Creepy and yet beloved (by some) Fred Rogers is getting his own documentary. Morgan Neville, who won the Oscar for “20 Feet from Stardom,” has made “Would You Be My Neighbor?” Focus Features has just picked it up for a June 2018 release. I don’t know if they’ll show it in Cannes. It’s very, uh, American.
Mister Rogers is probably best known to a whole generation of “SNL” fans as an Eddie Murphy parody of a quasi-pedophile character called “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood.” But in fact he was a lovable, cardigan wearing children’s TV host who spoke softly and made parents relaxed enough to let kids watch him. I never understood it myself, but there you go.
Fred Rogers made a beautiful speech in 1997 at the Daytime Emmy Awards. Watch it here:
He was also a pioneer in public television long before “Sesame Street”:
