You've Made This Day Special By Just Your Being You

Publication: Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Author: Anne Michaud
Date: February 28, 2003

YOU’VE MADE THIS DAY SPECIAL BY JUST YOUR BEING YOU
By Anne Michaud

It’s fair to say that not everyone got Mister Rogers, in the sense that teenagers use with clueless adults: “You just don’t get it.”

Our country’s top entertainers parodies him, most famously comedian Eddie Murphy as the profane Mr. Robinson on Saturday Night Live. Commercial television executives, early on, dismissed him as not flashy enough. He didn’t have a gimmick.

Even his target audience, kids, denied affection for him. In junior high school gym class, the girl next to me caught herself absent-mindedly humming one of his catchier tunes, “It’s Such a Good Feeling to Know You’re Alive.”

“Please don’t tell anyone I was singing that,” she begged me...

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