Although some children's shows of the era featured youngsters who interacted with hosts on-camera, others (such as Sheriff John) opted to create the illusion of a one-to-one relationship between host and viewer by excluding children from the studio. This lack of youngsters on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was due in part to the difficulties of working with very young children on scripted television shows, but primarily it was a simple stylistic choice. They did at times, particularly in the earlier years of that program, but for the most part the show featured only Fred Rogers and other adult actors. It isn't true that no children ever appeared with Fred Rogers on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
One of the initial programs he developed for WQED was The Children's Corner, which contained many of the elements and characters Fred Rogers would incorporate into his own show when he made his on-camera debut as host of Misterogers for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1963.
#Captain kangaroo child molestor tv#
Given the prominent, widespread protests and boycotts directed at Disney when it was revealed that Victor Salva, the writer-director of their 1995 film Powder (released through Disney's Hollywood Pictures subsidiary), had served time for child molestation, it stretches credulity to the breaking point to believe that the host of an extremely popular children's program on public television could have remained in that position for thirty-three years without having been hounded off the air amidst howls of condemnation from thousands of outraged parents.įred Rogers got his start in television through his musical background when, after earning a bachelor's degree in music composition in 1951, he was hired by NBC television in New York to serve as an assistant producer (and later as a floor director) for several of the music-variety type programs ( The Voice of Firestone, The Lucky Strike Hit Parade, The Kate Smith Hour) prevalent on TV in the early 1950s.Ī few years later, Rogers returned to his hometown area to develop programming for WQED in Pittsburgh, the nation's first community-sponsored educational television station.
This circumstance explains the lack of children on his program and the presence of adult characters with suggestive names, such as Mr. Rogers-related urban legends are the following claims:įred Rogers began his television career as a result of his being convicted of child molestation one condition of his sentence was that he fulfill a community service obligation by performing a television show for children on a local public station. He must be concealing some deep, dark secret antithetical to his public persona, and the variety of rumors floated about Fred Rogers over the years certainly reflect that sentiment.Īmong the more common of the Mr. We're either too cynical or too bored to accept that a kindly, soft-spoken man who made a career out of teaching and communicating with children as an adult (no funny costumes, no frenetic comedy gags, no sickly sweet "baby talk") could possibly live up to his television image. His show-opening "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" ditty, his daily on-camera donning of a cardigan sweater and comfortable shoes, and his tinkling Neighborhood Trolley were all familiar, reassuring icons to millions of children (and their parents).Īny popular, decent, clean-cut celebrity is fair game for all sorts of scurrilous rumors these days, it seems. In 2003 the television world mourned the loss of Fred Rogers, the gentle and genial host who delivered lessons on love, kindness, and friendship to children for over 30 years on the television program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
0 kommentar(er)
