I was an avid viewer of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" when I was a little girl, and I renewed my appreciation of the show in my late twenties when I read that Mister Rogers was about to retire and programmed my VCR to record his final three episodes. I enjoyed them several times before my son Nicholas was born. Once Nicholas was old enough to watch television, we began watching Mister Rogers, both on my tape and on WQED, the public television station here in Pittsburgh where the show was filmed. A few years ago, WQED took Mister Rogers out of the weekday line-up to make way for newer PBS Kids programs, but they still showed an episode at 8:00 Sunday morning. For some reason, they only replayed episodes from his last decade or so–the program is basically timeless (except for the fashions worn by some of the "neighbors"), and I would love to share with Nicholas some of the episodes I enjoyed in the 1970s.
When Daniel Tiger premiered on Labor Day, I urged Nicholas to watch with an open mind. I reminded him that this is a program for little kids, so if it seems babyish to him as a second grader, that's not a problem. I set my own perception filters on the most flexible setting I can achieve without intoxication. We watched the entire premiere episode.
Well…the most positive assessment we can give "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" is that it's a safe, adequate program for a preschooler to watch when there is nothing better to do. It's kind of cute. It's making an effort to teach positive thinking and a few very basic academic concepts like counting and color identification. It depicts adults being gentle and helpful with children, who are respectful to the adults and cheerfully follow their instructions. Fine. But a program that takes on the hallowed name of Fred Rogers needs to be better than fine, and there was not a single minute of "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" in which we felt the magic of Mister Rogers. This mildly acceptable children's program seems unaware of the gaping void where its soul ought to be. From its core concept on up, it is missing all the most important things Mister Rogers knew about how to reach children. It imitates some traditions of his show in ways that only reinforce how little the people now running The Fred Rogers Company comprehend his legacy.
He was a real, live man who didn't dress like a buffoon or talk in a silly voice. He swapped his suit jacket for a sweater and his dress shoes for sneakers to get comfortable while hanging out with his neighbors, but he didn't change out of being a respectable grown-up man. He demonstrated that a man can be a safe and caring person who loves you just the way you are and trusts that you will love him even in a dorky zippered sweater. He was evidently coming home from his day job to spend some special time with us. Daniel Tiger puts on a red hoodie and sneakers at the beginning of every episode, but why? He doesn't have a day job; he's an imaginary four-year-old tiger. Instead of a real man who could serve as a role model and inspiration to children who have no man in their lives, instead of a grown-up showing children the joys of sharing interesting experiences, this show centers on a character who has no more life experience than you do.
Mister Rogers went to real places. Yes, his "neighborhood" was an amalgamation of buildings that are far apart in reality (one of the special things about Pittsburgh is getting to go to some of those buildings!) and studio sets, tied together with long-distance shots of a model, but every place he visited had real people doing real things, and most of those factories and artists' studios he visited were the real thing in operation. Daniel Tiger travels through a sanitary cartoon landscape to completely imaginary places where cutesy animal characters do vaguely realistic things; a few token photographs of real objects are incorporated into his world, which otherwise exists only in a computer. Even the one live-action segment of the show we watched did not seem to be happening in a real place–it was hard to tell because of the fast cutting between assorted odd camera angles, but it seemed that the adult and child baking together were in some sort of large black room rather than in a real kitchen in a real home.
Mister Rogers walked. His television neighborhood was full of interesting things within walking distance, and it had sidewalks. His arrival at virtually every destination was shown by panning over the model neighborhood and then cutting to a shot of Mister Rogers walking on a real outdoor sidewalk into a real building; sometimes you even see him interacting with other pedestrians or admiring a tree or something. Daniel Tiger seems unable to leave his home without riding in a vehicle (more about that later) and it's no wonder–the buildings are much farther apart than in either Mister Rogers' Neighborhood or the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, with big empty lawns between them and no pedestrians. I realize this is representative of the suburban lifestyle of many of today's children, but when I was a child living in a place kind of like that (well, it wasn't that clean and empty–Daniel Tiger seems to live in a golf course!) I longed to live in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood or on Sesame Street, to be able to meet people and see stuff happening simply by stepping out the door. Real neighborhoods do still exist, and my child is growing up in one, and seeing that the designers of this program evidently think a neighborhood is no longer an appropriate place to live was a big shock to both of us.
Even the Neighborhood of Make-Believe was more real than Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. That imaginary world was a real physical place in the WQED studios (Nicholas and his dad got to visit it a few years ago!), populated by puppets that Mister Rogers brought to life with his own hands and his own voice–a clear lesson in how make-believe works, how it can be whatever you imagine but it's all under your control. Real people interacted with the puppets, and the fact that they were totally out of scale was okay–we can make believe that it all makes sense, just as our own personal make-believe scenes make sense even if our "house" is barely big enough to turn around in and we are raising a panda as our child. Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is so synthetic and perfect that the viewer could easily get the impression that synthetic perfection is what we need to have fun, so we couldn't possibly make fun for ourselves. "It's just like all the other shows," Nicholas said dispiritedly.
Daniel Striped Tiger was a very nervous, shy character who felt things deeply and worried over them.
Our own Daniel (Nick's father) left the room almost immediately after the show started and said afterward, "I could see in five seconds that it was all wrong." Why? Because this new animated Daniel Tiger is cheerful, buoyant, completely open and friendly to strangers. Now, it's true that this four-year-old main character is the son of the original Daniel Striped Tiger, and a father and his cub may have totally different personalities. But Daniel Striped Tiger has grown up into a daddy cat who seems to have no nervousness, no shyness, possibly no feelings of his own, just endless patience for gentle hovering over his cub. Maybe they put him on Prozac.
Both my Daniel and I grew up relating strongly to Daniel Striped Tiger. I was a very shy child who could hunch up into a little wad of anxiety on the couch just from hearing Daniel Striped Tiger dare to verbalize worries that were so much like mine . . . and then, when Lady Aberlin or another neighbor gave Daniel gentle support that helped him venture out and try some of the things he truly wanted to do (but was afraid), I felt tremendous relief and hope. Surely there are still children like me, and not all of them are lucky enough to have parents or teachers who love them just the way they are and help them work with it, so a television character working through those issues would be helpful. The new Daniel Tiger is not that character, and neither is his father.
Mister Rogers taught emotional intelligence.
He helped us to recognize our feelings, put them into words, and understand that it is okay to feel every kind of feeling. He talked about how he felt when he was little, the drama of emotions swirling so hard and huge that it seemed he could hardly contain them–but he could, and he was okay in the end, and we will be too. Children need adults to share their own experiences, to relate to them and show them they are not alone. An imaginary tiger could do this, too, but Daniel Tiger doesn't; his feelings emerge only briefly, as convenient for the storyline, and are readily resolved.
Mister Rogers talked about what we can do to vent our feelings safely and resolve them for ourselves. What do you do with the mad that you feel? Mister Rogers talked us through feeling that feeling, expressing it effectively yet acceptably, deciding to take control, and centering ourselves on "something deep inside that helps us become what we can." That song is a classic. Today's children understand it just as well as yesterday's. But rather than revive that great song, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood gives us a brief, preachy jingle: "When something seems bad, turn it around, and find something good!" That's a fine idea, but–What about my bad feelings; if they don't just turn around on a dime, like Daniel's and his friends' apparently do, am I a bad person, am I doing it wrong? Daniel Tiger has parents who rush into his slightest disappointment with lines like, "Oh no! Do I hear a sad grrr? What's wrong?" as if sadness is a crisis to be resolved ASAP, and their singing of this jingle (which, despite umpteen repetitions, is a strategy Daniel never thinks to apply on his own; he can't cope without parental intervention) does seem to work magic, clearing up every problem instantly. But what if I'm not ready to find something good? What if my playground ball hasn't been punctured in a way that enables it to soar like a Frisbee when thrown; what if it truly is ruined forever so I am fully confronted by the consequences of my carelessness? Mister Rogers would let me feel every nuance, loving me through my sad grrrs. Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood reminds me of the many adults-not-my-parents who would tell me to "SMIIIILLE!!" as if that superficial turn-around would fix everything, as if my real feelings were unacceptable.
Mister Rogers understood that one of the deepest desires of preschool children is to feel competent, to discover new skills by trying things for themselves, to be allowed to imitate and join in with activities as they're ready, to experience failure as well as success. "It's you who have to try it, and it's you who have to fall (sometimes) if you want to ride a bicycle and ride it straight and tall." Daniel Tiger wants to carry his cake home from the bakery; he says, "I'm strong, grrr!" and his mother…laughs at him! When she later agrees to let him carry the cake, she laughs at him again. It's supposed to be a good-natured, aren't-you-cute laugh, but it's so condescending to someone who sees himself as life-sized and strong and capable. The live-action segment in the first episode showed a little boy about four years old baking a cake with an adult who "helped" him with every single step, not even trusting him to tip the contents of one bowl into another without putting her hands over his. When she finally allowed him "a special part for you to do," it was just pressing on a few machine-made decorations. Nicholas kept swiping his hand toward the screen as if tempted to grab her and make her stop interfering so the poor kid might have a chance to learn something or feel a little pride in the work.
Mister Rogers' trolley was not a minivan.
This might sound like a petty gripe, but my son is a lifelong train and trolley enthusiast, and Trolley is his favorite character in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Trolley is our transition between the real world and Make-Believe, and back again. In Make-Believe, it is sentient, conversing with the other characters by ringing its bell. Nobody rides on Trolley.
The newspaper article claimed Mister Rogers fans would be happy to see the familiar red trolley traversing Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. But for Nicholas and me, that's like saying Star Wars fans will be happy to see a plastic wastebasket shaped like R2-D2. There is a vehicle in Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood that resembles Trolley, and it's sort of cute, but it's not Trolley!
It doesn't run on a track. It drives along the sidewalk of multicolored dots seen in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, which is disturbing since that used to be a safe pedestrian area.
The characters ride in it. At first that seemed okay–we like public transit and were glad to see it represented in a TV show. But Nicholas soon pointed out that it isn't public transit because the characters put on seat belts, which you don't need in a real trolley or bus (because a large vehicle is that much safer), and there are no strangers among the passengers. Furthermore, there's no driver! Eeek!
Our conclusion is that the writers of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood simply can't get their heads around the idea of children using any form of transportation other than a minivan, so they made Trolley as much like a minivan as possible. Sad.
What could possibly explain this change of lyric?
"Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" does continue Mister Rogers' tradition of opening every show with the song "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and closing with "It's Such a Good Feeling". They recorded new versions of the songs with a different style of music, which we don't like nearly so well, but whatever. The inexplicable thing is that the line, "It's such a good feeling to know you're alive!" has been changed to, "It's such a good feeling to play with friends and family!" What?!
The good news is that "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" is still available for watching.
We were afraid that WQED would take it away, but what they did was bump Mister Rogers half an hour earlier on Sunday mornings (to 7:30) and give Daniel Tiger his slot as well as a weekday one. We can still watch Mister Rogers on TV every week. I hope it's the same in other cities.
Some full episodes of Mister Rogers and some other short segments are still available on the PBS Website–but Nicholas found, to his disgust, that Mister Rogers has been replaced by Daniel Tiger on the "wheel" of selections on the PBS Kids homepage. "They could have expanded the wheel for him!" he ranted. Indeed.
"Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" is an okay children's program. They could have done worse. But it's "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" that works for me! Visit Mom's Library for more helpful articles from parents.
i have yet to see an episode of the new show but when i saw the ads come on my kids favorite channel, i thought, "This is great! Way to ruin a good thing." my daughter will most likely be watching it regardless because i work and can't monitor what she watches while I'm away. the only thing i can do is tell my mom (who is my daughter's sitter) NO NICK JR, a demand she adheres to because I am adamant that Nick Jr. is evil! seriously, i don't care how crazy i sound, there is something not right with that channel. so she watches Sprout which seems a little more innocent and has a lot of ties with PBS, i think, since a lot of shows i used to see on channel 13 are also on Sprout. just the other day i was commenting to a friend how i used to cry at the end of Mister Roger's Neighborhood. i loved him and wouldn't mind owning every episode….note to self: search for collection of Mister Roger's Neighborhood and marathon that sh!t!!! oh i'll be in tears!
The classics are called classics for a reason. You can't beat them. I am glad I read this before watching it and getting really mad. You have prepared my mind for that disappointing feeling you get when you watch a remake. Thanks so much for sharing at Mom's Library!
Thank you for commenting on my post about Babar and pointing me to this review! We only use our tv for videos and dvd's, so I was utterly unaware of the monstrosity you describe. I have watched some current children's programming online and have been utterly disappointed by how vacuous it all seems–especially for young kids. I wonder if you can get the original Mr. Roger's on dvd?
Last night WQED showed a documentary about Mister Rogers. In it he describes his shy childhood self as "the original Daniel Striped Tiger." It made me wonder all the more, what would he think of this new Daniel? It also told us that Daniel was named after a Mrs. Daniel who supervised Mister Rogers' first program and gave him the puppet–I had always assumed some connection to Daniel in the lions' den in the Bible, for some reason.
You obviously do not have an open mind. Not everyone nowadays can expose their kids to Mr. Rogers. This is a great tribute to him. Maybe because you no longer have a preschooler and have a huge bias it is hard to appreciate Daniel Tiger. But as a mom right now in the 21st century, this show really helps me address my little son's problems. It is a very helpful show. I don't think anyone could have done any better to keep Fred Roger's legacy going in the modern age. Even his widow gave this show the thumbs up.
I did try my best to watch the show with an open mind. You and I have different opinions.
Anyone with Internet access can watch Mr. Rogers using the links I provided.
I know I just found this (four years later) but I have daughter who is 18 months old, and we just started watching television a few months ago, which means I was only just exposed to this drivel. Like most modern kids shows, it spends all the time telling you that you are in "pretend time." It is as soul sapping as Elmo's World and the new Gentrified Sesame Street, and it is as heartless as anything on Nick Jr.
I honestly hadn't thought about a lot of the emotional things, but it is SO true. My daughter uses the New Sesame Street/Splash and Bubbles/Daniel Tiger block to cause untold troubles, but now I'm switching to showing old episodes of Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street online. I doubt Fred Rogers OR Jim Henson would like their legacy being used to talk down to children. Even though my child is not fluent in language, and is just a month into two word sentences (of recognizable words), she paid more attention, focused and mimicked things he did, and stopped to listen to his songs. While she likes pop music, she can't stand the autotuned crap. I guess we like you just the way you are, as long as you can hit perfect mechanical pitch through use of autotune.
I share your distrust of the gentrified Sesame Street! We have DVDs of the 1969-1979 series and prefer to watch those–so much more REAL and relevant to the experiences of my children in Pittsburgh–and we like to watch on YouTube the many segments in which Grover is a waiter.
Now that I have a younger child, 2 1/2, I have seen a few more Daniel Tiger episodes, but they still make me cringe!
I'm not sure I understand about autotuning (my sense of music is very limited) but my perception is that the Daniel Tiger tunes are very droning, and it bugs me that they often don't rhyme. They seem like "music" written by a computer with inadequate instruction.
It was hard to hear at first, and it is only used on the long versions of the songs, but once you hear it, you can't unhear it. It means that when the characters are all singing the same note, it is artificially manipulated so they are electronically singing the exact same note. There are no variations in pitch, which are natural for human voices especially when singing together.
Ha ha! Seriously, though, you make some great points about the messages sent to kids by that baking segment.
I have a 22 month old, who turns the TV on for background noise while she plays when I am doing housework, that prevents me from giving her undivided attention; otherwise I try to keep the TV off in favor of books and games. Daniel Tiger is on when I have to clean up breakfast dishes and so I hear a great deal of it, and my only real complaint about it was that Daniel and his family seem to be vegetarians. I didn't really watch Mr. Rogers Neighborhood as a child, or at least have no profound memories of it like you do, so I don't recall if Daniel Stripped Tiger was a vegetarian. I know that Mr. Rogers was, and that is of course fine, my objection is to applying that sort of characteristic in an unscientific way to animals which aren't and can't be vegetarian/herbivorous. However it was small, and I was willing to let it go. What caused me to try and find out about the history, to see if it was something Mr. Rogers did or was a contemporary addition, was a question from a newsgroup I belong to, after I posted a frustrated rant over the most recent episode I had seen, in which the children are encouraged to throw temper tantrums, in order to express their displeasure. While I don't have your fond memories of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, I did enjoy your analysis of the show here, and how it relates to so many other "educational" programs currently on the air. Thank You.
I'm glad you liked our review! I have a second child now, who is 2 3/4, and she saw Daniel Tiger a couple of times while I was unemployed and (like you) needed to keep her occupied so I could get something done. She liked it, but it didn't grab her attention like other shows that she's talked about afterward.
I didn't know this tiger family was vegetarian! You're right, that doesn't make sense!
I was raised on reruns of Mr. Rogers, and looking at this ripoff of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, I am shaking my head. The whole POINT of Mr. Rogers is that is was live action, with no animation whatsoever. And they had all sorts of people come on to the show. I know, my teenager eyes may block out what you parents see, but really, you can't rip off tradition like that. Too many people were raised on Mr. Rogers for you to take it, and make a ripoff that throws EVERYTHING about Mr. Rogers out the window. It may be educational, and no 2-year old today has been raised on the only true Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, your 2-year old will be just fine with it. But as a boy raised on Mr. Rogers, I am shaking my head at this.
I agree with you completely. It would be possible, actually, to raise a child today seeing only Mr. Rogers and not Daniel Tiger, by carefully choosing videos to watch online or on DVD and not letting the child have free access to the TV or PBS Kids app. As I mentioned above, my younger child has seen a couple of Daniel Tiger episodes, but she's seen more Mr. Rogers and preferred it. She thinks the Daniel Tiger characters are "cute," but the stories are not all that interesting to her, whereas every Mr. Rogers episode gives her a lot to think about.
So, you only mentioned the music in passing… but it's not "oh well"! The music in the original show was as superlative and astounding as the rest of it! The Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood music is as weak of a caricature as the rest of the show!
Check out my article for more, but the core point is that this isn't just a matter of taste in style (jazz versus pop). I didn't go into depth because my article wasn't about everything that's wrong with the new animated show, just about everything that's *right* about the music in the original.
Thanks! I'm not a very musical person, so I hesitate to get into detailed musical criticism because I don't know some of the vocabulary and literally don't understand some of it. But as I've heard more of those Daniel Tiger tunes, I've been aware that they're barely music at all and certainly not giving children as much of what music has to offer as Mister Rogers was!
I wouldn't say the Daniel Tiger songs are "barely music", they are just over-produced, highly-edited, and somewhat sterile. I'm celebrating particularly how superb the original show's music was. As I emphasize in my article, if you just listen to multiple intros to Mister Rogers', even someone without much music perspective can hear how Johnny Costa played marvelously different piano all the time. You just need to pay attention to that aspect. His playing throughout was a real human playing with Fred, responding to the moment, thus allowing the music to fit Fred and let Fred be natural, rather than forcing Fred to adjust to the music.
It's specifically in contrast to the original show that Daniel Tiger songs fall short, but they could be worse.