The tie is next, the scanty black batwing of a bow tie hand-tied at his slender throat, and then the shirt, always white or light blue, whisked from his body button by button. Then he looked at me. And so it was; the asphalt ended, and then we began bouncing over a road of old blond bricks, until even that road ended, and we were parked in front of the place where Mister Rogers is to be buried. And then he lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and looked at his watch, and said softly, "I'll watch the time," and there was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he askedand so they did. TJ: I mean, I never . He was in college. What's more, it's based on a true story, with a few of the names changed. In 1998, at the beginning of an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Mr. Rogers displays a picture board with five doors. Yeah, he would. (2018). The boy had never spoken, until one day he said, "X the Owl," which is the name of one of Mister Rogers's puppets, and he had never looked his father in the eye until one day his father had said, "Let's go to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe," and now the boy is speaking and reading, and the father has come to thank Mister Rogers for saving his son's life.And by this time, well, it's nine-thirty in the morning, time for Mister Rogers to take off his jacket and his shoes and put on his sweater and his sneakers and start taping another visit to the Neighborhood. Cerebral palsy is something that happens to the brain. "No, you're not," she says. Maya Lin is a famous architect. In fact, when the little boy grew up to be a teenager, he would get so mad at himself that he would hit himself, hard, with his own fists and tell his mother, on the computer he used for a mouth, that he didn't want to live anymore, for he was sure that God didn't like what was inside him any more than he did. And my essay from 1998 is the intro for that. I n early 1998, Tom Junod received an assignment that was outside his wheelhouse. "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is loosely based on the 1998 Esquire profile of the beloved TV host. And Ive tried to do it so that Im not just repeating the same line, trying to kind of live in the moment. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. He clearly believed in prayer as a way of life. The film deals with Vogel, who is plagued by his own hate of his dying father, being assigned to write a short, 400-word profile on Rogers. "Can I take your picture, Tom?" ESQUIRE: In your Atlantic piece, you talk about how theres no true successor to Mister Rogers. And then my editor, Denise Wills said, Could you try to think of an answer to that question? And I thought about it, then I had to read the story again for the audiobook of this collection of Freds writings and sayings. 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They sang, all at once, all together, the song he sings at the start of his program, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" "Oh, Mister Rogers, thank you for my childhood." So far, its worked pretty well. It is Vogeland, by extension, uswho grows as a result. Junod had hoped the changes would bring protection, as he wrote, "I had counted on the plots many departures from my life to insulate me from the emotional effect of seeing some version of myself up there." He writes all his own scripts, but on this day, when he receives a visit from Mrs. McFeely and a springer spaniel, she says that she has to bring the dog "back to his owner," and Mister Rogers makes a face. I grew up Roman Catholic. 2:27. Let's change it to 'bring the dog home.'" Welcome, Tom, he said with a slight bow, and bade me follow him inside, where he lay downno, stretched out, as though he had known me all his lifeon a couch upholstered with gold velveteen. Nearly every morning of his life, Mister Rogers has gone swimming, and now, here he is, standing in a locker room, seventy years old and as white as the Easter Bunny, rimed with frost wherever he has hair, gnawed pink in the spots where his dry skin has gone to flaking, slightly wattled at the neck, slightly stooped at the shoulder, slightly sunken in the chest, slightly curvy at the hips, slightly pigeoned at the toes, slightly aswing at the fine bobbing nest of himself and yet when he speaks, it is in that voice, his voice, the famous one, the unmistakable one, the televised one, the voice dressed in sweater and sneakers, the soft one, the reassuring one, the curious and expository one, the sly voice that sounds adult to the ears of children and childish to the ears of adults, and what he says, in the midst of all his bobbing nudity, is as understated as it is obvious: "Well, Tom, I guess you've already gotten a deeper glimpse into my daily routine than most people have.". He didn't have an umbrella, and he couldn't find a taxi, either, so he ducked with a friend into the subway and got on one of the trains. ESQ: Have the past two months been fulfilling for you? The film is based on a true story, though Rhys plays fictional journalist Lloyd Vogel, who was created to help tell Rogers' story. And I just think that its a trap; I think its false. Hero?" is about Mr. Rogers as much as it is . Thats what I actually pray for. I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. Twenty minutes later, I got off the train, chose the closest of the stations 14 exits to start my Junod scavenger hunt from, reached the top of the stairs, turned to cross the street, and, wow, okayover on the other end, red turtleneck, black suit, there he is. Im not sure about it. Until one night, Mister Rogers came to him, in what he calls a visitation"I was dreaming, but I was awake"and offered to teach him how to pray. The cameras stop, and he says, "I don't like the word owner there. He thought about it for a second, then said, by way of agreement, "Okay, thentomorrow, Tom, I'll show you childhood." I like to take pictures of all my new friends, so that I can show them to Joanne." And then, in the dark room, there was a wallop of white light, and Mister Rogers disappeared behind it. What is yours named?". Junod is also noted for his Esquire profile of Fred Rogers. He notes, "I think that my character is not just me. "Will you be with me when I die?" The day of the show, he called and asked if I could take the subway down to Bryant Park. He peeked in the window, and in the same voice he uses on television, that voice, at once so patient and so eager, he pointed out each crypt, saying "There's my father, and there's my mother, and there, on the left, is my place, and right across will be Joanne." The window was of darkened glass, though, and so to see through it, we had to press our faces close against it, and where the glass had warped away from the frame of the doorwhere there was a finger-wide crackMister Rogers's voice leaked into his grave, and came back to us as a soft, hollow echo. When tasked with profiling the well-acclaimed Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), Vogel is unwilling to do so as it is a change from his typical exposs. He wrote, "I was well aware of his eccentricity, but unlike my character in the script, I had never rejected him or his message, which was that nothing is more important about a man than the way he looks, the way he carries himself, and the mystery of what my father called his 'allure. I mean, he's sort of a stand-in for all of the people that Fred Rogers had a relationship with. Instead, the plot focuses on the real-life friendship between Rogers and cynical journalist Tom Junod (renamed Lloyd Vogel in the movie and portrayed by Matthew Rhys). In fact, it's an honorific. He can't define it. Enjoy a year of unlimited access to The Atlanticincluding every story on our site and app, subscriber newsletters, and more. November 22, 2019 10:24 AM EST. Today marks the 10th anniversary of his death. "I don't know if I want to put on a performance.". "Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet . But in answer to your question, I mean there are all sorts of ways to be helpful and be of service. I sat in an old armchair and looked around. He was with his producer, Margy Whitmer. esquire article. I bring up the Pam Bondi thing in the The Atlantic piecewhere they actually use Fred to hound somebody. Only it ends up more than 20 times that long, as he . 'I love you.' Lloyd has daddy issues, which Junod did not (at least not in the same way) something he outlines in a recent piece about Rogers for The Atlantic Monthly. Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of navy-blue canvas boating sneakers. Fred turned it on, and as he says now, with plaintive distaste, "there were people throwing pies at one another." It takes one letter to say 'I' and four letters to say 'love' and three letters to say 'you.'. The boy had always been the object of prayer, and now he was being asked to pray for Mister Rogers, and although at first he didn't know if he could do it, he said he would, he said he'd try, and ever since then he keeps Mister Rogers in his prayers and doesn't talk about wanting to die anymore, because he figures Mister Rogers is close to God, and if Mister Rogers likes him, that must mean God likes him, too. Notes. Rogers as a peasant to explaining the world to remove son. cynical writer Lloyd Vogel (based on Junod, but with a fictional estranged dad figure, played by Chris Cooper, so that Rogers can . The film's protagonist is journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a cynic who is assigned by his editors at Esquire to write a profile on Rogers. TJ: Thats a great question. (2021, directed . And for me going out and talking about it has been a great experience for me. A death ray! I dont like it. My personal favorite piece of the story: Junod describes meeting Mr. Rogers in person for the first time, THE FIRST TIME I CALLED MISTER ROGERS on the telephone, I woke him up from his nap. Second mook: "Huh. Greek philosophy called for esquire magazine article about mr rogers? He doesn't know the color of his walls, and one day, when I caught him looking toward his painted skies, I asked him to tell me what color they are, and he said, "I imagine they're blue, Tom." She spent much of her time tending to the sick and the dying. Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers and Matthew Rhys as Lloyd Vogel in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood." (Courtesy Lacey Terrell/Sony Pictures) This article is more than 3 years old. However, he also said in the Atlantic piece that his father was a flawed man, "a fetishist of his own fragrant masculinity." By the time Junod was done writing the story, he had become friends with Rogers.The two remained close until Rogers's death, in early 2003. "Oh, Mister Rogers, you're the father I never had." She was very pretty. Yeah. Lloyd's father Jerry (Chris Cooper) abandoned him as a child and keeps trying to reconnect, by Lloyd rejects him. Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) probes the state-of-mind of his interviewer, Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) Somehow, the loss of Mr. Rogers, a thoroughly decent man who preached a gospel of kindness to generations of children, aches much more in a social and political landscape awash in anger and pain (and "leadership" that sets that tone). At first, I chalked this up to some Neighborhood of Make-Believe voodoo energy, but now I have a legit answer. This is a man who loves the simplifying force of definitions, and yet all he knows of grace is how he gets it; all he knows is that he gets it from God, through man. "Thank you for calling, my dear," he said, in a voice whose . On this day, however, he is premature by a considerable extent, and so Margy, who has been with Mister Rogers since 1983because nobody who works for Mister Rogers ever leaves the Neighborhoodcomes running over, papers in hand, and says, "Not so fast there, buster. Except for people who are on the new-age end of it. In fact, when Mister Rogers first told me the story, I complimented him on being so smartfor knowing that asking the boy for his prayers would make the boy feel better about himselfand Mister Rogers responded by looking at me at first with puzzlement and then with surprise. 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