Few folks are aware that Fred Rogers had a foster child. He grew up to become her, and eventually landed a gig as host of a daring new show for transfiction writers; produced by Trans Television Systems. If you did have the very brief privilege of watching the show, you might recall the dulcet tenor tones of Niecy Rogers?
cue in three....two...one...
It’s a beautiful day on this writing show,
A beautiful day for a reader
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
It’s a neighborly day in this fav'rite show,
A neighborly day for a writer,
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
I have always wanted to know a reader just like you,
I’ve always wanted to connect in a writing site with you.
So...
Let’s make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we’re together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my reader?
Won’t you please, won’t you please,
Please won’t you be my reader?
I won't tell if you won't, folks, but Ms. Rogers is really pissed that Amazon labeled her teen fiction as erotica. And I just got rejection notices from three publishers. This is turning out to be a real sucky day!
Niecy? Niecy? We're still on the air and your mike is hot!
What? Aw fuck! Wellllll?
Tomorrow, tomorrow
We'll start the day tomorrow with a chapter or two
Tomorrow, tomorrow
We'll start the day tomorrow with a story for you
Til then I hope you're feeling happy
Til then I hope it won't be crah-pee (like mine)
Tomorrow, tomorrow
It soon will be tomorrow and be our day
We will say a very happy tomorrow to you
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Words and Music by
Fred Rogers
Tomorrow
Words andMusic by
Fred Rogers and
Josie Carey (Joesphine Vicari)
Comments
For those of us in the UK…
This goes completely over our heads as I’m pretty sure that none of us (I know I haven’t) will not have ever heard of this tv show! Thank goodness for google! :-)
I think we're all Bozos on this Bus
For years the shows people remember watching in early childhood were different in every country, but that's not completely true anymore. Younger Americans might fondly remember growing up with the UK imports The Teletubbies, or Thomas the Train, or the Australian show The Wiggles. Some British kid's shows I only learned about in adulthood, like Camberwick Green: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piE-VEubGr4
For me it was the US shows Captain Kangaroo (not Australian for some reason), Hobo Kelly, Shari Lewis and Lambchop (sort of an Americanized Muffin the Mule), and the dangerously anarchistic and totally brilliant nutjob Soupy Sales https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n43zAbwtiaI , who got in trouble for instructing kids to steal money out of their parents wallets and purses and mail it to him. People just a year or 2 older than me have Howdy Doody as their formative TV experience (sorry I missed that one), and a year or 2 younger they had Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, and then Sesame Street, which I watched for a while as a teen but it got old because I already knew the alphabet and how to count to ten. But everyone in the USA has heard of Mr. (Fred) Rogers, a secular saint teaching kindness, acceptance and forbearance in the way that would melt the heart of the most hardened cynic, and who was iconic enough that Tom Hanks played him in a 2019 movie, which I'll get around to watching as soon as I finish the last 3 Andrea DiMaggio stories posted here at BCTS...
BOZO THE CLOWN was another show that was popular when I was a kid, but even then he just seemed like an asshole to me, I can't really say why. Sometimes I wish I was Brazilian and a couple of decades younger, so I could have grown up watching this fun, pretty, sexy lady: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96-zuLrVOro
~hugs, Veronica
"Government will only recognize 2 genders, male + female,
as assigned at birth-" (In his own words:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1lugbpMKDU
Provided one had a TV Back Then
As kids they may have got to watch Howdy Doody among other children's shows. But then came kids of their own and they got wired in again as their own watched the newest kids shows.
Hugs laika
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Pinky Lee for the win!
A baggy pants vaudevillian clown, Pinky Lee was a frenetic, bouncing ball of fun for kids until he went on air with a sinus infection and passed out in the middle of a show and the rumor spread that he'd had a heart attack. Mix equal parts Robin Williams, Paul Rubens, and Red Skelton for the full effect of Pinky's effervescent physical comedy.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Pinky
Pinky was in early black & white movies too; always the clown. He was a forerunner of Soupy Sales. Very early kids program was "Winky Dink and Me".
Donna
Firesign Theatre
Imagine if The Firesign Theatre (America's answer to Britain's The Goon Show radio programme) had been on TV the way Monty Python was given a space on the BBC. I remember listening to Firesign Theatre albums with my best friend in middle school back in the day. We alternated listening to FT with Frank Zappa albums. LOL. I used to torment my little sister by posing her the conundrum, "How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All?" And it was years before she could stand to listen to Zappa again.
Sammy
Fire Sign
Brilliant cadre of humor! Ground breaking in many ways; pre- Second City Review ensemble cast. Fire Sign's take on Manifest Destiny is classic as is most of their humor. Loved them.
Donna
Waiting for the Electrician (Or Someone Like Him)
or...
Antelope Freeway, One Mile...
Regnad Kcin
Love, Andrea Lena
Don't Crush That Dwarf...
Give Me The Pliers.
Sammy
Eh,... Don't Crush the Dwarf
Eh,... Don't Crush the Dwarf Pass Me the Pliers... classic lines I still quote between friends.
Donna
giggles
thanks for the laugh
Waaa...
I don't know whether to laugh or cry or do both!!! Labels will be the end of us all; especially if they come from big business and big government!!! Thanks for the though provoking piece.
The (just another labelled) Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrat
Ah. I was one who grew up
Ah. I was one who grew up with Mr. Rogers, and Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and the like.
I was afraid that the movie with Tom Hanks was going to be tearing down Mr. Rogers, who was always my favorite, but I was pleasantly surprised when the day I went to the movie ended up being -- well, a beautiful day.
Thanks for the laugh, Drea!
Hugs!
Rosemary