Discovering the Neighborhood of Make-Believe in the NPR archives
In the 1978 Christmas Eve broadcast of NPR's Weekend All Things Considered, Mr. Rogers explains his decision to invite Santa to his Neighborhood of Make-Believe — he wanted it on the record that Santa would never watch children while they’re sleeping. This nearly 40 year-old interview with the star of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was the first delightfully unexpected discovery I made while searching through NPR's in-house digital archive. The interview was contemplative and funny and, lucky for me, there was more. Mr. Rogers was interviewed on NPR over a dozen more times between 1975 and 2002. What’s special about these interviews is their incredibly slow pace. And it’s not just the way Mr. Rogers talks--it’s the way he reveals the thoughtfulness and deep compassion for the perspective of children that went into every creative choice on the show.
Here are the greatest hits from nearly thirty years of NPR interviews with Mr. Rogers.
All Things Considered, 6/5/1975
Bob Edwards introduces him by saying, “Mr. Rogers is, for adults anyway, almost unbearably slow paced.”
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Bob Edwards: Mr Rogers is, for adults anyway, almost unbearably slow-paced. Steven Banker asked Fred Rogers to account for the difference.
Mr. Rogers: I think it depends who you are. I happen to be a person who is rather well-modulated in his way of speaking and in his way of dealing with feelings. And so consequently, I am myself. And I think maybe that’s the most important thing that I can be to children on television, is myself.
All Things Considered, 12/12/1979
39 days into the Iranian Hostage Crisis, Mr. Rogers returns to All Things Considered to discuss with Susan Stamberg how parents can use this time to teach their children to, “develop empathy for all sorts of people.”
Susan Stamberg: A crisis situation presents a tremendous opportunity to really teach lessons in morals and values, doesn’t it? It’s a way to acknowledge the fact that there’s anger, but you can go beyond that and say, but this is the wrong way to express your anger. Taking prisoner is the wrong way.
Mr. Rogers: I have trouble with right and wrong. But I know what you’re saying. And I think that it’s more helpful to say, this is not the way we do it in our family. This is not the way we would do it in our country. And then go on to say how we as a family feel. And our notion of how we as a country feel is such and such. And this gives the kids a very secure sense of belonging to a family, to a country that has these ideals.
Morning Edition, 3/18/1983
Eight years after his initial interview with Mr. Rogers, Bob Edwards admits he has converted to the slow-speed philosophy of the Neighborhood.
Bob Edwards: I have a confession, I’m almost 36 years old and I enjoy your show. It’s not so much what you’re doing with children I mean I see that now as a father, it’s television and something is going on there. You use the medium so well.
Mr. Rogers: Anybody likes to be in touch with somebody who’s honest. We all do… I think that the box, there’s a certain safety in the box. And I wonder — when children see me on the street they invariably say, how did you get out? And I try my best to explain what television is and that it’s a picture and that I’m a real person and that’s why I could be there at that moment. They think that you’re so big. And I invariably say to them, you know the scary things you may see on television, could never come and visit you.
Mr. Rogers appears on NPR for the last time a year before he passed away in 2003. In this Fresh Air interview with Barbara Bogaev he reveals more about his life outside the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe” than in any of his previous appearances.
Mr. Rogers: I had every imaginable childhood disease, even scarlet fever, and so whenever I was quarantined—and you know, they used to quarantine people for chicken pox and all of those things—I would be in bed a lot, and I certainly knew what it was like to use the counterpane as my neighborhood of make-believe, if you will. But I had puppets.
Barbara Bogaev: You mean, the window? You would use what? Finger puppets or shadow puppets, or what?
Mr. Rogers: And things on the bed. I would put up my knees and they would be mountains, you know, covered with the sheet, and I'd have all these little figures moving around, and I'd make them talk. And I can still see my room, and I'm sure that was the beginning of a much later neighborhood of make-believe.
Sarah Wilson is a public history intern with NPR’s RAD team. She works with the RAD team to uncover NPR history and collect oral history interviews with notable current and former staff.
