ABSTRACT
With a television career spanning half a century, Fred McFeely Rogers became a television icon, yet he did not originally intend to appear on camera, and had grown up without television. Having over a decade of experience in children's television, and several years of doing his show in Canada, Rogers had a grasp on his mission and had adjusted his format to fit it. Rogers acquired the rights to his show in 1966 and moved it to WQED in Pittsburgh, renaming it Misterogers' Neighborhood. Rogers had more time for planning and production, averaging slightly less than three weeks of programs a year for the remainder of the show's run (1979–2001). When Rogers retired in 2001, several generations of children had grown up with the show and now recognized him as a television icon, whose long, on-going presence on PBS placed him among the likes of Lawrence Welk, Julia Child, and Louis Rukeyser.
