0:00

Have you ever tried to explain this

0:03

world to children? I

0:06

have kids, two of them.

0:08

Have you ever sat down with a kid and tried to

0:10

explain why there are Nazis

0:13

marching in the exact place where you took

0:15

them to the farmer's market and waited in line for

0:17

papoosas Have

0:20

you ever tried to explain how a person who

0:22

lies, assaults, insults,

0:25

grifts, fakes and hates can

0:27

be elected into one of the most powerful jobs

0:29

in the world. Have

0:32

you ever tried to explain to them why they should

0:34

be good people, How they should be

0:36

good people in a world where there is

0:38

so much bad, where

0:41

they see people who look like them shot

0:43

by police, murdered by vigilantes,

0:45

run over at rallies. I

0:49

have, And even though

0:51

my whole job as a writer involves

0:53

being so called good with words, there

0:55

are no words good enough to explain

0:58

why things are the way they are and what we should

1:00

do about it. It's too much, it's

1:03

too big, it's too overwhelming.

1:08

Maybe you don't have kids, maybe

1:10

you don't have to make this world makes sense to

1:12

children. So I ask you, how

1:14

then, do you make sense of it to yourself?

1:18

Do you hide? Do

1:20

you tell yourself that everything is fine. Do

1:24

you convince yourself that you're doing everything

1:26

you can? And do you make excuses

1:28

for when you're not? I mean,

1:30

do you know what to do like today,

1:33

like right now, in this moment to

1:35

help. Do

1:37

you know how to be a good

1:40

person? Are

1:42

you a good person? Because

1:45

me, I'm not

1:47

so sure. I'm

1:50

not so sure about any of us. What

1:55

does a good person in this world even look like?

1:58

I mean, what would they tell you if you could find the time

2:01

to sit down and listen to them?

2:06

Did you ever have a scary dream?

2:09

What did you do about it? There might

2:11

have been one good guy

2:14

on television of all places. Did

2:16

you tell the people you love about

2:18

it? The people who

2:20

love you, this old

2:22

white guy in a zip up cardigan and

2:24

blue tennis shoes who played

2:26

with puppets. When I was a little

2:28

boy and I had a scary dream,

2:32

sometimes I'd get some paper and crayons

2:35

and I would draw pictures about

2:38

my dream. I mean, is this

2:40

the guy, like, is this quiet

2:42

dude staring into a camera and talking

2:44

slowly about crayons? Is

2:47

this the guy who can stand up to

2:49

our very worst? And

2:51

sometimes that would help so much that

2:54

I was able to get back to sleep real soon.

2:57

Mr Rogers made it seem so easy, so

3:00

casual, to know how you're

3:02

feeling, to be comfortable in your own skin. But

3:05

it's not easy. It takes work.

3:08

And that's actually what Mr rogers Neighborhood

3:10

was all about. He was showing us how

3:12

to do that work. Really helps

3:14

to talk about the way you feel, because

3:18

everybody has feelings all

3:21

the time. In

3:23

a time like this, Fred

3:25

Rogers has something we desperately

3:28

need. I

3:30

think the real genius of Mr

3:32

Rogers having done his show and having

3:35

it be targeted towards children

3:38

is that what he has done

3:41

is created a template

3:44

for just how to recognize your

3:47

feelings and know what it is,

3:49

which is basically how you get to

3:52

all the other stuff. It's how you grow.

3:54

He taught us how to plant seeds. He

3:57

taught us to plant seeds, seeds

3:59

that were are supposed to blossom into healthy,

4:02

safe, caring, loving feelings for ourselves

4:05

and then for all of our neighbors. And

4:07

he he had three decades on television

4:09

to show us, to convince us, to guide

4:11

us into making the kind of world he dreamed

4:14

of. And yet here

4:17

we are in a world

4:19

that is well

4:23

it's not Mr Rogers neighborhood. I'm

4:27

Carvel Wallace and this is Finding

4:29

Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers

4:31

from I Heart Media and Fatherly in

4:34

partnership with Transmitter Media.

4:39

I'm a writer. I got my

4:41

start by writing about music for MTV and

4:43

Pitchfork in places like that, But

4:46

for a few years I was also the parenting

4:48

advice columnists for Slate, and

4:50

every week we would read dozens of letters

4:53

from desperate, frightened, weary

4:56

parents wondering how to raise

4:58

good people, how to be good people,

5:01

And so I think a lot about what stands

5:03

in the way for them for us.

5:09

But the other thing is I grew up

5:11

as a complete TV nerd.

5:15

I mean TV might have had more of an

5:17

impact on how I understand the world

5:19

than any adult in my

5:21

life. And so now that I

5:23

am the adult, the parent, even

5:26

I find myself wondering what

5:28

TV has to say to my kids,

5:31

to our kids, about what we

5:33

can do about the world we live in. And

5:37

so that's how I get to Fred Rogers,

5:40

a guy who made TV about

5:43

this very question. You

5:45

might have noticed there is an explosion

5:48

of Mr Rogers nostalgia going around,

5:50

But I'm curious about it like, why

5:53

now Fred has been dead for almost

5:55

twenty years and there are suddenly

5:57

movies and documentaries and book

6:01

Why is it that generations of adults

6:03

are all collectively having this nostalgia

6:06

moment right now? I

6:08

was really interested in feelings as a kid

6:11

because nobody talked about feelings. But I seem to

6:13

have so many. This is Ashley

6:15

c Ford. She makes her living

6:18

by thinking deeply about how people feel

6:20

and trying to communicate something about

6:22

how that impacts their inner lives

6:25

and outer lives. I am a writer

6:28

of essays, articles and a

6:30

memoir and I am

6:32

a Fred Rogers

6:35

enthusiasts. What

6:37

does that mean of Fred Rogers enthusiast? Well,

6:40

I think of being an enthusiast

6:42

as being a person

6:44

who likes a thing from many, many

6:47

different angles. I remember

6:50

being very very little and

6:53

like a nap time when

6:55

I went to a babysitter. She

6:57

would put on Mr Rogers and

7:00

I was like, YEO, this is not going to put me to sleep.

7:02

I'm fascinated, but I loved

7:06

Mr Rogers and so I was like, if you want to put me to

7:08

sleep, you better put on popa Beaver, story Time or

7:10

something. Because Mr Rogers ain't it, lady. He

7:12

talking about all kinds of stuff that I'm interested

7:14

in. You know, lots of kids have had

7:17

that experience. I mean millions actually,

7:19

but actually has talked about how

7:21

as an adult she found help

7:24

from Mr Rogers. I feel

7:26

like, at different stages of my life, I

7:28

have come to understand

7:31

the man and his impact. And

7:34

I almost want to say the genius of

7:37

his empathy. Like we talk about genius

7:39

and so many capacities when

7:41

it comes to other things and things that we

7:43

think of as you know, quote unquote hard, but

7:45

empathy is really hard. And

7:48

talking to people about empathy and getting

7:51

people to understand empathy is so hard.

7:53

And this man was, I

7:56

believe, a genius at it,

7:58

and not just because of innate

8:00

talent or inclination, but

8:02

because he valued it and he committed

8:04

to it and he worked really hard at it.

8:08

This I love this idea of

8:10

being a genius of empathy.

8:13

And to be a genius of

8:15

something like empathy feels like a new idea

8:17

because we tend to think

8:20

of the realm of feelings as

8:23

not requiring work or

8:26

clarity or discipline. And

8:30

problem, yeah, yeah, here's our problem. And I want

8:32

to ask you about that I want to. I mean, like, first in your own

8:34

experience, what makes empathy

8:36

difficult? Like, what do you find

8:38

empathy difficult or something that requires

8:41

work rather? And if so, what makes

8:43

empathy difficult? Empathy

8:46

is difficult because people don't have empathy for themselves.

8:49

M let's

8:53

talk about empathy.

8:57

That word is used everywhere today,

9:00

so much so that it seems to have lost its

9:02

power, because actually it's a pretty

9:04

radical idea that we

9:06

can so closely identify

9:09

with another person that we can understand

9:11

their feelings. A

9:14

lot of us aren't even comfortable with our own

9:16

feelings anger, fear, sorrow,

9:19

maybe even certain kinds of happiness. And

9:22

if we're not comfortable with our feelings,

9:25

then we're not really comfortable with ourselves,

9:27

are we? So then how

9:29

can we be comfortable with other people? When

9:33

Ashley came back to Mr Rogers as an

9:35

adult, she realized

9:37

that these were the questions he

9:39

was grappling with. Yes,

9:42

watching the show did feel like being with an

9:44

old, caring friend, but there was way

9:46

more going on there than just

9:48

the warm and fuzzies. The

9:51

first episode is my

9:53

favorite episode of Mr.

9:55

Rogers, and I think what Mr Rogers

9:58

did was established something in

10:00

that first episode when

10:03

he sings the song I like you as

10:05

you are. I like

10:07

you as you are exactly

10:11

and precisely. I

10:13

think you turned out nicely, and

10:16

I like you as you are. I

10:18

do. The first time I saw the episode,

10:21

though I wasn't a kid, I was an adult. I

10:24

had had a really, really tough day and

10:26

I decided to take a bubble bath and

10:28

have a glass of wine and just

10:30

be in the tub and take care of myself.

10:33

But I didn't want to be like alone with my

10:35

thoughts, because you know when you have like those sort of stressful,

10:37

hard days that you're like, I need to watch

10:40

anything, I need to do anything, because being

10:42

in my head, my head is not a safe space right now.

10:45

And so I was like, oh, I'm gonna set up the computer.

10:47

I'm just gonna play something. And

10:50

I was like, what can I play that would just be so

10:52

gentle? What can I watch that would

10:54

be so gentle that it

10:57

just it won't make right

10:59

now out harder for me? And

11:02

I just thought of Mr Rogers. Clicked the first

11:04

episode of Mr. Rogers, and I'm crying

11:06

in the bathtub. I like

11:09

you, Yes, I do. I

11:12

like you? What I

11:15

felt like I rediscovered a piece

11:17

of myself, like a part of myself, which

11:19

happens as you age,

11:21

like you start to think about all the things

11:24

that you've cast off for

11:26

reasons that when you look

11:28

back, or like that was to fit into

11:30

something else. And I miss that

11:32

thing and I want it back. And

11:35

I'm sitting there and I'm listening to this

11:37

song I like You as you are, and I'm remembering,

11:40

Holy sh it, I used to like myself. I

11:42

wouldn't want to change

11:44

you or even rearrange.

11:49

I used to really really like

11:51

who I was, And I don't feel

11:53

like that right now. And

11:55

it was the beginning of trying

11:58

to like myself again. Like you, Yes,

12:01

I do. I like

12:03

you? Oh you, I

12:06

do? I love you?

12:08

Like you as you

12:12

are. You

12:15

like what we've done in here, We'll

12:24

be right back. That

12:47

first episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood

12:49

aired nationally in nineteen and

12:52

the world in it

12:55

felt probably a lot like the

12:57

world does now, scary, k

13:00

aotic, and unspeakably violent.

13:03

There was the war in Vietnam. Dr

13:05

Martin Luther King Junior's assassination and

13:07

the protests and uprisings that came after.

13:10

Anger and confusion hung over a lot

13:12

of adults, and Fred's

13:15

revolutionary move was to recognize

13:17

that their kids were probably

13:20

feeling it too. The very first

13:22

week of the show when it premiered,

13:25

had to do with the ruler of the make

13:27

believe land, King Friday the

13:29

thirteenth, building

13:31

a wall to keep out people

13:34

and ideas that he didn't want in his

13:36

kingdom. And now that's creepy

13:39

when you think about it. In David

13:41

being Cooley knows a big TV moment

13:43

when he sees one. He's watched a ton

13:45

of them. He's been a television critic

13:48

for over forty years. And yeah,

13:50

he loves the Sopranos, and he loves

13:52

Breaking Bad, and he loves all the

13:54

prestige television about people murdering

13:56

one another and dissolving bodies and acid

13:59

or whatever. But he's also fascinated

14:02

with the first week of Mr. Rogers

14:04

Neighborhood and the things Fred

14:06

Rogers was able to communicate in

14:08

a land of make believe. Lady

14:11

Elaine has been up to her tricks again,

14:13

and she's moved the Eiffel Tower on the

14:15

wrong side of the castle, and

14:18

the tree has gone away from over

14:20

here to the middle, and the clock is over

14:22

here in the fountain. Well, it's just all mixed

14:24

erect. He must be really upset. He's

14:27

furious about it, and he has established

14:29

border guards in

14:32

the neighborhood. Make believe that

14:34

sounds like a war. The people in

14:36

his kingdom. The other puppets, the other characters

14:39

send out balloons. Boy,

14:42

do you ever look nifty with all those

14:44

blows over the wall that are

14:47

nice supportive balloons,

14:49

like you know, we like you, we

14:53

want to get to know you. And they decide

14:55

a wall and a barrier isn't a good

14:58

thing. Now, this

15:00

was, you know, and

15:05

it's dealing with Vietnam

15:07

essentially, but it

15:10

still resonates, I mean much

15:12

more than I'm comfortable with

15:14

it. Resonating. Vietnam was

15:17

just one in what seemed like a laundry

15:19

list of dark and difficult news

15:21

items in because

15:24

earlier that summer, Bobby Kennedy

15:26

was shot and Fred Rogers

15:29

asked for a prime time special

15:31

because he understood

15:34

that even if children were

15:36

too young to understand who Bobby Kennedy

15:39

was or what had happened, they

15:42

would feel the vibe in their own homes about

15:44

how upset their parents were, how upset

15:46

uh they're older siblings were, and

15:49

wanted to talk about it. So

15:51

in one sketch he has Daniel stripe

15:53

a tiger. Just a minute, I want to show

15:56

you simply asking Betty

15:58

Aberlin, one of the human people who visits

16:01

in the neighborhood, and it's

16:04

a balloon, could

16:06

you blow it up for you? Asked her to

16:09

blow up a balloon and then let the air out

16:11

and do it a few times. And he was concerned

16:13

about something this little, this little

16:15

puppet. What

16:18

about your air? My

16:22

my air inside me? Mm

16:24

hmm. What if you blow

16:26

all your air out, then

16:29

you won't have any left, just

16:31

like the balloon. But

16:36

people aren't like balloons, Daniel.

16:39

When we blow air out, we

16:42

get some more back in. Oh,

16:51

what does assassination mean? And

16:57

this is out of a children's hand puppet. As

17:00

far as you know that any other children

17:02

shows address

17:05

that topic, No,

17:10

and and and I've looked. I just

17:12

ask you in regardless

17:17

of what uh the

17:19

big news event is, can

17:22

you imagine any children's television

17:24

program that's on right now coming

17:28

up almost with like

17:30

a news special addressing

17:33

the emotional consequences of it.

17:35

It doesn't exist. This special

17:38

ran the evening after Bobby Kennedy

17:40

died Fred Rogers

17:43

wrote this scene overnight. He

17:46

was so tuned into his audience that

17:48

he knew that this was something that children

17:51

and their families absolutely needed

17:53

to hear. Fred Rogers

17:55

empathized with the kids who

17:57

were feeling so scared and confused,

18:00

so he talked right to those kids,

18:03

and then he talked to their parents too

18:06

about how to help with the children. The

18:08

best thing in the world is

18:11

for your children to

18:14

be included in

18:16

your family ways of

18:19

coping with the

18:23

problems that that present

18:25

themselves any time, but

18:28

particularly now in

18:30

this very difficult time in

18:33

our nation. Fred

18:36

Rogers invented a neighborhood where people got together

18:39

to talk about the things that confused

18:42

them or scared them, and he

18:44

used this place to show

18:46

his viewers what you have to do to

18:49

work through your emotions. And

18:52

in doing that he was able

18:54

to communicate complex concepts,

18:57

moral, even spiritual concepts,

19:00

excepts that even adults are still

19:02

struggling to get a hold of. Empathy

19:04

is about like sort of finding the

19:07

space between the parts that

19:09

connect right, Like we know as

19:12

humans that we are connected to each

19:14

other inextricably and irrevocably.

19:17

Like we know that because we have to

19:19

live in the world together and we have to rely on each

19:21

other. I UM,

19:23

in working on this project, I'm like really

19:26

struck with what seems

19:28

to me an apparent paradox. I

19:30

think that this question of empathy feels

19:32

so complicated for some people because on the one

19:34

hand, it's like, are you saying

19:36

we should have empathy for

19:39

for rapists and racists

19:42

and violent people and white supremacists.

19:45

I think that makes people feel panicked about the idea

19:47

of empathy, and I want to explore that a little

19:49

bit with you, Like, how do you see those ideas working

19:51

together? Well,

19:54

let me start here. I'll

19:56

start by saying, um,

19:58

and I guess I'll just say

20:00

whatever I say, and you guys can decide whether or not

20:02

that's not appropriate. UM.

20:05

My father has was in prison from

20:07

the time I was about

20:10

oh six months old until

20:13

I was almost thirty,

20:17

and my dad was

20:19

I found out when I was fourteen years old that my dad

20:21

was in prison for sexual assault, that that's

20:24

why he was there, and that

20:26

that's why he would be there for

20:29

however long. And my

20:32

dad had also written me letters up

20:34

until that point my entire life. I mean, just

20:36

so many letters. You're the best girl in the world. I love

20:38

you so much. You're my favorite girl.

20:41

Um. I think you're amazing. Never

20:43

forget that your dad loves you. I'm thinking of

20:45

you all the time. Nothing is better than your

20:47

smile, you know, like all this kinds

20:49

of stuff, and that had been

20:52

to be perfectly honest, like the basis of

20:54

my self esteem, and then to find

20:56

out that this was true about

20:58

my father was really really tough

21:01

for me, but it started

21:03

the beginning of a real understanding

21:06

the complexity of humanity

21:09

and that a person can

21:12

be one person's hero and another person's

21:15

worst nightmare and their monster and

21:17

the thing that was hiding in the dark, and

21:20

both of those things can be true about a person

21:23

right like it has to be, Like there

21:25

was no there was no other way to

21:29

see this. He has both

21:31

done a bad thing and he

21:33

a terrible thing, a monstrous thing, and he

21:36

has also, you know, been

21:39

the thing that up into this point

21:41

has kept me from feeling like I was alone

21:43

in the world. And the truth is

21:45

we're connected to these people for

21:48

better or worse. We

21:50

all want to be good, to be friendly,

21:52

to be neighbors, at least most of

21:55

us. But when we see other

21:57

people acting well bad,

22:00

we get hurt, we lose our

22:02

own balance, we get mad. There

22:05

are a lot of reactions

22:09

to the state of

22:11

our country, the state of the world, the state

22:13

of society, all those things that are a lot of reactions

22:15

right now that it is perfectly

22:18

understandable for people to be this angry.

22:21

And so I don't really blame the people

22:24

who are kind of hot headed and lose

22:26

their minds, or you know, like

22:28

or or are so seems so consumed

22:31

by their anger that they're more angry than

22:33

alive. Like, I don't blame

22:35

them, but I do always

22:38

think, Man, who's

22:40

going to be there? And how

22:42

are they going to deal when

22:45

the anger stops being enough?

22:48

Because it'll never be enough. It

22:51

will never ever, ever, ever, ever

22:53

be enough. What

22:57

do you do with the man

22:59

that you've feel when you feel

23:01

so mad you could bite me, when

23:05

the whole wide world seems

23:08

wrong, and nothing you

23:10

do seems very

23:13

what do you do with the man you feel?

23:16

It's a question that preoccupied

23:18

Fred Rogers. He wrote

23:20

a song about it. He felt so strongly about

23:23

it that he recited the lyrics to that song in

23:25

front of a Senate committee hearing in

23:29

You Got the Flaw. It's

23:32

a famous bit of footage, and we'll return

23:34

to it again. But I'm struck that this is

23:36

one of the first times Fred Rogers was really

23:39

explicit about what he was doing

23:41

with his TV programs. And

23:44

I feel that if we in public television

23:47

can only make

23:49

it clear that feelings

23:52

are mentionable and manageable,

23:55

we will have done a great service for

23:59

mental health. Uh.

24:02

I think that it's much more dramatic

24:04

that two men could be working out

24:06

their feelings of anger, much

24:10

more dramatic than showing something

24:12

of gunfire. Could

24:14

I tell you the words of one of the songs,

24:17

which I feel is very important.

24:21

This has to do with that good feeling

24:23

of control which I feel

24:25

that that children need to

24:28

know is there. And it starts

24:30

out what do you do with the mad that

24:32

you feel? And that first line came straight

24:35

from a child? What do you do with the

24:37

mad that you feel? When you feel so

24:39

mad you could bite, When

24:41

the whole wide world seems oh

24:43

so wrong, and nothing you

24:45

do seems very right? What

24:48

do you do? Do you punch

24:50

a bag? Do you pound some clay

24:53

or some dough? Do you round

24:55

up friends for a game of tag

24:58

or see how fast you go? It's

25:01

great to be able to stop when

25:03

you've planned a thing that's wrong, and

25:06

be able to do something else

25:08

instead, And think this

25:10

song I can stop when

25:12

I want to, can stop when

25:15

I wish, can stop, stop,

25:17

stop any time, And

25:19

what a good feeling to feel, And

25:21

what a good feeling to feel

25:24

like this and know that

25:26

the failing is really

25:28

mine. I guess that

25:31

makes me think a lot about the force

25:34

of anger and the violence

25:36

and ugliness that anger can cause. And

25:38

here's this person sort of standing at

25:40

the riverhead of anger and wanting to

25:42

divert it. And I think it's a fascinating

25:45

idea. And I want to ask you, what

25:47

do you do Ashley with the mad that

25:49

you feel? Oh?

25:51

My god, I

25:53

think because

25:59

anger is a thing that I had

26:01

to teach myself,

26:03

give myself permission to feel

26:05

in my adulthood, because I grew

26:07

up in a very angry household

26:10

where anger was the emotion. Did

26:12

you um?

26:16

But every day I

26:20

I think what I have learned

26:23

to do with my anger is

26:26

to talk to it, which sounds

26:28

so I know that it sounds a little booboo,

26:30

but hey, this is Mr Rogers, Um.

26:33

But I do I talk to my anger because

26:36

what I've what I've essentially

26:38

learned is that every emotion is

26:40

just trying to tell you something. And

26:42

when I'm angry, I think it's trying

26:44

to tell me what I care about. It's

26:47

trying to tell me what's important to

26:49

me. Years ago, um

26:53

I was really angry. I was

26:55

working at a media company and

27:00

the Ferguson uprising was

27:03

happening, and the

27:05

news room was covering it. We were all talking

27:07

about it, and I had

27:10

a conversation with a boss

27:13

who told me that

27:16

they did not want me to tweet

27:18

out the words black Lives Matter

27:21

because it was political and

27:25

it could affect my colleagues

27:27

ability to do their job.

27:30

And I

27:32

remember feeling so

27:35

angry at the

27:37

implication that I

27:39

could choose. That's

27:42

not just a choice. And

27:44

I think that's when I just got

27:46

to it, why, where I was just like, you know what I can,

27:48

I'm gonna do something, and it's going to be something

27:51

that they're not going to be able to do anything about.

27:53

I ended up raising about

27:55

half a million dollars for the Ferguson Library

27:58

because it was a really safe place for

28:00

children. Schools were closed and

28:03

teachers were going to the library and

28:06

just sending emails to parents

28:08

and saying, hey, if you need to bring

28:10

your kids to the library, we're just all going to go

28:12

to the library. And it's not

28:14

that it makes the anger go away. But

28:16

what it does is it it makes

28:19

the anger not feel chaotic. I'm

28:22

giving it a job so that I don't

28:24

have to live within in my body.

28:30

What do you do with

28:32

the man that you feel? What

28:36

do you do with the sadness, the

28:38

frustration? What

28:41

do you do with the joy and this surprise

28:44

or the love that you feel?

28:48

Over something like nine episodes,

28:51

Fred Rogers used the language of

28:53

children and the land of make believe

28:56

to talk about feelings.

28:59

But this is not light work.

29:04

Mr Rogers Neighborhood was not a simple

29:06

show, and Mr Rogers

29:08

Fred Rogers was not a simple

29:10

man. He was a preacher

29:13

who did his best work on television.

29:16

He was a wildly talented musician and

29:18

composer who wrote songs primarily

29:21

heard by four year olds. He

29:23

was deeply involved with people who were

29:25

transforming the very way we

29:27

think about children and learning.

29:30

Fred Rogers was a radical

29:32

in a sense. He was spiritual. He

29:35

was revolutionary. I mean he

29:37

might have even been subversive. Get

29:41

scared me, get mad

29:44

if we get too scared about

29:46

fights, will never do things

29:49

together ever. Yeah,

29:52

I think now right, I

29:55

think this is the calming down

29:57

way to say I love you. Fred

30:02

Rogers left us an enormous body

30:04

of work, a road map. I

30:06

think that we can revisit to see

30:08

what we can learn that still applies as

30:11

much today as it did in n

30:15

So we're going to talk to the people who knew

30:17

him best. What was true

30:19

about Fred Rogers is he was he

30:22

was tuned in at a deeper level

30:24

than most people in the daytime.

30:26

I was learning this complex child

30:28

development theory in grad school,

30:31

and at night I would come into the control room

30:34

and I would see Fred live

30:37

out all the things I was learning

30:39

about. We'll also seek out people

30:41

like Ashley and others who grew up with

30:44

Mr Rogers, people who recognize

30:46

there's something deeper going on there.

30:50

We're gonna try to understand some of what Fred

30:52

coded into his children's program and

30:54

see if we can put it into a language for

30:57

the adults who so

30:59

desperately need it. Now, we're

31:05

trying to crawl into the mind

31:07

of Fred Rogers. How did this singular

31:10

dude from an Appalachian town happen to develop

31:12

some of the most spiritually sophisticated,

31:15

substantial, maybe even essential

31:18

television of all time. You

31:20

can call his work of philosophy, but

31:23

it really just comes down to this, how

31:26

can Fred Rogers help us

31:29

be better neighbors next

31:41

week? When I met Fred Rogers,

31:44

he was a very

31:46

unusual positive energy,

31:49

so damn unusual, and

31:52

by that I mean those puppets. What

31:56

on earth was a grown man doing?

31:59

Plan with The pub is Finding

32:02

Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. The

32:05

team is Dan O'Donnell, Jordan Bailey,

32:07

and Mattie Foley. Our editor is Sarah

32:09

Nick's editorial will help from Michael Garofalo.

32:12

The executive producer for Transmitter Media

32:15

is Credit Cone. Executive producers

32:17

at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and Andrew

32:19

Berman. Music by

32:21

Blue Dot Sessions and Alison Layton Brown

32:24

And thanks to the team at My Heart. If

32:28

you like what you're hearing, rate the show, review

32:30

the show, and tell a friend I'm

32:33

Carvel Wallace. Thank you for listening.