Mr Rogers Interview's to fall asleep to | Unintentional ASMR

I get up every morning at least by 5 have a couple hours of quiet time uh reflect about what it is that is important before you get on with the business of the day before I go swimming and then the business of the day but what do you think we can do those of us who are purveyors of this television medium what can we do to encourage people to have more quiet in their lives to more silence real Revelation comes through silence but have you ever known anybody who was really satisfied or happy who had never made a difference in somebody else's life no no well I've always hoped that we'd be able to say to children that they matter that they count and that there was something of value that resides within them you know I have a little plaque beside my chair upstairs in the office that says what is essential is invisible to the eye that may sound like something strange for somebody who works in television but the older I get the more important I know that is because what we see is rarely what is essential what's behind your face is what's essential I don't care how many even if it's just one uh we we get so wrapped up in numbers in our society and the most important thing is that we're able to be one to one you and I I with each other at the moment if we can be present to the moment with the person that we happen to be with at the moment that's what's important uh well you can't see my uh my spiritual life uh unless you unless you ask me about it you uh you don't see uh my family life unless you ask me about I mean that it seems to me Charlie that the things that are Center Stage are rarely the things that are the most important it's usually what happens over in the wings how to uh how to know that it's all right to say what comes to to your mind right away Jesus said to the people around him please let the little children come up here I want to learn from them he might not have said those words but I think that's what he meant I I want to be involved with these these innocent people who make up the Kingdom of Heaven well I know that when I walk out of the studio some day and there is a child who has Down syndrome right for instance and that child comes up and gives me a hug uh I know that that's the field that I want to be growing in because I see that people who who are not the fancy people in this this world are the ones who seem to nourish my soul and I want to learn how to be the best receiver that I can ever be because I think graceful receiving is one of the most wonderful gifts we can give anybody if we receive what somebody gives us in a graceful way we've given that person I think a Wonder ful gift I think she liked the response that she got and I remember somebody saying to me that she made $35,000 a week and in 1951 well it's an enormous salary anytime but in 1951 can you imagine uh I all I know is that I was constantly astounded by her voice and it was absolutely natural uh organ I mean that instrument was so pure it was a glorious voice I don't know whether she was comfortable in the medium or not she she sure knew where to go and and what to do well I've often said that he was a person who I said to him one time Mr Hayes what do you think of when you look at that camera and know that there are thousands of people watching you and he said Freddy I think of one little Buckaroo and you know that must have gone straight to my heart cuz when I looked look at the camera I think of one person not any specific person but one person it's very very personal this medium well if you have a that's one of the reasons I thought that for Education it would be so fabulous because if you have someone on television in a classroom it looks like that person is looking at each student individually a a live teacher can't do that a live teacher can do other things though you know uh there is you'll never find me saying that any machine is better than a person and effect that is underlined constantly in the neighborhood uh for the first time I showed a computer on a tape that we did the other day for the neighborhood and I was insistent that I would say there are lots of fun things that go on here you know but no machine can take the place of a person this machine cannot give you a hug it might be able to spell h u but it can't give you one well that's obvious but you know it might not be obvious to children and so consequently I think it's important to uh let them know how I feel how do you feel about um you know some shows today like the Teletubbies that sort of Embraces machinery and I I don't know the program but when I was told that there was a character with a television in its stomach I was horrified anything that makes people think that machines are more important than people it's U although I have a feeling that that is not the purpose of that program I don't think the purpose of that program is to say that machines are more important than people I don't know but I think it would be interesting to find out for you Gabby Hayes would come in his uh western clothes and show old western films and he would just introd ruce them and then at the end say see you buckaroos or something you know what fascinated me was that you know he had his his accent and uh but when the program was over he'd go to the dressing room on the nights that he had his tickets he'd get into his formal clothes and go to the Opera he had a box at the op he loved the Opera you often you don't know the depth of someone that you see only on television because that person who like like he was playing a part and here he is having a great love of classical music the uh the Hit Parade the the uh the voice of Firestone Gabby Hayes Kate Smith I mean Kate Smith was every day every afternoon at the Hudson theater uh NBC owned the Hudson the I don't know whether it's still there or not U I think those are the only ones the NBC Opera theater became the the most important one for me CU When when I became the head floor manager of that then I was on in all of the production meetings and the best part of that was hearing those operas over and over again the ones that I floor managed I mean I know practically Billy Bud for instance I still sing parts of Billy Bud King of the scene this was a Benjamin Britain Opera but you'll hear all that from Kirk yeah I did not meet him my uh my great uncle knew him quite well and so whenever my great uncle would come to New York he would stop in and see me and then he would go and visit with sarof I'd like to have met sarof because I I like is it is it apocryphal this story that he received one of the messages from the Titanic there's been so much talk lately about the the Titanic you know that I thought isn't that interesting this young teletype operator might have received one of the messages and and also I think he had a tie with n Tucket which is where we go every summer sof I mean that that was a business for him you know but he took it I I think he took the I think he took it seriously that that broadcasting could enhance the public in in way I mean those operas somebody sitting out in Kansas who had never been to New York for instance to see a mall in the night visitors or trouble in Tahiti or pikdum or any of the ones that we produced that talk about enhancing culture television has such a great chance to do that and to teach foreign languages you know we have a a character in the neighborhood a new character that we've just introduced called the hulas the Royal hulas and he lives in the castle with King Friday and he speaks only Spanish well the the scripts are written in a way that the English that goes before and the English that comes after each one of his speeches the Spanish is understood I guess you know here we go back to Dartmouth and my love for romance languages and we have so many people writing to us saying I Came From Italy I came from Israel I came from uh many different countries and you helped me to learn English be you know they would find someone who spoke slowly and deliberately on the air and invariably if if I'm going to talk about a cup I'll have one in my hand you know and and say cup and then and the water's in it you know I I didn't mean to do that but I think it's a wonderful dividend of people from other nationalities learning our language through the neighborhood I'm sure it crosses my mind at times but I realize I'm not there to teach English I'm there just to be myself and so just continue being yourself Fred I think I met him the first day because I had a letter of recommendation to him and I think he hired me now maybe he you know I worked on those color test programs that's the other thing that I worked on it's coming up yeah uh I was the first floor manager in 3K which had the only color uh cameras in New York there were three sets three color sets that could receive these programs uh General snof had one and uh Niles traml had the second and I think maybe it was Pat Weaver who had the third there were just three sets and all we did in this studio was to move things from one place to another so that the cameras could take pictures of them and I remember my first day on the job somebody said move the green parrot to the left and I said which one is the green one I'm color blind and to have the first floor manager for color television to be color blind I think is a kind of whimsical thing and so it didn't make all that much difference you know they just wanted to see pictures in their home of this new thing called color television and uh photographs and there there were no there was no production it was just things that we would bring in and put on camera and if they happen to be turning on their sets at home why they just see something colorful parrots were colorful in fact it was the you know it was the art CA color that was chosen uh there were competing uh ones and it was chosen to be the one that would go throughout the country I liked some of those programs you know I was impressed with the musical programs that we did there were still some that were I guess they'll always be pie thrwing programs but they don't need to be in the majority uh yeah I I thought television was doing was doing good things however I didn't feel that I could use all the talents that had been given to me as a floor manager nevertheless I think the floor manager position is an exceedingly important one I mean for instance Gabby ha again said to me one day do you realize that you're the only face that I see even though when I look in the in the camera I'm thinking of one person the person that I'm closest to is you he said it makes such a difference if the floor manager seems interested in what you're doing it's awful to have a floor manager who's you know so that's a real art oh well you know the there are a lot of people in the operas but uh they were so concentrated on well it it's very different when something is a dramatic thing than when it is when you're looking at the camera and and you're feeling whether the people around you are enthusiastic about what you're doing that makes a big difference I have most wonderful floor manager in the world Nikki Tallow you know he has an advanced sense of humor he and Jimmy sich and well Michael Douglas was here for quite a long time with us he became he went to Hollywood and became Michael Keaton and and those three on on the uh set we just had a ball they were always playing jokes on me one time they put shoes that were so small for me I couldn't at the end of the program I couldn't get my feet in them no that's not true they weren't small shoes they they were my shoes but they they had put uh paper at the toe and I kept putting them singing The Last Song you know such a good feeling to know you're alive trying to put that but that was just for the rehearsal it was such a great uh a great learning place for me but some of the greatest things about it were the people that I worked with and isn't that always the case I mean you can learn the the mechanics anywhere but it's the relationships that that develop I mean Kirk Browning for instance was one of the ushers in our wedding when when people work very close together to create something that they feel has value that they want to give to to their audiences they become a community and it's it's a real blessing to be part of a community of givers I mean if if you if your main focus happens to be the person who is going to be watching what you're producing that to me is the greatest thing that you could ever have and when people I mean it's so so much more important than how many people are going to be watching it's what if this person who is watching is somehow moved to do something of value because of what you've put on the air that's so much more important than the numbers of millions of people who who are tuned in but it's all a matter of quality versus quantity and if we can only if we can only not fall for the number scan we can continue to uh to have this medium be a really thoughtful one those are fairly Hazy Days I so much happened between those days at NBC and when I came here to Pittsburgh that that that was a phenomenal bridge I mean when I heard that educational television which is now called public television when educational television was going to be starting in Pittsburgh I mean only 40 mil from where I grew up I told some of my friends at NBC that I thought that I'd put my name in and apply for the station they said you are nuts that place isn't even on the air yet and you're in line to be a producer or a director or anything you want to be here and I said no I have I have the feeling that uh that educational television might might might be at least for me the way of the future that was in 53 and I applied and was one of the first I think one of the first six to be uh hired at WQ which true it wasn't on the air yet we didn't go on the air until April 1st of 1954 but this was in 53 and Joanna and I moved to Pittsburgh in November of 53 and that's when I started at WQ WQ was the first Community sponsored television station in the country there were a few others that were linked with universities but this was the very first that a whole Community decided to underwrite so Pittsburgh was at the Forefront of the of community broadcasting uh her name she was the general manager and her name was Dorothy Daniel and we we named Daniel Tiger for her in fact the night before we went on the air the night before no that was I've got to tell you about the first night on the air was a special program and that was April 1st 1954 people had been watching the test pattern for weeks before that and it but this was to be an hour special we invited Freda henck who was the commissioner on the FCC to come and be part of the program because without frea henck there would have been no educational television there would have been no PBS there would have been no channels set aside for Education throughout the country she was adamant about there should be one free channel in every area and it's thanks to Freda HCK that PBS and educational television exist at any rate fra HCK came and a very enthusiastic person talk about a good teacher she she was enthusiastic about what she had championed and well she might have been we got on the air and showed little parts parts of what was to come and we Josie and I showed a part of the Children's Corner and somebody else showed a part of uh I think that we had a music program for from carnegi Tech but lots of different excerpts in other words this is what you're going to see next week well near the end of the program Mrs Daniel said and now now we have Freda henck a commissioner from the FCC here to uh help us tonight Freda henck came on started to talk about the vision of educational television her passion she went on and on and on and finally after she had talked I think 40 minutes Mrs Daniel came in you know with the proverbial hook and said it's just been wonderful having you here Freeda henck and we thank you for all your help but you see here's somebody who really cared just enormously about what educational television could mean in this country and I just love to think about that at any rate before we went on the air on April 5th you see April 1st was a Thursday and then we went dark until Monday when regular programming would begin and that was April 5th well on the 4th Mrs Daniel gave us a party all the people who were going to be on the air and she gave favors at the party and my favor was a little tiger puppet and I said to Josie our hostess I said why don't we just slit a make a slit in the set and I can poke this puppet through let's call it Daniel and we'll just use it once but but what we did the art Department had had painted this fanciful set and there happened to be a clock on it so I just put the little slit in the CL clock and poked Daniel and said and went like that and pulled him away well the people liked him so much and she of course referred to him as Daniel and that's how the puppetry began we never expected to use puppets in the program when I was a kid I played with puppets sure and I had others in our attic uh I mean by then our boys were uh no our boys hadn't been born yet our boys were born in 59 and 61 so I must have had them from my childhood but I would go home and the puppets became popular but there's a story behind every one of them but Daniel was the first and it was because of Dorothy Daniel that we called him Daniel striped tiger Senator p story this is a philosophical statement and would take about 10 minutes to read so I'll not do that uh one of the first things that a child learns in a healthy family is trust and I trust what you have said that you will read this it's very important to me I care deeply about children my first Children's Program was on on W QED 15 years ago and its budget was $30 now with the help of the Sears robuk foundation and National educational television as well as all of the Affiliated stations each station pays to show our program it's a unique kind of funding in educational television with this help now our program has a budget of $6,000 it may sound like quite a difference but $6,000 pays for less than two minutes of cartoons two minutes of animated what I sometimes say bombardment I'm very much concerned as I know you are about what's being delivered to our children in this country and I've worked worked in the field of child development for six years now trying to understand the inner needs of children we deal with such things as as the inner drama of childhood we don't have to bop somebody over the head to make him to to make drama on the screen we deal with such things as getting a haircut or the feelings about brothers and sister sisters and the kind of anger that arises in simple family situations and we speak to it constructively how long a program is it it's a half hour every day most channels schedule it in the in the noon time as well as in the evening uh WEA here has scheduled it in the late afternoon could we get a copy of this so that we can see it maybe not today but I'd like to see the program I'd like very much for you to see I'd like to see the program itself or any one of them you see we we made a 100 programs for een the Eastern educational Network and then when the money ran out people in Boston and Pittsburgh and Chicago all came to the four and said we've got to have more of this neighborhood expression of care and this is what this is what I give I give an expr expression of care every day to each child to help him realize that he is unique I end the program by saying you've made this day a special day by just you're being you there's no person in the whole world like you and I like you just the way you are and I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable we will have done a great service for mental health U I think that it's much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire I'm constantly concerned about what our children are seeing and for 15 years I have tried in this country and Canada to present what I feel is a meaningful expression of care do you narrate it I'm the host yes and I do all the puppets and I write all the music and I write all the script well I'm supposed to be a pretty tough guy and this the first time I've had goosebumps for the last two days well I'm grateful not only for your Goosebumps but for your interest in in our kind of communication could I tell you the words of one of the songs which I feel is very important yes this has to do with that good feeling of control which I feel that the children need to know is there and it starts out what do you do with the mad that you feel and that first line came straight from a child I work with children doing puppets in in very personal communication with small groups what do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite when the whole wide world seems oh so wrong and nothing you do seems very right what do you do do you punch a bag do you pound some clay or some dough do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you go it's great to be able to stop when you've planned a thing that's wrong and be able able to do something else instead and think this song I can stop when I want to can stop when I wish can stop stop stop anytime and what a good feeling to feel like this and know that the feeling is really mine know that there's something deep inside that helps us become what we can for a girl can be someday a lady and a boy can be someday a man I think it's wonderful I think it's wonderful I don't know exactly how it came about I don't think I ever really did care much for meat but uh from the time that my father died I haven't had meat in my diet and that was in 1970 and then a few years ago I gave up seafood and that was simply because I said to somebody I had heard that fish was very good for you and that person said yeah but it's not good for the fish and I hadn't thought of that and of course we have fish on the on the neighborhood set that we take care of too but that's just something that I feel better about and it's not something that I'm a proc izer for uh I know a lot of very fine people who have a great variety of diets food is a very important thing to people who uh are interested in in nourishment the nourishment of life and the very first view that we have of our whole world is that view of our mother's face during our nursing and so we get our our very first impressions of what this world is like through our mouth and our eyes and if what's good is coming into our mouth and what's good is coming into our eyes we have a mighty strong beginning and my name is Fred mcil Rogers the middle part of which is speedy delivery and we had a thing in our family called the book house and it was maybe 15 volumes uh beginning with very early uh nursery rhymes and fairy tales and going up with lots and lots of different stories but I remember the book houses being important to me and uh there was there was one story in there about uh a woman who was in bed and and heard this noise I wish I could wish I knew you were going to ask me about that I I would have looked that up that teeny tiny yeah there was a teeny tiny woman in a teeny tiny house with a teeny time and it went on like that you know and then at the end there was this big loud noise and that was the way at end that always just delighted me you know with a very tiny voice then and my parents would read it that way and then at the end I remember the last word was are you ready radar but that was very important to to have have people read to me and I remember how important it was to our boys they'd always want to be read to especially Jay and now he just devours books I'm convinced that if a child is read to by a loved one early on that that child will somehow recreate that scene himself or herself by reading and and when you're an adult you might not have that person right there but you have the memory of that person right there as you're doing the read reading that's the most important help in helping children to learn to read is to read to them with affection and I went to all public schools and I I'm very glad that I was able to go through the whole school system of latro through high school I remember that that's when I started to write for the newspaper I had a column in the latro bulletin as well as the school newspaper and that really gave me a lot of practice I I thought of that fondly when uh when the newspaper column came up in the last two years you know we've been writing a column for King features and uh those things have Deep Roots I guess that's you know I must be an emotional archaeologist because I keep looking for the roots of of things particularly the roots of behavior and why I feel certain ways about certain things I wrote about everything that had to do with with life in Latrobe high school because that was my biggest extracurricular activity I was also editor of the yearbook my senior senior year and president of the student council in my senior year at high school very different from my freshman year in high school I was a very shy kid I was the Daniel striped tiger of that school I'm sure but uh something happened and and you can never truly completely understand why but there was this kid who was in our Church whose name was Jim stumbo and he he was a red member of the of the class in high school he was a basketball player a football player he had was getting a letter in track and I mean he was very gifted in not only in sports but scholastically he was you know a Class Hero well he got hurt in a football game and somebody suggested that I take his homework to him at the hospital I said me oh years later we talked about it and he said I couldn't believe it was you walking in that room well I took it what's he reading oh it Wrinkle in Time that's good stuff is sure yeah well it was like this I I went to a camp one time because there was a ventriloquist there and I was interested in that kind of I mean I was interested in puppets you know all my young life but there's there's one woman over at uh at the office who is really scared of hisher they they put him at her desk one day when and when she came in he was looking at it because there were those [Music] who who treated me well and there were those who treated me like how can I say that there were those who treated me like a servant and when I would bring something to them that they liked they never acknowledged it and if I would bring something to them with without the cream that was supposed to be in it then I was told and I remember that as a as a very fine experience in my life because I know how I felt when when somebody treated me with disdain because of the job that I had I was I was no less a person than I ever was but being in that position there were those people who felt that they could treat me as somebody less I know how it feels to be turned down and when you can be in the position of turning up somebody at a time like that I think it's a I think it's a real addition and there were only three people in New York City who could receive the color broadcasts that we did from a studio called 3K so we would go in and it was just sort of like play well I was the first floor manager for those color experimental programs and I'm colorblind and everybody thought that that was such an irony that because the the director would say move the green parrot over to the left well there were two parrots there and I I'd say to the stage hands which one's green and so then we'd have have it moved but he said buddy you're going to be fine they had had some people who had come to them and were so dictatorial that they could make or break them and often they did because these stage hands had been there for years doing concerts and all kinds of things but you know you learn a lot lot of good lessons in life and they're mostly about human relations the other things don't matter that much I would I would just say that I'm I'm a man who talks with children on television and helps them to feel as good as possible about themselves and about the people that they meet it's a very very personal Medium as you may know and it's received by everyone differently because each person brings his or her own story to that program that's on that particular moment well I suppose it's an invitation won't you be my neighbor uh it's an invitation for uh somebody to be close to you CU that's what neighbors are they happen to be in the same neighborhood and and close and it I think it's a parable for the uh the desire for closeness and if you can be close why then and if you can care about me then maybe there are things that you'll want to learn that I have to give you your teachers are very very important in a child's life well in anybody's life you know I think about about Jesus being called a teacher raboni means teacher and it's such a lofty profession could be should be is that of teacher without their students teachers would not be teachers without kids who want to watch the neighborhood I would not be a Television artist without Jay and John I would not be a father without certain well without a friend I would not be a friend all of the relationships in life that are so enhancing to Who We Are you know I think everybody longs to be loved and longs to know that he or she is lovable and consequently the greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they're loved and capable of loving you've made this day a special day you see by just you're being you and if a person can receive that of course it's an enhancement to them but think of what an enhancement it is to the to the giver it helps to be loved in order to work in this life in fact I'm sad for those who don't feel that they are loved and this book is is a compilation of things that I've said in speeches and in other books and in newspaper columns and on the neighborhood for a long time somebody said how long did it take you to write this book and I said 40 years it's about uh being uh it's about the things that matter to me it's about the white spaces between the paragraphs which I think are more important than any of the text because it allows you to think about what's just been said I had a professor one time I think he's on page 20 or 22 uh he his name was Dr William or right and he said you know Fred there's one thing that evil cannot stand and that is forgiveness and you notice the rest of the page is blank yes it needs a lot of time to think about that oh a lot of people but a lot of people who have allowed me to have some silence and I don't think we give that gift very much anymore I'm very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than Wonder in noise rather than silence how do we do that I mean in our business yours and mine how do we encourage reflection I trust that this book will do some of that but oh my this is a noisy world and knowing that you're unique you know that there when you think about it there has never been another Charlie Rose in all of the history of humankind and there never will be and that's the same with every person you meet probably because of very early on in our lives that we weren't valued you know the greatest gift we can give anybody any little child is to help that child know that you know you're a part of our family and you're you're a welcome part and there are things that you can do to enhance our family oh I hope that it's given a few more honest adults in the lives of the children who watch because I do think that that's a great gift that if if adults can show what they love in front of kids there'll be some child who'll say I'd like to be like that or I'd like to do that I remember yoyo ma being on our program he's come to visit several times and there have been families who have written to us to say that their kids want to learn the jello right because they saw him love his work on the program and there have been some basketball players and some sculptors oh I remember in the nursery school where I worked as I was doing my my Master's work in child development there was a man who would come every week to sculpt in front of the kids the director said I don't want you to teach sculpting I just want you to do what you do and love it in front of the children during that year clay was never used more imagin atively before or after than during that time that he came so a great gift of any adult to a child it seems to me is to love what you do in front of the child I mean if if you love to if you love to Bicycle if you love to repair things do that in front of the children let them let them catch the attitude that that's fun cuz you know attitudes are caught they're not taught

Channel: Unintentional ASMR

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Length: 54min 33sec (3273 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2024