Dreams about the show

[Ian16545]

Say, has anybody here ever had dreams/nightmares about Mister Rogers and his neighborhood?

I myself recall having some rather bizarre dreams about Mister Rogers' Neighborhood growing up. Here are a few I still recall today:

Dream 1
The opening sequence was a whole lot different than what I had expected. Instead of the big red building, the opening started along some sparkling river. Then the titles started fading in, starting with "MISTER", and then the "ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD" part, except the word "NEIGHBORHOOD" was replaced by some bizarre color like "MISTY BLUE" or "RAINBOW TWIST", which indicated the color of the sweater he was going to put on for that show. Afterwards, one zoom later, the opening carried on, with a GREAT aerial CGI shot of the model neighborhood. And Picture Picture was showing random screenshots of other TV shows, mostly game shows.

Dream 2
This concerns the cameo he made in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid: I imagined Fred saying or singing something other than "You're Growing". One moment he was talking about citizenship, the other was a song somewhere along the lines of: "Ooh, ooh, crazy for you.."

Dream 3
The ending credits had their share of outlandishness, too. In this dream, production was moved from WQED Pittsburgh out to Washington, D.C. and WETA's studios. The show was overseen by some guy named "Burt Hurt", who was the producer and director. The other crew members were just random punny names (e.g. Jim Shortz and Justin Tyme). The funding credits were no exception either, as Eliot Daley evidenced: "The people who gave Mr. McFeely and his Speedy Delivery flak a run for its money, which was actually needed to make this pointless television visit to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood are the people of..." then it showed random company logosâ€"including one called "JERKY" (for no apparent reason), and various other philanthropists (along with the usual suspects, i.e. the 1975 funders). Heck, Daley even went as far as to plug an offer for tapes and transcripts of whatever the week's theme in question was (something you'd NEVER expect to see on a PBS kids show nowadays). And to top it all off, instead of moving on the big red building as usual, the camera moved left to some randomly-placed construction site and stopped on a big red crane. Then the camera irised in on it as the pre-79 closing card music played, and below the iris, a copyright notice for WETA appeared below it. Then everything faded to black, and that was it.

Dream 4
This one involved a fake album of all the songs Mister Rogers ever did, including some that never were, like "Mr. Rogers' Wingz" (a nonsense song about what it would be like if he weren't Mister Rogers). And even the random credits music pieces that Johnny Costa did (following It's Such A Good Feeling) were clumped together into a song called "Signature" (for a lack of better words!).


Yes, I know, I've got probably the weirdest psyche out of all the people who grew up watching MRN. But that's just the way I am (and I know Mister Rogers would like me for it). ;)

[mitsguy2001]

I've had several, I'd have to think to remember most of them.

One of the dreams that I do remember was that my local PBS station decided to rerun Episode 1125, the Pineapples and Tomatoes opera, during 2006 (in real life, the episode last aired on Sept. 1, 1989).  However, they completely removed Betty Aberlin and John Reardon from the episode!  If you know the episode at all, you would know that makes no sense at all, since the entire opera revolves around Betty Aberlin and John Reardon!  There would be nothing left without them.  If I remember right, there may have been some Disney characters inserted into the opera, that had nothing to do with the actual plot.

Anyone have an interpretation of this dream?

[Ian16545]

I've had several, I'd have to think to remember most of them.

One of the dreams that I do remember was that my local PBS station decided to rerun Episode 1125, the Pineapples and Tomatoes opera, during 2006 (in real life, the episode last aired on Sept. 1, 1989).  However, they completely removed Betty Aberlin and John Reardon from the episode!  If you know the episode at all, you would know that makes no sense at all, since the entire opera revolves around Betty Aberlin and John Reardon!  There would be nothing left without them.  If I remember right, there may have been some Disney characters inserted into the opera, that had nothing to do with the actual plot.

Anyone have an interpretation of this dream?

Hmmm... Disney characters alongside Mister Rogers... that is random.

[19Michelle92]

I've had many but I can't remember the details of all of them.  Most of them have had to do with random characters showing up at my house like it was the most natural thing in the world.  Usually Mister Rogers would come to my house to talk. Usually nonsense topics but sometimes things that made sense like one time we talked about how my mom doesn't like to go to the gym. but then it would start to get wierd because other characters would start to show up like Lady Aberlin and Mr. McFeely and before I knew it they were doing an episode in my house except with no cameras or anything. 


The one that I remember the most vividly is one where I was talking to Mister Rogers and then he said "Okay it's time for some make-believe and the trolley music played and I ran out of my door and behind my house was the neighborhood of Make-believe except no puppets were there except for Edgar Cooke who was in his border patrol outfit from the first week.  he was just wandering around aimlessly singing and dancing and didn't seem to be being controlled by anyone.  Then I turned around and all of my friends were there most of whom know nothing about the show except what they watched as children.  They were all looking at me expectantly and finally my friend Taylor asked me who she should be.  apparently there was no one in the neighborhood of make-believe and I had to cast them as the characters.  Then when I had cast them all I went to the castle and my friend Matt, who I had told to be King Friday came out and started to do a fairly good impression of the king when he stopped and said in his normal voice "I can't say who I presume you are If I have no Idea who you're supposed to be."  So I said "I guess I'm Lady Aberlin."  Then I woke up.  Wierd right? 

[itsyouilike]

I remembering dreaming that I saw Lady Aberlin at the library. For a couple weeks after, I would hang out at the library after school and wait for Lady A to show up. I'm still a little upset that she never did. ;)

[earnhardtfan4life]

As you will see throughout the boards - Lady A frequently visits this board.  A dream that will come true in a electronic way for you!  :)

Mike

[itsyouilike]

The real Betty Aberlin? That's so cool!

[earnhardtfan4life]

Yep.  As you read thru the boards her nickname or id is bka.

Mike

[MrRogers143]

I dreamed that Carly Rose Sonenclar got to hang out with Mister Rogers for the whole episode.

[mitsguy2001]

I had a weird MRN releated dream last night.  The dream took place sometime in the future.  PBS had become a commercial network,a nd they inserted commercials into all of the programs that they aired.  They did, however, decide to start airing pre-79s again.

In the dream, they were airing MRN Episode 1125, the Pineapples and Tomatoes opera from 1970.  The first several minutes of the opera were the same as they are in real life, where they prepare for the opera.  However, it was in black and white, rather than color.  There was also a scene that I don't remember from real life, where Betty and Reardon were having a good-natured argument over which of them would be credited first.  They compromised by crediting Betty first, but listing Reardon as a "director".

After this, it went to a commercial break.  It was a long break.  I was wondering how they would be able to fit the whole opera into the timeslot when commercials were aded.  I was wondering whether or not parts of the opera would be cut.

When the commercials ended, the opera resumed.  But it was nothing at all like 1125 from real life!  In addition to being shorter, it was more modernized.  Betty and Reardon were working at a modern-day phone company in Hawaii.  Also, Betty was dressed much more conservatively than she was in the real episode, more like what she wore in regular episodes.  Even though this took place in the future, Betty still looked very young.

At the end of the episode, I realized that I was not watching TV, but we were watching a theater production of the show in New York City!  All of the audience was talking about how they did a very good job of modernizing the episode.  We were all talking about, however, that if Fred Rogers was still alive, he would have never approved of anyone other than himself making changes to the episode.  Nor would he have approved of it being adapted to a theater production.

One thing I realized about the dream that makes no sense: in the dream, Reardon was still alive (since he was performing in the show), but Fred was dead.  That makes no sense, since in real life, Reardon passed away many years before Fred did.  Also, in the dream, Betty was much younger than she should have been at that time.

Anyone have any ideas about the meaning of this dream?

[DanielTiger]

We were all talking about, however, that if Fred Rogers was still alive, he would have never approved of anyone other than himself making changes to the episode.  Nor would he have approved of it being adapted to a theater production.

No doubt this was influenced by things Betty has said in this forum.

[mitsguy2001]

We were all talking about, however, that if Fred Rogers was still alive, he would have never approved of anyone other than himself making changes to the episode.  Nor would he have approved of it being adapted to a theater production.

No doubt this was influenced by things Betty has said in this forum.

That makes sense, and that was one of my favorite episodes, and one that would probably not have been created nowadays.  I just wonder why the anachronisms in the dream, with Reardon being alive but Fred being dead (when Reardon passed away long before Fred did), and Betty being much younger than she would have been when the dream would have taken place.  Although, most of my dreams take place in a sort of warped reality: for example, I'll have a dream that takes place in a familiar area, but the dream may have a traffic light at an intersection where none exists in real life (and where it would make no sense to have one), even though that doesn't in any way affect the dream.

[JCostaThePro]

Several, but as an adult, not a child. Some i may have to describe, but hopefully not on the same post. Let's see, there was:

1. Rogers, Mr. McFeely and Betty having a picnic on Fred's porch in some 1992-ish episode (in real-life, Betty has been written out of the reality segments since 1988)
2. Several weird dreams about 1326. One in which instead of the front door, Rogers (already wearing his coveralls) entered the house from the closet!
3. Bobby Sherman appearing in a 1980 episode for a Bob Trow's Workshop segment
4. That i had access to older episodes just like Tim does. I had access to 1371, 1521 and 1522.
5. Marilu Henner  :) guest-starring in a 1974 episode
6. That Rogers did another opera in 1986. Don't remember the plot, but unlike any other opera, it featured celebrities, like in Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theater.
7. Henner and Judd Hirsch shooting a scene from TAXI in Rogers' kitchen (w/ the aquarium and the NOM models removed from the set)
8. An episode involving a weird NOM segment where Chef Brockett was riding on a stagecoach w/ this big shaggy dog and they stole some gold and were riding into this forest or something and couldn't stop.

That's all i can say right now. Really weird.

[JCostaThePro]

And here's one really strange one i just had that was kinda funny...

I dreampt that Pinky & The Brain, in puppet form, were on MRN! But there were a few really weird things about the dream that seemed unusual:

1. In real-life, Pinky & The Brain didn't exist until 25 years later, but in my dream, the episodes they were on were from the 1968 and 1969 seasons.
2. Not only were they in puppet form, but like Henrietta, they used be a darker color in the 1968 season before they became white.
3. Well obviously, they were in the Neighborhood Of Make-Believe. However while they were together a few times, Pinky was mostly at the castle and Brain was at Someplace Else (where Lady Elaine used to live before she became museum-go-round curator).
4. The really weird part? They rarely talked about taking over the world! There wasn't even a single "Are you pondering what i'm pondering?" at all.

I wonder if the lack of typical P&B humor was due to Rogers' hating television? When MH was on the show in my dream, she was also unnaturally different.

[mitsguy2001]

I had another really weird MRN-related dream last night.  In the dream, they decided to create a new episode of MRN, Episode 1766.  It even had the 1766 in the opening credits.  In this episode, since Fred is obviously dead, they found someone who looked like Fred, and they made him up to look like Fred, and even autotuned his voice to sound like Fred!  However, he had only a small role, and mostly just introduced the NOM.  In the NOM, it was mostly just Lady Aberlin talking with a guest star.  I'm not 100% sure who the guest star was, but it may have been Katy Perry.  I do not remember if there were any puppets in the dream, but I'm thinking Daniel and Henrietta may have been in it.  I don't remember if they talked at all.