17 Years Later, it’s Still a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

For three decades, Mister Rogers graced children’s TV screens, creating a comforting and close relationship with his viewers before the show’s end in 2001. However, 17 years later, Mister Rogers is still relevant in today’s society. For NPR, Robert Thompson, the director of the Bleier Center for Television and Pop Culture at the Newhouse School, commented as to why this is the case.

“(The program) seemed to exude a certain mood, this certain spirit wherever it was playing,” Thompson said. “Even though it was aimed at kids, it affected anybody else that was within hearing distance of that extraordinary voice and the extraordinary things he said. But, when I say extraordinary, they were not out of the ordinary. They were extraordinary in their absolute ordinariness.”