For more than thirty years, television-host Fred Rogers (1928–) was the friendly "neighbor" to millions of American children. Every day, the easy-going Pennsylvanian entered the lives of youthful audiences, dispensing advice, singing songs, and introducing them to the magical Land of Make Believe.

Parents came to trust the soft-spoken host. Rogers (1928–) was an ordained minister with a background in childhood education when he developed his own program for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, PBS station WQED in 1966. The show, at first titled MisteRogers Neighborhood, combined live-action scenes of Rogers in his "television house" with puppet sequences set in the Land of Make Believe. A dinging trolley ferried viewers back and forth between the two settings. Each show began with Rogers painstakingly changing out of his suit and loafers and into a cardigan sweater and sneakers—all the while singing "Won't You Be My Neighbor." This action...