The Good Neighbor

June 11, 2018
The creator and host of the 1968–2001 children’s television show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was a paragon of friendliness, according to this adulatory biography. King, a former Philadelphia Inquirer editor who knew Fred Rogers before his death, paints him as a genius with an uncanny rapport with children—sprouted from boyhood struggles with wealthy, smothering parents, bullies, and asthma—and a determination to alleviate their angst. Rogers became famous for his show, which blended puppets, songs, conversational lessons on everything from cleaning up messes to weathering divorce, and reassurances that kids are fine the way they are, all based on the latest child-development theories. In King’s glowing portrait, Rogers, who was also a Presbyterian minister, was a protector of family values—he refused to advertise merchandise to kids—as well as an exemplar of “caring, kindness and modesty,” who was dubbed “the most Christ-like human being I have ever encountered” by a fellow clergyman. Rogers has been criticized for promoting a culture of televisual passivity and coddling—he once retaped a scene in which a pot of popcorn overflowed because he thought the spillage might frighten young viewers—but King’s hagiography skirts those issues. Readers looking for an incisive examination of Rogers’s impact will not find one here.