Here are some notes from 2/27/03, the day Fred Rogers died of stomach cancer at 74.
msn entertainment news section.

Rogers did much of the puppet work and voices himself. He also studied early childhood development at the University of Pittsburgh and consulted with an expert there over the years.
Reminds me of Amy Needham’s sticky mittens experiments.

Rogers said in a 1995 interview. "I always thought I was a neighbor who just came in for a visit."

I hate my neighbors. If I had Fred Rogers for a neighbor, he wouldn’t put a bucket on his side of our shared driveway.

Negri said Rogers refused to accept shoddy ad-libbing by guests who may have thought they could slack off during a kid's show.
Wow! What a hard ass.

Rogers taught children how to share, deal with anger and even why they shouldn't fear the bathtub by assuring them they'll never go down the drain.

I was more afraid of getting flushed down the toilet.

Rogers came out of broadcasting retirement last year to record public service announcements for the Public Broadcasting Service telling parents how to help their children deal with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. "If they see the tragedy replayed on television, they might think it's happening at that moment," he said.
Give the kids a little credit Fred.

His ratings peaked in 1985-86, where 10.7 million viewer tuned, in but dropped to 3.6 million by the 1999-2000 episode. It is reported that he was ordained in 1963 to continue to do good works for the benefit of children. Shortly afterward he started his puppet show which five years later broadcast to a few cities around Latrobe like Boston and Washington. Later that show developed into Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood on a network that became PBS. It is his inoffensive message on being polite and helping others that gave him staying power through a politically incorrect-ometer charged 90s, which would have undermined a minister speaking about God. Being ten years old when the shows popularity peaked, I appreciate being able to watch his rise in popularity as a child. I’m glad that I didn’t grow up watching Barney or Teletubbies. That experience of growing up watching Fred Rogers and Jim Henson’s creations, ranks right up there with being alive at a time when Michael Jordan is playing basketball, or Jerry Rice is playing football.

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