Mr. Rogers Gets The Boot!

A little secrete about Justin Brown you may not have known. As a kid, I enjoyed watching "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow"...and yes...I'll admit, I even watched "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood." Come on! You watched it too. You know you did. Ha!

Seriously, until recently I hadn't watched any of those shows in a very long time. Then I became a 'dad.' I was actually surprised when I found out that the shows I watched as a kid, were still on TV! But...that's about to change.

Reruns of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” won’t be seen on many PBS stations this season. Even though the show’s star, Fred Rogers, died five years ago and new episodes have not been taped for seven years, many people are still upset the children’s TV staple has been ousted from the 2008-09 lineup to make way for new shows.

Stations in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and it looks like our very own Wisconsin Public Television are among those dropping the program, mainly due to a dip in ratings.

Brian Linder, a South Carolina writer and parent has established the Web site savemisterrogers.com, and recently told the Chicago Tribune, “It sucks man! That’s not a Mr. Rogers thing to say. But maybe in this case he’d even say it.”

PBS said episodes of the show might eventually be posted online.

Oh! I'm sure all kids like my 13 month old daughter are going to sit and watch this on the computer! I don't think so.

It's interesting. I don't really care for Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, but that's not the point. I'm not the targeted demographic. Our children are. And my daughter Mallory loves the show. She also enjoys "Sesame Street" (Elmo) and "Teletubbies." I didn't see the Tellies listed on WPT lately either. Maybe that was also dropped from the line-up.

I just looked up the WPT website, and they don't even have these shows listed on one of their HD Channels 'WPT Kids.' I can understand dropping some of these shows from regular programming, but they should have room on their HD 'Kids Channel.' That would make the most sense to me.