Building bridges from the Cold War to Trump

March 28, 2017 4:37 PM

The Daily Beast reports that "Thirty-four years ago, on five consecutive episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, two feuding sects representing Russia and the United States began stockpiling parts for bombs—at one point stripping the neighborhood’s arts funding to bankroll the build-up."

"This might sound like some particularly dark, on-the-nose fan fiction about a Mister Rogers episode written in 2017, but these episodes really did air in November of 1983—and only then. The episodes were pulled from syndication and future releases. While production stills reappeared over the years, and a poor-quality, five-minute clip wound up on YouTube recently, the individual episodes themselves were never surfaced again.

"That was until this week. Two of them were anonymously posted to YouTube on Monday."

The originally linked YouTube videos have been taken down, but the first episode is (as of this Metafilter posting) available through this second article about the episodes.

posted by eviemath (15 comments total)

Related: That time Fred Rogers took the KKK to court and won:

TV Guide: When do you get angry? Where does Mr. Rogers draw the line?

Mr. Rogers: I was incensed by what the Ku Klux Klan did recently. I am hardly a suing person, and yet that just got my goat. Members of the Ku Klux Klan were giving out a telephone number in the schoolyard, and these kids were calling the number. There was a Mister Rogers sound-alike voice on it with terribly racist messages. I just saw red. And so we sued them and we won. Maybe it's strange, but the only thing that really angers me is something that's demeaning to somebody else.

posted by Atom Eyes at 5:04 PM on March 28, 2017 [58 favorites]

Shit, Mr. McFeely's delivering a box full of gas centrifuges or something
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:06 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]

Whoa.
posted by latkes at 5:09 PM on March 28, 2017

Hah! Wow! Way to unlock a way hidden part of memories! I remember this. Yeah, the lesson learned on this one was reaffirmed several times - that King Friday routinely did not consider his actions for the greater good of his people and routinely needed to be reminded by the kids to have open and honest dialogue with other kingdoms.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:16 PM on March 28, 2017 [7 favorites]

Just watched it. Wow.

Thanks for posting this.

Mr. Rogers: Maybe it's strange, but the only thing that really angers me is something that's demeaning to somebody else.

This is what good people sound like.

Speaking of good people and how they sound, just a side note: Joe Negri is still around and still playing guitar.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:17 PM on March 28, 2017 [14 favorites]

Prince Tuesday: "Careful trolley! Dad has a pretend bomb!"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:25 PM on March 28, 2017 [5 favorites]

It's like the universe is daring us to do something about Trump.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:33 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]

Surely someone downloaded the episodes the day they were posted? Now I wish I had...
posted by trackofalljades at 5:44 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]

He is the King under the Mountain, he has returned to us in our hour of need
posted by Countess Elena at 5:53 PM on March 28, 2017 [19 favorites]

I distinctly remember that week of episodes from when I was six years old, although I could have sworn that they aired in repeats for years afterwards, or maybe they just made that much of an impression.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:06 PM on March 28, 2017

The local paper published a nice set of behind-the-scenes shots from the neighborhood today
posted by octothorpe at 8:08 PM on March 28, 2017 [5 favorites]

I remember these too, and I know I've seen them since the 80s. I believe it made the rounds of traded vhs compilations of things like Godzilla meets bambi, and apocalypse Pooh. I'll ask around and see if anyone has them in a plex vault.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 4:57 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Joe Negri is still around and still playing guitar.

HANDYMAN NEGRI!
posted by Melismata at 7:51 AM on March 29, 2017

Joe Negri is still around and still playing guitar.

So's Mr. McFeely. We just saw him last week.

He's still at all kinds of events around Pittsburgh and makes time for everybody.
posted by dforemsky at 7:57 AM on March 29, 2017 [8 favorites]

He is the King under the Mountain, he has returned to us in our hour of need

...to tell us all that we are special. And that he likes us just the way we are.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:46 AM on March 29, 2017 [8 favorites]