TV shows.... what are you watching these days?

[Overcome]

I love that voice over guy!

[Starship]

Ahh yes, who can forget cat videos?!! They’re the best, along with panda videos!

There’s a great channel on YouTube called RxCKStxR. He does the most awesome voiceovers for cute animal videos.

I’ve got my sister staying with me right now and we are binge watching Survivor. We are on season 37 right now. So fun!

[Catie]

Cat videos can never go unmentioned. Little comics! I can't believe some of their moves!

I should check out the teacher skits.

Haven't watched these in a while, but I'm not the first to get drawn in by hoof trimmers, of all occupations....

[Overcome]

I like the teacher skit shorts and also funny cat shorts

[Catie]

The series on FDR sounds interesting!

I don't like his long-form videos very well but I love several of Adam Rose's shorts. Watching his face can be pure comedy.

Sometimes it's the silliest things. I've gotten hooked on a lady who feeds squirrels at her window.

[Overcome]

Unfortunately I can sit for hours with shorts, so not good but I do enjoy them!! I have been into fact related fiction, just watched a series about FDR.

[Catie]

I'm still not a TV buff but I love a huge variety of videos on Youtube. Maybe my attention span is low recently but I've grown to enjoy some of the funny "shorts" that are a minute or so long.

[Catie]

Hear, hear, Falena!

[Falena Porter]

Cant say enough good things about his show.

I rather wish there had been a Mr Rogers in my own life. He does seem to have been quite an extraordinary man.

[Overcome]

Aww star that’s so nice! I do love that movie and fondly remember the show

[Starship]

Falena I just saw your post about Mr. Rogers. I watched Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood religiously as a child. I LOVED it. He WAS my father growing up. Every day he would look me in the eyes and tell me I am special just the way I am. He would sit with me and make time for me and I was transported into his neighborhood every day.

He had a profound impact on me and my psyche. For a fractured little girl who was enduring terror every night and insane denial during the day, I believe the truths Mr. Rogers so kindly spoke to me actually helped me survive with an intact and functional ego (albeit dissociative).

Cant say enough good things about his show.

[Falena Porter]

I have been watching a series on television called Better Things. It is about an actress who is raising three children as a single parent. I find the style of the show to be very refreshing, her challenges are presented in ways which are relatable.

I understand that the show is a semi-autobiographical account of the lead actress’s life.

[Falena Porter]

Well, Cookie, it sounds like he didn’t make a huge impression on you LOL. From the movie, I’d almost have assumed he’d shaped the emotional development of an entire generation of American children. LOL

[Overcome]

I watched Mr rogers neighborhood but don’t remember more than the intro music and red sweater! Lol

[Falena Porter]

Recently, I watched a movie which starred Tom Hanks called A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood.

I had never before heard of Fred Rogers but I infer from the movie and things I've since read that he was something of an institution in the States.

Did any of you watch him on television when growing up? Was he helpful to you?

I also read that in real life, Fred Rogers is actually a sixth cousin to Tom Hanks. I guess they're both pretty remarkable men.

The only reservation I had was the way in which the character of Fred, at least in the way he was portrayed in the movie, seemed to blur the lines of a therapeutic relationship and a professional one or that of a friend. There were a couple of scenes when I felt he said things which did more to obfuscate rather than bring about clarity, as if he were deliberately putting the other person a little off-balance.

I mean, that was the point of the movie, how his relationship unexpectedly brought massive change to the journalist sent to interview him so I guess I ought not to pick holes in it.

However, I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, nor the way in which the family seemed to mend and heal so dramatically and so fast. I mean, I can accept that love conquers all, but I cannot accept that personal insight and even willingness to forgive and start over could re-constitute a fractured family at such a rapid speed.

It's like when I watch movies or read books which are ignorant of the needs of children and have happy-ever-after endings which could not possibly have seemed so for the children but they are not the focus of the narrative and any emotional damage is swept under the proverbial carpet.

Having said all that, though, I did enjoy the movie. It was good to watch something about an exceptional man who apparently brought such warmth and understanding to a whole generation of children.

Given his stature in the States, I wonder how it is that I had never heard of him before.