Full Episode

[Neighborhood Archive]

For those who may not have seen it posted on the blog yesterday (or on Facebook or Twitter by PBS for that matter), a full episode is available for viewing on the newly redesigned Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood website:

http://www.pbskids.org/daniel

My kids loved it! I loved it! We can't wait for September!

[Lawrence Martin]

My Nephew and I loved it my favorite part was the good feeling part at the end of it my nephew also like playing the game  Dr. Daniel I can wait to see the other story that will make a full episode of this new neighborhood program
your Neighbor
Lawrence :)

[pastorscott]

We (my boys and I) enjoyed the episode.  We look forward to watching it every day. A few comments.  Positive:  Great to see McFeely during the closing. I wonder if he'll be a character like Baker Acker in future situations.  Loved the closing.  Incorporating "It's you I Like" was special.  And at least there is some "Make Believe" time, though the entire show is set in Make Believe, I guess.
Negative:  All the character voices sound a like.  There isn't anything distinctive between characters.  Given that one man performed most of the puppet voices for 30+ years and gave each one distinct voices, a little more animated distinction would have been welcomed.  I noticed this observation while I watched the initial clips, but wanted to withhold any public comments until I watched an episode.
Also, I don't know if an animated character saying "It's you I like" has the same punch as a real human being.  But, thanks to Amazon, we still have the real McCoy to watch with our kids.

Tim, since the closing credits move so quickly, could you take screen shots and see just who is involved with the new show?  Maybe there are some MRN people involved behind the scenes?

Scott

[Neighborhood Archive]

Here you go, Scott. Here's a shot which includes some familiar names...

[Ian16545]

Just caught the first episode today, and I loved it! The voices were spot-on, right down to the catchphrases (e.g. "Toots" and "Nifty-galifty"); I didn't see any flaws with the animation whatsoever, and the lesson songs really do speak for themselves. ;)

When I first caught sight of "Daniel's Birthday", seeing Daniel's cake all smushed up was quite the plot twist for a PBS kids revival series as such. Even so, I liked how everything turned out okay in the end.

Now, "Daniel's Picnic", on the other hand, REALLY blew my mind. :o So THIS is what the original Daniel Striped Tiger does for a living in his clock... I guess this must be a homage to Cornflake S. Pecially's Rockit Factory. "The Clockit Factory", maybe? And that "Chime Time" part, well... I can't think of where to begin, but for 4 o'clock (the time displayed on all the clocks), that probably must be an extra-special business tradition if I ever saw one!

Every time Daniel goes "Ugga mugga," I get that urge to do the same, saying something like, "And a big UGGA MUGGA right back at ya, Danny boy!"

That remake of "It's Such A Good Feeling": Sure was great to see Mr. McFeely and the others; I wonder if we'll see Uncle X and Henrietta in future episodes, too.


No doubt about itâ€"it looks as if PBS Kids has finally hit the big time. The way I see it:

♪ "It's such a good feel-ing, a ver-y good feel-ing, the feel-ing I know..." ♪

that Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is gonna jump the charts!

[bka]

the suits have given themselves credit.  are the voice-actors given credit?  perhaps it is not a union production.

[bka]

outsourced to Canada.

[Ian16545]

the suits have given themselves credit.  are the voice-actors given credit?  perhaps it is not a union production.

Here's what I found out:

Jake Beale.........Daniel Tiger (of course!)
Heather Bambrick.........Mom Tiger
Ted Dykstra.........Dad Tiger (the original Daniel Striped Tiger)
Zachary Bloch.........O the Owl
Amariah Faulkner.........Katerina Kittycat
Nicholas Kaegi.........Prince Wednesday
Addison Holley.........Miss Elaina
Tommy Lioutas.........Prince Tuesday

Other voices:
Catherine Disher
Tony Daniels
Jon Filici
Shawne Jackson
Francois Klanfer
Derek McGrath
Theresa Pavlinek
Laara Sadiq
Jeremiah Sparks
Jamie Watson

[bka]

thanks, Ian.  the color of the credits against a busy background makes them hard to read in any event.  In show business, loyalty doesn't count for too much. If it did, the great Canadian Don Francks (Mr. Anybodys) & the American Neighbors Chuck Aber, Maggie Stewart, Audrey Roth, Joe Negri, Michael Horton, Lenny Meledandri & Barbara Russell would have been given voiceover work. Both Chuck Aber & Michael Horton can do credible voices for nearly all the Fred puppet creations.

so: "when something seems bad turn it around & see something good"  Although DISAPPOINTED by DTN, it may improve. Instead of borrowing the first melodic line of songs known by MRN watchers (and simplifying it into a slogan) the entire complex riches of Fred's musical trunk might be used. FRC would have to pay Fred's heirs royalties for their use.

"grownups always come back" you can't promise the child of a soldier or the child of a sick parent that there's any "always" about life.

just as teachers had trouble competing in their classrooms with the quick-cut lively brilliant antics of Sesame Street - so well entertained and scattershot were the attention spans of their well-entertained students, in DTN, reality looks very drab compared to the sparkling bright primary colors of the cartoon neighborhood. The only bright spots being the product-placements....a trolley here, a red sweater with a nabe logo there.....so the merchandise will not only be seen in ads (which would cost a fortune on "commercial" stations, but on "public" television will be) woven seamlessly into the episodes so that by Christmas the "Mommy, I want a Daniel backpack!" indoctrination will be firmly established.

DTN rates 100% on the cute meter.  MRN never courted its audience with cute, although Anna Platypus (confusingly relegated to puppet in the school sequence, and with none of her exquisite charm or veracity, employed merely to help little Daniel with his separation anxiety & josh him out of his anxious feelings.

there's a lot of extraneous chuckling and merry laughter.

in the don't try this at home category, the kinds of things that would have been prohibited in MRN - the pillows as stepping stones in the jungle - anything that might have been unsafe had a child attempted it in real Reality.....and the introduction of fear of snakes (nevermind the qualification of Wednesday's liking for snakes, nevermind the phallic implications of snakes) - would have been taken out.

teaching children to give an ugga-mugga to the surface of a tv screen or a smartphone ap - is teaching children to interact with icons, to have emoticons in place of emotions....in MRN Fred always encouraged people to turn the t.v.'s off and go outside.

the best thing that could come of DTN would be the interaction between parents and children about the shared knowledge of the characters.

to have Lady Aberlin's private, intimate, tender farewell of love to Daniel Striped Tiger (of whom there is no characteristic sign in the adult Dad Tiger) made into a bumper-sticker, trivialized, both conjuring up for MRN fans the memory of the King's niece, and excommunicating her from her own land - is deplorable, if only to me.

they don't call it programming for nothing.

[NAhelper]

thanks, Ian.  the color of the credits against a busy background makes them hard to read in any event.  In show business, loyalty doesn't count for too much. If it did, the great Canadian Don Francks (Mr. Anybodys) & the American Neighbors Chuck Aber, Maggie Stewart, Audrey Roth, Joe Negri, Michael Horton, Lenny Meledandri & Barbara Russell would have been given voiceover work. Both Chuck Aber & Michael Horton can do credible voices for nearly all the Fred puppet creations.

so: "when something seems bad turn it around & see something good"  Although DISAPPOINTED by DTN, it may improve. Instead of borrowing the first melodic line of songs known by MRN watchers (and simplifying it into a slogan) the entire complex riches of Fred's musical trunk might be used. FRC would have to pay Fred's heirs royalties for their use.

"grownups always come back" you can't promise the child of a soldier or the child of a sick parent that there's any "always" about life.

just as teachers had trouble competing in their classrooms with the quick-cut lively brilliant antics of Sesame Street - so well entertained and scattershot were the attention spans of their well-entertained students, in DTN, reality looks very drab compared to the sparkling bright primary colors of the cartoon neighborhood. The only bright spots being the product-placements....a trolley here, a red sweater with a nabe logo there.....so the merchandise will not only be seen in ads (which would cost a fortune on "commercial" stations, but on "public" television will be) woven seamlessly into the episodes so that by Christmas the "Mommy, I want a Daniel backpack!" indoctrination will be firmly established.

DTN rates 100% on the cute meter.  MRN never courted its audience with cute, although Anna Platypus (confusingly relegated to puppet in the school sequence, and with none of her exquisite charm or veracity, employed merely to help little Daniel with his separation anxiety & josh him out of his anxious feelings.

there's a lot of extraneous chuckling and merry laughter.

in the don't try this at home category, the kinds of things that would have been prohibited in MRN - the pillows as stepping stones in the jungle - anything that might have been unsafe had a child attempted it in real Reality.....and the introduction of fear of snakes (nevermind the qualification of Wednesday's liking for snakes, nevermind the phallic implications of snakes) - would have been taken out.

teaching children to give an ugga-mugga to the surface of a tv screen or a smartphone ap - is teaching children to interact with icons, to have emoticons in place of emotions....in MRN Fred always encouraged people to turn the t.v.'s off and go outside.

the best thing that could come of DTN would be the interaction between parents and children about the shared knowledge of the characters.

to have Lady Aberlin's private, intimate, tender farewell of love to Daniel Striped Tiger (of whom there is no characteristic sign in the adult Dad Tiger) made into a bumper-sticker, trivialized, both conjuring up for MRN fans the memory of the King's niece, and excommunicating her from her own land - is deplorable, if only to me.

they don't call it programming for nothing.

Amen.

I do not doubt that DTN producers had good intentions in its creation, nor that it is a very cute, new show that will bring some more good onto the airwaves, but if the goal was really to make it (quote from Mr. Morrison) "Fred-ish" and they really did things like "[spending] a lot of time listening to Fred's music and steeping themselves in the way Fred approached topics," characters, storylines, etc, I am extremely disappointed.


For me, it seems a lot more like it should be slated as "based on the legacy of Angela Santomero." I greatly admire Ms. Santomero’s other work and am not surprised that it is (to me) very similar. It’s Blue’s Clues and SuperWhy much more than anything Fred Rogers (my opinion). Her work and style are not bad, I like them a lot, but they’re her, not Fred. I do commend her on wanting to honor Fred and making another wonderful children’s program.

Well, you’re probably all tired of me. I hope I don’t come across as the devil’s advocate. It is a very cute show.

(By the way Tim, I’m probably just missing it, but I can’t seem to find where Mrs. Rogers says that Fred would have approved of it, only that she likes it. Let me know if I’m missing it.)

[Neighborhood Archive]

(By the way Tim, I’m probably just missing it, but I can’t seem to find where Mrs. Rogers says that Fred would have approved of it, only that she likes it. Let me know if I’m missing it.)

While I stand by my comment that I don't think any of us that never knew Fred personally are in any position to speak on his behalf as to what he would or wouldn't have liked, I think I stand corrected when it comes to my statement about Joanne Rogers saying Fred would have approved of DTN. Looking back over many of the countless articles I've read about DTN in the past few months, I find several where she mentions that the show successfully carries on his legacy, but none that specifically say he would have approved of the show.

Still. Six of one. A half-dozen of the other, if you ask me.

Either way, I appreciate the comments here from everyone. We won't always see eye-to-eye on everything...and I like it that way! :)

[Eric S]

"grownups always come back" you can't promise the child of a soldier or the child of a sick parent that there's any "always" about life.

I couldn't agree with your pointing this out more, bka. Although there were a few exceptions, it's notable that Fred was almost entirely inclusive in how he phrased things. He wasn't afraid to add a comma and add possibilities to a statement he made. In talking about families he mentioned just about every combination of family that could exist (with the more modern exception of 2 dads or 2 moms, something that wasn't talked about on TV at the time). Conversly this "grownups" jingle practically slapped me in the face, with how un-Freddish it seemed. Either nobody thought about the issues you have mentioned here, or they were discussed and it was decided that having a simple jingle was more important than the cohesiveness of the lesson. I don't see any other explanation and both sadden me.

DTN rates 100% on the cute meter.  MRN never courted its audience with cute, although Anna Platypus (confusingly relegated to puppet in the school sequence, and with none of her exquisite charm or veracity, employed merely to help little Daniel with his separation anxiety & josh him out of his anxious feelings.

I would disagree that MRN wasn't cute. Certainly the puppets, all being designed by whichever mysterious person designed them long ago, had a charm of their own. That charm may have quickly become outdated as newer shows utilized more contemporary ideas of style and cuteness, but for those of us who grew up with it, it was appealing to the eye. But nobody back then could have predicted how "cute" would become the thing to be nowadays. Frankly, as attractive as the DTN might be on some level, the style of animation always feels so intangible to me. It's a hodgepodge of computer and photographic elements, all of which exist seperately so nothing really melds. I feel it's such a missed oppurtunity that DTN wasn't done with puppets, even totally new puppets.

to have Lady Aberlin's private, intimate, tender farewell of love to Daniel Striped Tiger (of whom there is no characteristic sign in the adult Dad Tiger) made into a bumper-sticker, trivialized, both conjuring up for MRN fans the memory of the King's niece, and excommunicating her from her own land - is deplorable, if only to me.

Yeah I'm kind of with you on the Ugga Mugga thing. Even more though, it bothers me how many little catchphrases they have tried to give the characters, which sound very amateurish. Having Prince Wednesday roll his "r"'s and insert "Royal" into everything, might be able to be pulled off, but it doesn't sound natural to me, at least not by the kid whose doing the voice. Prince Tuesday never quite seemed on board with the Royalty thing, being wary that his friends might not see more than "royal robes" when they looked at him. I guess Wednesday is different. Does that mean that he falls more in line with Friday's philosophy? King Friday was almost annoying in his fetishism of all things royal, purple, etc... That kind of seems like what they are doing with Wednesday but he also acts like a rough and tumble kid, which doesn't seem to mesh. However, he's a new character so perhaps he'll grow and develop.


Why have Katarina Kitty Cat insert Meows into her phrases, but not in place of other words the way Henrietta did? Did they think kids would have troubel understanding her when they didn't on MRN? That seems condescending, either to today's kids or to MRN. And it seems totally pointless to do it the way they've chosen. Echoing what I said about Wednesday's inserting Royal into everything, the voice of Katarina doesn't seem to get how to make it work either.

I'm more disappointed that classic characters have been changed so much. Why is Teacher Harriet a human being? Is there any reason she couldn't be a cow? As I'm typing it, I'm realizing maybe there would be issues with Bob Trow's estate? Not sure if that's true or not, but it seems weird to simply pay tribute to a character in name when you could simply have the character appear (same for the whole Platypus clan). And why was Lady Elaine changed? I think that's the single biggest change that bothers me. It's like they listened to everyone who said Lady Elaine scared me when I was little. Now I wasn't one of those people, but surely Fred must have heard that too right? And he didn't see fit to get rid or her, or change her appearance, which he could have done. In fact, seeing how prominently Lady E was throughout the show's run, I can only imagine that she was liked by a lot of kids, and that her unique appearance, behavior, etc... served a function. Prettying her up, (and I assume they'll have changed her personality as well) seems like they have no idea of any value the character obviously had for 40 years. I would rather she not be included at all.

[bka]

you know, people are so difficult. real people, real actors. so much simpler to have cartoons look uniform and say what's in the script minus nuance or personal dimension.  Making Lady Elaine (the famous tell-truth-to-power/unmarried-homely-always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride/adventurer/mischief-maker/witch-like creature in a program scrubbed clean of magic) the wife of the way cool black musician and giving her "backwards!" daughter the name "Miss Elaina" - which is so strange. maybe they wanted to give her a title like her mother...?

had they used real human beings, Mayor Maggie and Neighbor Aber could have been co-hosts in the Westwood Neighborhood....we could have talked about and referred to Fred....sung his songs, welcomed new neighbors, seen elder-neighbors and kept on making the case for a distinction between Reality & Make-Believe, rather than committing the sin of simplifying and blurring the two until Littles are fit for the future of computers & aps, indoctrinated by well-intentioned mammon rather than illuminated by a spirit that has more to do with a living, loving Being. 

our program did not condescend to children by refusing to ask the important questions, in all their complexity.  real life has real catastrophes, and although it is right to comfort and reassure children in the face of wars and tornados and want, to flatten life into happy little cartoons does them a grave disservice.  those animations are the spoonful of sugar to help the psychological mottos go down. But is such sugar good for little ones?

no trouble with Trow's estate. what estate?  most neighbors just scrape by. the suits make a living, however.

The decision of a suit. & probably $ considerations....PBS has branded itself as the Kid's (a word we seldom used - so antithetical to the one little buckaroo) Show station, so DTN now fits in with that roster.  as MRN did not: because one was always reminded that flawed human beings, well-worn/loved puppets, technical glitches,  a fly in the studio, a hair strand distractingly out of place, a funky rented animal costume, a visible chip in the castle paint - that human beings were participating in the enterprise and seeking to reach and encourage other human, flawed, striving families of human beings "out there" and "within the heart".   

[NAhelper]

Eric and Betty, I couldn't agree more!