"The Good Thing": Mister Rogers' Neighborhood [corrected]

This article considers aspects of the methodology behind the PBS children's show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Too easily sentimentalized--and sometimes satirized--for his exploration of feelings and empathy, Fred Rogers in fact carefully structured each show around an investigation of semiotic, phenomenological, and epistemological concerns: the interpretation of images, words, things, events, and kinesthetic sensation that allows children (and adults) to locate themselves in their everyday experience. Mister Rogers explored both the tools and the considerations that facilitate our ability to negotiate relationships, navigate in space, assimilate desires and fears, and ultimately manifest thoughts, projects, and ideals in concrete form. The periodic insertion of graphic clip art in this essay is meant to enact examples of the kind of reflexive thinking that Mister Rogers' Neighborhood proposes and presents.