Photo courtesy of In the Heart of the Beast Theatre
Make Believe Neighborhood at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre.
From Make Believe Neighborhood at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre.
I’m psyched to see Make Believe Neighborhood, Bart Buch’s puppet show at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre. The show is inspired by 48-year-old Buch’s lifelong Mister Rogers obsession, which he says began when he was 3. Before he composed the show, Buch, who runs HOBT’s youth and community programs, says he asked himself, “What show would Fred want me to do?” And the answer was a show about Buch’s own neighborhood, the semi-harried Powderhorn Park area—basically the same city blocks that surround the theater. It’s almost like when Tupac appeared to Kendrick Lamar in a vision when K.Dot was writing To Pimp a Butterfly, except, you know, with Mister Rogers and puppets.
Make Believe Neighborhood is Heart of the Beast’s largest production in years, with more than 200 puppets in the show. And percussion genius Marty Dosh wrangled special collaborators Bonnie Prince Billy, Andrew Bird, and Sylvan Esso to craft its music. (Sylvan Esso released their stripped down version of the Fred Rogers chestnut “There Are Many Ways to Say I Love You”). On Monday, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood celebrates its 50th anniversary of first coming on the air (February 19, 1968), and this should be the perfect way to honor him. The show runs through February 25.
In fact, thinking about this entire thing inspired me to dig back into the Mpls.St.Paul archive to find an interview I did with Mister Rogers on July 14, 2000. Mister Rogers was promoting an exhibit at the Children’s Museum that summer and I got him for a brief phoner. The interview still stands as a professional highlight, even though, man, reading it all these years later feels a little awkward. Mister Rogers was two years from passing away from stomach cancer and I was two years out of college, just getting started as a professional interviewer. I grew up watching him every day, sometimes multiple times (man, I bet I could still get sucked in by the time it takes him to change his shoes), but in 2000, I was clearly in nuke-all-daddies mode. I come in so hot with the snark, and Mister Rogers ends up piercing my greenhorn misanthropy with his unrelenting kindness. Of course he did. What a dude.
Here's a reprint of that interview:
Mister Rogers Neighborhood, the award-winning PBS children’s program, has been going strong for more than 30 years. Along with stretching the lifetime of the loungewear fad, Fred Rogers, 72, has been bringing generations of kids into his home and then transporting them, by trolley, into "The Land of Make Believe." At the Minnesota Children’s Museum’s exhibit, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: A Hands-on Exhibit," kids of all ages can take turns singing along to "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and playing with all the familiar puppet characters; among them, King Friday, Daniel the Tiger, Henrietta Pussycat, and Lady Fairchild. The exhibit runs through August 31.
I'm a gigantic fan, but should I call you Mister Rogers or Fred or what?
Call me whatever you like. Fred is good. If I may call you Steve?
Sure. What do you think kids get out of the exhibit?
The same thing the television program gives them. They can play and use their imaginations and it can expose people to really fabulous teachers. And a teacher, in my book, is somebody that loves something in front of the kids. I remember when I was working at a nursery school during my child development training at the University of Pittsburgh. The director had asked this sculptor from Carnegie Mellon to come in and work with the kids. She said to him, "All I want you to do is to love the clay in front of the children. I don’t want you to teach them techniques. I don’t want you to do anything except love the clay. Now these were four and five year olds. He used to come once a week. He did that for a year or two. During that time, those kids in that nursery school, used clay in more imaginative ways than any children before or since. Simply, because that man came and loved clay. He was enthusiastic about his medium in front of those kids. That’s what happens in museums.
Is that why kids get such a kick out of "Picture, Picture"?
I think so. I think it gives them a chance to know that something doesn’t appear magically on the shelf of a store.
Do they know that the last time tennis shoes, crayons, and wagons were manufactured in this country was in 1972?
I don’t know. But we’ve showed them doing it in this country. I’d like to say though, adults get something out of the exhibit too. There are grown-ups, you know, who may have grown up with the Neighborhood themselves. It’s a chance of reliving a little bit of your childhood and that’s a great gift for adults. Especially adults that are invested in childrens’ growing. Because if you can remember what it was like for you to be a child, then you can develop a great deal more empathy for the children you live or work with.
Let’s talk about the television show itself. How many new shows a year do you make these days?
We made 15 last year. We’re making ten this year. I’m writing five new ones right now. They’re added to the ones that seem to be evergreen. Children that would’ve watched the Neighborhood have been joined by a whole new group of children now.
Do you ever plan to retire?
That’s a common question. Especially when people are my age, but I think that I will always want to do something that involves work with children. It doesn’t necessarily have to be broadcasting, but I really care about kids.
Let’s talk a little bit about some aspects of the show itself. Don’t you have casual day at PBS? What’s with the sneakers and the cardigan thing?
(Laughs.) That’s tradition. If we were starting the Neighborhood now it would probably be something different. But you know some things just grow like topsy. And that’s certainly was the case with some traditions from the Neighborhood.
Who makes the sweaters now? Your mother famously made your cardigans for years.
Yes she did. And she died in 1980 and had the pieces of one already finished. Mother asked a friend of hers, "Now if I don’t get through this illness, will you put this together and give it to Fred for Christmas?" Mother died in November and this gray sweater was waiting for me under the Christmas tree. I was so touched that she would’ve thought of that. Margie Whitmer, our producer, has a place that she gets sweaters now. I think they get them a plain color and then they dye them. But they’re all the same now.
Where do they come from? That could be a hot fashion tip for the fall.
(Laughs) You’re welcome to ask her!
Of all the opportunities to sell out in your career, why did you pick Casper the Friendly Ghost in 1995?
Casper? I don’t remember that one. The Neighborhood has been in a bunch of movies. My favorite appearance of the Neighborhood in a movie is in "Being There." There’s this scene in this bed where this man [portrayed by Peter Sellers], who is a very childlike person, is sitting there watching the Neighborhood. And Shirley MaClaine is trying to get him to "love" her. It’s so funny.
Your show has been made fun of on SCTV, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show--how do you handle all the parody?
The ones that I have seen and know about have been done with such good humor. There have been some that I really opposed and actually got taken off the air, but those are people in local stations. There was this one guy who had a cardigan and sneakers and was on in the afternoon -- it would be different if it was late at night -- he would say things like this, "Now, children, take your mother’s hair spray and your daddy’s cigarette lighter, and press the buttons together and you’ll have a blow torch." That’s without conscience. But the other ones, I remember meeting Johnny Carson and he had done a lot of take-offs and he said, "You know, Mister Rogers, we wouldn’t do this if we didn’t care about you." And when I met Eddie Murphy he just threw his arms around me, and he said, "The real Mister Rogers." And I said, "The real Mister Robinson." When you come face to face with people, you usually find really wonderful folk.
I had a few nasty questions planned too, but I’m chickening out. I just don’t have the heart to do it to you.
Well, that’s your prerogative. (Chuckles) And it’s also your prerogative to grow in your relationships with others.
But do you ever get angry? Do you ever bitch out Mr. McFeeley or anything?
You mean tell him off on the program?
Well, behind the scenes…
Well, we’re a pretty affiliative group, you know. We do a scene, we take a look at it, we decide whether we’ll do it over again or not. It’s pretty much a group effort. And David [Newell, a.k.a. Mr. "Speedy Delivery Guy" McFeeley] is one of the most wonderful people. He’s an old movie buff and he knows everything that’s ever gone on in the movies or the stage. Just a fabulous person, and he has three wonderful kids.
Jeez, I was just using him as an example…
Well, this is not a neighborhood where people scream at each other. I used to floor manage in New York before I came to Pittsburgh. I was a floor manager at NBC right out of college. I was horrified at the way sometimes people would just scream at each other. That’s not necessary. In fact, somebody once said to me, "What do you think they feel that will accomplish?" And, of course, there’s no good answer for that. It’s not going to make people better.
