Ever since Fred Rogers first zipped up his cardigan, children’s television has actively engaged with social issues. The minister and puppeteer became a national treasure by imparting lessons about divorce, death, racism and violence to young viewers of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” In a moment celebrated in the documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” Rogers sent a powerful message about tolerance and integration by sharing a wading pool with Officer Clemmons, played by Francois Clemmons, in 1969.
Over five decades on the air, “Sesame Street” has helped kids deal with adversity and championed inclusion through such characters as Julia, a Muppet with autism, and story lines about racism, disability, adoption, divorce and incarceration. “Sesame Street” sensitively addressed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 with an episode in which Elmo is traumatized by a fire at Hooper’s Store. It has since aired regularly on PBS stations after natural disasters or other emergencies.
Simensky has pushed to create more topical kids’ programming that directly confronts issues in the news, such as an episode of “Arthur” about a hurricane. “Everyone at PBS Kids is thinking, ‘What can we do to be helpful?’ There will be people who disagree with this approach and disagree that this is an appropriate topic for kids. And my advice to those people is, ‘Don’t watch it.’ And that’s the beauty of television. You can turn it off.”
“We continue to draw from Mr. Rogers’ legacy on everything that we do,” says Christopher Loggins, supervising producer for “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” an animated spinoff of “Mister Rogers” following the children of characters from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. “One thing that he said is, ‘What’s mentionable is manageable.’ If you can talk about things, it might make them easier to understand, and that’s the approach we took” in making the COVID-19 singalong special, Loggins says.