I'm on the Mr. Rogers love train, too. I loved him when I was a child. And there was a time in my 20s when I was extremely depressed, that I watched his show to soothe myself. It helped, a lot.

Mister Rogers seems to have been almost exactly the same off-screen as he was onscreen. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, and a man of tremendous faith, Mister Rogers preached tolerance first. Whenever he was asked to castigate non-Christians or gays for their differing beliefs, he would instead face them and say, with sincerity, “God loves you just the way you are.” Often this provoked ire from fundamentalists.

That was from the link DJ posted.

Someone on another board just called Steven Moffat the greatest living television screenwriter, and I was filled with outrage. I like his stuff, but the statement made me defensive.

Then I realised I don't want to come down and pick only one. Which is chickenshit of me. But, still, I think I prefer Joss and Tim and David Simon, for starters.

true. my tap shoes are character shoes with taps and pads attached. we used to have character shoes rubberized all the time which is essentially getting them waterproof soles. character shoes are pretty much the only kind of heels i can walk in comfortably. Heck, i can do spinning split leaps in the things.

Not to mention Aaron Sorkin.

I loved Mr. Rogers when I was little, especially the factory visits. "How It's Made" is totally those segments for grown-ups.

I think I'm feeling better, although my head is more congested than ever! The glands in my neck seem slightly less swollen. FEH.

I regret to inform the Mister Rogers haters that you are wrongity-wrong-wrong like things that are wrong.

I loved this, from the Mental Floss article:

Mister Rogers was known as one of the toughest interviews because he’d often befriend reporters, asking them tons of questions, taking pictures of them, compiling an album for them at the end of their time together, and calling them after to check in on them and hear about their families. He wasn’t concerned with himself, and genuinely loved hearing the life stories of others. Amazingly, it wasn’t just with reporters. Once, on a fancy trip up to a PBS exec’s house, he heard the limo driver was going to wait outside for 2 hours, so he insisted the driver come in and join them (which flustered the host). On the way back, Rogers sat up front, and when he learned that they were passing the driver’s home on the way, he asked if they could stop in to meet his family. According to the driver, it was one of the best nights of his life—the house supposedly lit up when Rogers arrived, and he played jazz piano and bantered with them late into the night. Further, like with the reporters, Rogers sent him notes and kept in touch with the driver for the rest of his life.

I also adore a story he told about being invited to visit a kindergarten classroom in Harlem sometime in the early 70s. He walked in, sat down, started visiting with the children, and gradually came to realize just how surreal his presence there must be for them: not only was it completely flummoxing to them to see a TV person life-size, flesh and blood, right in their own classroom, but for a couple of the kids he was the first white person they'd ever seen in person in their lives; that's how much work most of NYC put into avoiding this particular neighborhood.

He asked them if there was anything they wanted to know or were curious about, and after a moment's hesitation, one child asked if he could look at Mister Rogers's hands. He held them out, and the child just looked and looked at them, then turned them over and looked at the backs. Then, in a flash of inspiration, Rogers asked, "Now, may I please look at your hands?" All agog, the child held his hands out; Rogers looked at the palms and the backs and shook them both and said, "My, your hands are so beautiful!" And instantly all the other kids in the class lined up behind the first one, begging to have their own hands looked at. So he spent the rest of the morning just looking at all the grubby little 5-year-old hands and exclaiming over them and praising them.

Seriously. That's the shittiest excuse for a minion of Satan in the history of minionry.

Mandii

That just makes me think of bacteria or some other organism.

How unfortunate for her.

I couldn't name the greatest living TV writer, either, ita...you have some good choices, but I'd also add Steven Bochco and legends like Norman Lear and Sam Simon.

guess who has termites? jealous.

Maybe he was a wonderfully nice man. But my sisters and I would run from the room when he was on. Maybe we were too evil for him.

edit: And this was when we were of an age to watch him, three of us with a few years between us all. Independent opinions, as far as I know, unless my oldest sisters indoctrinated me and I don't remember.