VIDEO: Mr. Rogers Replaced by Tiger in Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood
Daniel Tiger
PBS is heading back to the neighborhood.
Eleven years after the last episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood aired and nine years since Fred Rogers' passing, PBS is returning to the iconic children's show — at least to a degree.
The New York Times reports that the network will begin broadcasting the spin-off Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood starting on Monday. The series is based on the fictional offspring of Roger's original puppets, including Daniel Striped Tiger, and will run twice every weekday. Unlike the original live-action Mister Rogers', Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood will be completely animated.
Mr. Rogers gets auto-tuned in new music video
The show's co-executive producer Kevin Morrison insists that Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood will maintain all the important elements of the original series. "What you saw in Fred was that he talked about feelings, he talked about difficult things," Morrison said. "The death of a goldfish was not a discussion of the alphabet. It was a discussion of life. It was social and emotional, not cognitive based."
Joanne Rogers, the wife of the late Fred Rogers who died in February 2003, agrees, saying that the topics dealt with on the series "are Fred's philosophy."
Watch a sneak peek of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood below. What do you think of the spin-off?