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This philosophy showed up in the show and in life. During one taping, for instance, Rogers began as usual by swapping his blazer for a cardigan and buttoning it up, only to realize that he was one button off—the Monday button was in the Tuesday hole. Familiar with Rogers's standards, the crew expected him to call, "Cut!" and start over, but instead he ad-libbed a line and re-buttoned the sweater, noting that mistakes happen and, moreover, they can be corrected.
Another time, the script called for a shot of the fish in the set's tank eating their food. A production assistant fed the fish during rehearsal in order to calibrate the camera and avoid glare on the tank, so when actual taping came around, the fish were full. They just stared at the food as it sank unceremoniously to the bottom of the tank. Everyone settled in for a long day, assuming they'd have to wait for the fish to get hungry again so the scene could be shot as scripted. But, recalled longtime producer Elizabeth Seamans, "Fred just looked at it. And he looked at the camera and said, I guess the fish aren't hungry right now; you know sometimes we're not hungry.'" It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, and he trusted his young viewers to be accepting of the circumstances. The moment became a mantra for the crew: "Do the fish really need to eat?" It reminded them that rolling with the punches made for a better TV show than shoehorning fish—and by extension, life—into a pre-conceived script.
Despite his flexibility with others, Rogers could be hard on himself. In 1979, after more than a decade on the air, Rogers rolled a piece of paper into his typewriter and tapped out his thoughts in a clickety-clack stream of consciousness: "Am I kidding myself that I'm able to write a script again?... Why don't I trust myself?... AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, IT'S JUST AS BAD AS EVER. I wonder if every creative artist goes through the tortures of the damned trying to create? GET TO IT, FRED!"
But what truly pushed Fred Rogers was something much deeper than self-castigation. The reporter Tom Junod profiled Rogers for a 1998 cover story in Esquire. In the process, he watched Rogers in action on set and commented, "Fred, of course, was an amazing perfectionist who didn't—I wouldn't say he drove those people, that's the wrong word—but absolutely knew what he wanted when he wanted [it] and would not leave that day until he saw it." His staff could sense the intensity, too. "There wasn't a spontaneous bone in that man's body," observed Seamans. "He hated to go into anything unprepared."
But both Junod and the Neighborhood staff also understood innately that Rogers's intensity was in service of something greater than a good show. He was driven by his high but flexible standards, commitment to guided drift, his unshakable service to children, but most of all, his energy was funneled into one thing: human connection.
He forged connections quickly and deeply, with everyone. Ten-year-old Jeff Erlanger came on the show to explain how his electric wheelchair worked and why he used it. Nearly twenty years later, Jeff rolled onstage in a tuxedo at the Television Hall of Fame induction ceremony to introduce Rogers. Rogers, who had kept in touch but not seen his old friend since the original taping, leaped to his feet and clambered straight onstage, a huge smile on his face.
Rogers connected with François Clemmons, the Black, gay actor who for twenty-five years played Officer Clemmons on the show; together, they quietly broke the color barrier by cooling their feet in a shared plastic wading pool—a revolutionary act in 1969. In his memoir, Clemmons remembers, "There was something serious yet comforting and disarming about him. His eyes hugged me without touching me."
Rogers once connected with an empty-eyed boy fiercely wielding a toy sword in Penn Station, who was forced into saying hello by his starstruck mother. Rogers leaned in and whispered, "Do you know you're strong on the inside, too?" The boy, caught off guard at being given something he did not know he needed, nodded nearly imperceptibly.
Rogers even connected with Koko, the gorilla who had been taught American Sign Language. It turned out she was a fan of the show. Upon meeting, she hugged him and wouldn't let go. Then, in tribute to the opening sequence of the show she adored, she lovingly removed his shoes.
In Esquire, Tom Junod wrote about Rogers, "There was an energy to him...a fearlessness, an unashamed insistence on intimacy," and, tellingly:
Once upon a time, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. Heaven is the place where good people go when they die, but this man, Fred Rogers, didn't want to go to heaven; he wanted to live in heaven, here, now, in this world, and so one day, when he was talking about all the people he had loved in this life, he looked at me and said, "The connections we make in the course of a life—maybe that's what heaven is, Tom. We make so many connections here on earth. Look at us—I've just met you, but I'm investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can't help it."
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