Lady Aberlin

[Dais79]

TL was kind enough to direct me back to a link to this interview he posted on his blog a few years back
http://billmadison.blogspot.com/2009/03/interview-betty-aberlin.html

If you haven't read it yet, I loved it.  Lady A was such a role model, as a little girl I thought she was the most beautiful and graceful "lady".  I hope she knows how many little girls admired her. . .and still do!

[earnhardtfan4life]

It's a two way street!  I will admit she was probably my first crush!  A lot of other men would probably say the same thing.

I am curious, I wonder why Fred didn't offer Josie to be the leading lady in MRN? 

Mike

[Eric S]

From what I understand, when the Children's Corner went off the air, Josie had no shortage of other opportunities. Fred went to Canada to do the Canadian version of the show, then brought it to the US. I don't know if there was discussion of using Josie Carey on the show or not, but I wonder if she'd have been interested since she wouldn't have been the host anymore.

[NAhelper]

From what I understand from the Josie Carrie archive interview, the more Fred got into the child development side of things, the more he and Josie started disagreeing on small things and approaches. For example, when Josie did appear briefly on MRN, they were doing a scene with a popcorn popper. The popcorn popper somehow overflowed and popcorn went all over. Josie thought it was quite funny, but Fred insisted on re-filming the scene, because it might scare the children. I know there was some disagreement over how Fred chose to end Josephine as well.

[bka]

Josey was devastated. Although she put the good face on it. She had introduced her friends Brockett & Costa to Fred, and they began to work on the program and she felt she had lost them and been exiled from something she had helped to create. 

[Degeneration X The Owl]

Sounds like there is a another side to Fred that needs to be addressed.

[bka]

there's no addressing it, and everyone has his or her perspective on the whole truth. he came from wealth and priviledge (Mr. Allmine), and had a specific ministry as his charge (working with parents & children on t.v.) - she was working-class, was far too improvisationally spontaneous for his need to control, and it was as though he put Children's Corner behind him, not wanting any longer to be part of that duo in which he was behind the sets and puppets, but in every sense, coming out, as is - it wasn't called Misterogers' Neighborhood for nothing.  The title of the show says all. Well not all, because like it takes a village, his neighborhood was not entirely of this earth, and all were welcomed, except Josie (as an equal partner in the Work). It was her being sacrificed that offered me the opportunity to work, and I have always felt guilty about it.  Of course in my own time, and in my own experience, I came to understand firsthand what she had suffered, and in my own way made sacrifices and was myself sacrificed.

[earnhardtfan4life]

Listening to a lot of the Children's Corner songs on LP, Josey gave Fred's songs a hollywood flair to them.  You could picture someone like Judy Garland singing that music.  Which not to knock Costa down but it made Fred's songs stand out.  I would have loved for Dean Martin to have recorded Fred's music.  Talk about catchy music!

Mike 

     

[OperaLover]

Betty,
I am supposing that Fred could only see the larger picture, the end result of what he was called to do and in reaching that goal, you were sacrificed for the cause.
It's as if because you and the other actors/puppets were not the recipient of his ministry, you didn't matter.
It truly is a dichotomy because your feelings matter as much as the feelings of the children you ministered to.
YOU are special.
YOU are the only one like you.
YOU are not a mistake.
The list goes on and on.
You are as fragile as every little child the show was reaching out to.
We all have souls needing to be fed, nourished, loved unconditionally and yet, those aspects of Fred's team, were disregarded.
It's like he only had eyes for his mission and forget, dismiss, disregard or don't even notice the casualties caused by being so focused on a directive.
The soul is ageless.
Your needs should have been ministered to as well.

[bka]

oh he ministered to us as well, but the adulation he received along with his prodigious education his advantages and opportunities and his insight (both worldly & spiritual) made for a somewhat false personna, which his fans & hagiographers needed to have be a fixed constant identity. when a person believes in his own infallibility, even as an "expert" something is lost.  the cobbler's childdren go barefoot, and one man cannot satisfy everyone in the audience, everyone in the company & crew - he did a wonderful job of loving a great many people who all wanted a piece of him, including his own family. while it may be true that some of us drawn to his work for reasons of our own childhoods (like his, many were - in the parlance - "disfunctional") might have made good use of the slogans and reassurances he and we were dealing out to others, it is mortifying to be comforted with his script. He did not invent love.
I always had a special communication with children - I still have it, and I do not owe it to Fred, nor do I give my time my loyalty & my devotion to the progra and begin to tie every free gift I have every been given to the program.  It's for God.  That's Who we served.  Fred was not himself, albeit a media-made icon - God. Genius, yes. Vision, yes. human, oh yes.

[earnhardtfan4life]

Do we know how many households tuned in for the RFK episode of MRN?

I have wondered if Fred's decision to continue the program after the initial run of 100 episodes on the Eastern Educational Network was due to the fact that America was facing such a difficult crisis.  I think a lot of people had wondered if the American system had been broken given the amount of assassinations that occurred.  He must have known that the need was there for a program like his.  Considering the fact that Vietnam war stories were being covered on the news; MRN/Sesame Street provided an outlet for children to watch.   

Mike

[OperaLover]

Yes, the cobbler's children go barefoot.
Reminds me of this Herbert Scott poem

The Grocer's Children

The grocer's children
eat day-old bread
Moldy cakes and cheese
Soft black bananas
on stale shredded wheat,
Weeviled rice, their plates
heaped high with wilted
greens, bruised fruit,
surprise treats
from unlabeled cans,
Tainted meat.
The grocer's children
never go hungry

My little girl at age four reciting this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZUCLl-8gyM

[OperaLover]

When you say it is mortifying to be comforted with his script, do you mean the "fredisms?"
And I apologize for my own inadequacy in using some of them in my post above.
I feel bad if I've hurt you by applying them to what I was trying to say.
I guess what I should have said is that I wish there had not been such sacrifice on your part and that you were not weighed down with guilt for so many years.
Your God-given gifts have blessed me for 35 years and I wholeheartedly thank you.

[bka]

no apology necessary, I assure you! And, for the record, I will now take credit for the assassination show. Not for the genius of the execution, but for the idea. I begged Fred to write it - as children were watching the Jack Ruby assassination of Oswald over and over on the t.v. And I loved performing it.

[Degeneration X The Owl]

I would love to see that episode in its entirety.