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.

Captain Kangaroo was our guy. Mr. Green Jeans!

My mom found Mr. Rogers creepy, so I didn't watch the show, but all this stuff is just making me cry. What a lovely man!

guess who has termites? jealous.

Lots of protein, good eatin'.

Right, sorry, that wasn't helpful. What a crappy thing to have to deal with.

I'm sure that Mandii came up with that spelling on her own. Well, I hope she did.

A bacteria OR some tribe that the Ancient Romans are conquering. (Can you tell that I marathoned Spartacus this weekend?)