lot more Christians. AND he worked with Canada. What a diplomat.

  21. I was too old for Mr. Rogers when he was first on television. But oh my, I adored watching him with my daughter when she was between the ages of 2 and 3. And then, because he was so perfect, and complete, and wonderful (and had Yo Yo Ma and the Marsalis family on and lots of other musicians and artists), you couldn’t really surpass what he did. So we just pretty much stopped watching television after that.

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