PITTSBURGH 2,000 pay tribute to TV's Fred Rogers

The final episode was taped in December 2000 and aired in August 2001
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Friends, strangers, celebrities and citizens gathered Saturday afternoon not so much to remember children's television pioneer Fred Rogers, but to celebrate his success.
No, not Rogers' worldly success: including five Emmy Awards or the Presidential Medal of Freedom won in July 2002, 11 months after he taped the last episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."
His son John Rogers quoted poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson when he told the crowd of 2,000 why his father was a success.
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children ... to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived," he said. "This is the meaning of success."
The 90-minute memorial, often lighthearted but never flippant, serious, but never somber, was held so the public could remember Rogers, who died Feb. 27 of stomach cancer. His March 1 funeral was private.
In symphony hall
The service was arranged by Family Communications Inc., the company that produced Rogers' show for WQED, Pittsburgh's public television station. That it was held at Heinz Hall, home to the Pittsburgh Symphony, was fitting given Rogers' classical music training (his wife is a concert pianist) and the exposure he gave the music on his show.
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a longtime friend, submitted a videotaped tribute and performance due to a scheduling conflict. Composer and violinist Itzhak Perlman, in town for a symphony appearance, learned of the memorial at the 11th hour and insisted on performing a Bach piece as a tribute.
"Fred Rogers played a very integral part in our household while our five children were growing up," Perlman said, a sentiment seemingly shared by every parent in attendance.
"We both watch the show, so it's a legacy that's been passed on," said Pittsburgh resident Rebecca Perry, 44, who brought her 6-year-old son, Raheem, to the service. "I think it was important for him to see the people, see how many are grown up and have stories to share about the show."
Like 'old friends'
One in attendance was Jeffrey Erlanger, who now lives in Madison, Wis. Rogers met Erlanger and his parents in a restaurant in the 1970s and invited him on the show when he was just a young boy. Profoundly disabled, and still using a motorized wheelchair due to his undersized limbs, Erlanger recalled singing "It's You I Like" with Rogers -- a song about looking inside a person, not at the person's appearance.
Erlanger's friends often ask how long it took to tape that 10-minute segment, wrongly assuming that Rogers' demeanor was an act.
"And I would tell them, it took 10 minutes to tape it, and the reason it did was because he just wanted to sit down and talk to me like we were old friends," Erlanger said, who continued to correspond with Rogers until his death.
A Presbyterian minister, Rogers began producing the show in 1966, going national two years later. The final episode was taped in December 2000 and aired in August 2001, though PBS affiliates continue to broadcast back episodes.
Senate testimony
Pat Mitchell, president of the Public Broadcasting Service, played a clip of Rogers testifying before the U.S. Senate, which was mulling public television budget cuts in the early 1970s.
The brusque subcommittee chairman confessed to having "goose bumps" after Rogers explained why the funding was needed, by quoting the words from one of his simple songs about dealing with anger.
"No one else made the case better and continues to make it today ... for a national public television system," Mitchell said.
"Saying goodbye to friends is always hard. And saying goodbye to a man whose character personified friendship to a generation of children is much harder," said Teresa Heinz, a Family Communications board member and wife of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
"He was able to look past the differences that so often are all we can see in life. He found, instead, what we all had in common: the need to feel special."