You'll laugh, smile and maybe even get a little teary-eyed watching "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", a documentary about Pittsburgh TV icon Fred Rogers that opens Friday in select theaters, including the Manor in Squirrel Hill, before going to wide release.
Extensive footage of Rogers in action, added to insightful interviews with family members, friends, colleagues and Rogers, himself, provide a compelling look into the life and legacy of the Latrobe native who revolutionized children's television and remained unwavering in his beliefs you can teach kids with plain-spoken honesty, compassion and encouragement.
Some moviegoers will be surprised to learn things about Rogers — that he was ordained as a minister and that is famed "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," filmed at WQED-TV in Pittsburgh, addressed societal issues including divorce, equality and even war, with the namesake host delivering reassurance to young viewers in that gentle, understanding voice.
It wasn't just kids who heeded Rogers' message, as shown in the "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" scene in which the TV host's eloquent testimony sways U.S. Sen. John Pastore, D-Rhode Island, a skeptic who had been ready to slash PBS funding as President Richard Nixon had proposed.
"Won't You Be My Neighbor?" director Morgan Neville (an Oscar winner for “20 Feet from Stardom”) and Pittsburgher David Newell, who played "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood's" beloved postman Mr. McFeely (catch phrase: "Speedy Delivery!") granted interviews a week ago to discuss the film.
Newell hadn't seen the full film yet as he and Neville, seated in the Sen. John Heinz History Center where "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" artifacts are displayed, talked about Rogers' impact and what they hope theater-goers gain from seeing "Won't You Be My Neighbor?":
The Times: You found amazing archived footage of Fred Rogers. So many things we've never seen before. Was there a holy grail? Like one piece of video you absolutely had to find, but it took awhile to locate?
Morgan Neville: No, but there were many nuggets. An archive film lives or dies by its archive. One of the best compliments we got was from Kevin Morrison at the Fred Rogers Co. We kept asking for more and more stuff. There were film outtakes, and all the field pieces that were shot on film. We transferred hours and hours and hours of things. Every public-service announcement and lecture Fred Rogers gave. Kevin at the company kept saying 'Why do you need this? Really?' Do you want that?' After we screened the film for him he said, 'OK, now I understand why you asked for everything.' You don't want to ever leave one stone unturned. So we went through not only the episodes but every other scrap we could find.
David Newell: They even took some of my home movies. I would take 16-millimeter movies at rehearsal in the early years.
Neville: Stuff like that makes it come alive. I think one of the challenges making a film about someone who came from television is to make it feel cinematic and not like a television show. And part of that is to make it look as varied as possible. And we had no shortage of material.
Newell: I shot a lot of B-roll and outtakes I had to hide at WQED so we'd have it. It tends to get pitched sometimes.
What do you hope will be the takeaways for people seeing this movie?
Neville: I only hope everyone is reminded by the kindness of Mr. Rogers and (laughs) everybody in our society becomes much kinder and more considerate of their neighbor. And all acrimony disappears.
You have a guy in the movie, one of Fred's friends, who said he doesn't know if Fred's message succeeded.
Neville: That was (journalist) Tom Junod. He said one of the questions is, "The lessons Fred was teaching — how much did the rest of the world heed them?" Particularly looking at things like the television landscape today.
The film shows Fred near the end getting disillusioned with TV.
Neville: My sense is he was frustrated by television at large.
Newell: Oh, he was. That's why he got into television to begin with. The pie-throwing back in the early '50s and string of slapstick comedies for kids that the sportscaster probably hosted. Fred said he could do better than that. He wasn't saying there's anything wrong with old, classic, slapstick movies, because that's an art in itself. But not as a steady diet for kids.
Neville: Fred tells that story in the film. There was a quote of his saying, 'If I came on today, I couldn't get on television.' And that was 1983.
Newell: And that's ancient now. You know, I think it would depend on who he's selling it to. But I wish ("Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood") could get on in its present form and run on PBS. It would work. The values. The cardigans might be a little outdated, but his message is never outdated. It's evergreen. Fred was working with ideas. That's what I always wished I was able to do with the PR. Get that message across, the depth of his message.
Neville: That's something Fred expressed a number of times, the frustration that people didn't understand the depth of what he was doing.
Newell: That was always my frustration. Not to be able to get that out. I didn't give up, I would try. That's why I encouraged Fred to go on 'The Tonight Show,' which was like making him walk the plank.
I remember that. Joan Rivers was the guest host. She just froze. Because her whole shtick was being outrageous, but she didn't know what to do.
Newell: Yes. What you saw was a turnaround on her part. I was there, I had to go with Fred. First he had said, 'Don't let me do it, don't let me do it.' I said Joan Rivers is not going to skewer you. Underneath all that fluff she was a very nice person. She also knew a joke when she saw one. But she melted. She really did. And they became friends after that. They'd write to each other.
Neville: Same thing with Senator Pastore. They became friends. I've read their letters back and forth to each other after that Senate testimony.
Newell: As long as 30 years later, up to Pastore's death, about eight years before Fred, they were still in touch.
What is Fred's impact now? Can you measure that?
Newell: I can only speak for myself, but I'm getting new people finding McFeely on Facebook or on Messenger, and they want to become a friend, or whatever that's called, and they say, almost to the person, how much the program meant to them and has shaped them into the person they are today, the concepts Fred dealt with. And it's so rewarding. It was certainly Fred's neighborhood, but I felt I was a spoke in the wheel anyhow. To help him with the show.
Neville: Just to add to that, yes, the show influenced other shows. His words and other ideas are out there, but I think you seized on the most important thing, which is for the millions and millions of kids who grew up watching him that learned something from him. That's the real legacy of what Fred did.
Newell: And I think it did make a difference. We see all the bad stuff that's happening in the world. But the other day I saw two men — one had with him what must have been his new baby, maybe 3 weeks old — and it was shown to his friend and a big smile came across the adult friend's face. And I thought, you know, the majority of people are kind. And I think Fred added to that. It's the 5 percent of people that are out shooting.
Neville: I've been saying there's no kindness lobby in our country. It's a lot easier to get eyeballs or support or money by exploiting ...
Newell: Or exploding.
Neville: Right, or exploding .... our basic, human instincts. And when you try to celebrate our best human instincts, this kindness and compassion, people tend to think of it as quaint or naive.
Newell: I think in his (Senate) speech he included that: How do we make goodness attractive?
Neville: Exactly. I did put it in there because that's key to this whole thing.
Newell: And he did make goodness attractive. It was inherent in him. And I think then the catching comes in. Kids catch that. I can understand Tom Junod's remark; there are zillions of people in this world, and you're not going to cure the world's ills with one program, but I think he made a big dent.
Neville: Without a doubt. But it's immeasurable. Both in its impact, but also there's no metric to gauge how much kinder and more compassionate you've made somebody or how much you helped a child who maybe didn't have a parental figure.
Newell: That's one of the remarks we've heard a lot. How much Fred became a father figure to families with absentee fathers. On one level it's sad, on the other level it's wonderful Fred was there for those kids.
Neville: I've heard that. Anecdotally people have told me that, too: 'My parents were gone and I was a latchkey kid.'
Newell: And they could be watching 'Mister Rogers' or the latest episode of whatever, but I think a lot watched Fred. I love going out — look, I play Mr. McFeely, which is a costumed-character delivery man — and I've been to malls, I've been to hospitals, everywhere, and it's wonderful to talk to the parents and the kids. I always ask the parents what they do for a living. It ranges from professors to street car drivers. And all these families who come up and wait in line to say hello ... we've got to have made an impression over the years. He was a pioneer.
In doing your research for the film, was there anything that surprised you?
Neville: The fundamental question everyone has is, 'Was Mr. Rogers for real?' And when people ask me what's the difference between Fred Rogers and Mister Rogers I think the real man is very much part of who Mister Rogers was. There's nothing dissonant about it. But in a way, the man is more impressive than the character. That he was a more willful, dimensional, deeper version of that TV character.
Newell: Exactly. I would have said the same thing. I spent 38 years with him, and I think he also had a backbone of steel. You don't last that long on television and to be able to do what he did on television. There are not too many men would play peekaboo with a blanket on television.
We see in the movie he had a sense of humor, too.
Newell: He does have a sense of humor. That's the one thing people ask me: 'What do you miss most about Fred?' I always say his sense of humor. And it was quick. You could see it in King Friday a lot. You can see it even more in the more improvised 'Children's Corner' clips. A lot of that was with no script. Just off the top of his head. Then after 'Children's Corner,' that was when Mister Rogers was forming. I watched 'Children's Corner' as a teenager because it was television. You'd watch anything. The test pattern. But I can't wait to see this film beginning to end on the big screen. I grew up on movies, and I always feel cheated when I see a film on television. I want the curtains to part.