Mister Rogers Through the Eyes of Bill Isler
What About A Day to Celebrate The Heroes Who Help Children?
Bill Isler, my dear friend, President and CEO Emeritus of Fred Rogers Productions, worked closely with Fred Rogers for decades. I recently interviewed him for AASA—the School Superintendent Organization’s Early Learning Cohort. The interview, like anything you do with Bill, was a lot of fun!
Bill was a storied professional in education before joining Family Communications (now Fred Rogers Productions) in 1984. A Pittsburgh native, he was a teacher in child care and in elementary school and executive director of multi-service children’s program. Then he moved to Harrisburg where he worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Education as Executive Assistant to the Secretary of Education, Commissioner of Basic Education and Senior Program Advisor for Early Childhood Education.
He’d planned to stay in government… until a state visit from Mister Rogers.
I began the interview by asking Bill to tell us what led him to leave his prestigious job in state government and join forces with Fred Rogers.
Bill Isler: One of the functions I had—I supervised the State Library. So, I took Fred there and to meet a lot of people. It was late in the year; it was snowy. He couldn't get out of the airport.
Fred—I love him dearly—was incredibly patient with young children, but not all that patient with a lot of other people. Like the rest of the world!!!! So, he rented a car and drove home.
I was standing there with the Secretary of Education, and he said to me, “I didn't know Fred Rogers offered you a job." I said, “I turned him down.” And he said, "WHY?"
He said to me, "Look, the governor's going to be governor for two more years. We don't know what's going to happen. You've always wanted to work with this guy. Your passion is early childhood. You've got to think it through.”
I went home and talked with Mardi [his wife], applied for the job, and we came here. I worked with Fred until he died [in 2003] and afterwards.
Ellen Galinsky: Did you know him before?
Bill: How I knew Fred is an interesting story. Fred's major consultant, who Ellen met on a number of occasions, because Ellen had to be approved by her, was Dr. Margaret McFarland.
I am going to pause my sharing the interview here to tell you about Margaret McFarland. She was a legendary figure in child development, having worked with Dr. Ben Spock, the author of the Baby and Child Care, which in its day sold almost as many copies as the Bible and with Erik Erikson, the psychoanalyst who formulated one of the most durable frameworks for understanding human development. She also worked almost weekly with Fred Rogers on his show.
Margaret McFarland had to approve everyone who worked with Fred— like me, when I appeared as a parent expert on his Mister Rogers Talks with Parents television series. Going through her approval process was terrifying—a story for another time.
It turns out that Margaret already knew Bill before he applied for the job… so perhaps he was pre-approved 😊.
Bill: When I got out of the Army, somebody had said to me, “You shouldn’t go to law school—you really ought to follow your passion and work with kids and there's a woman I want you to meet.” It was Margaret and it turned out my aunt was a stenographer on all her research. We became very close friends, and the rest is history.
So, working with Fred happened serendipitously. One of Fred's sayings was: “What is really important happens in the wings. It doesn't happen on the stage.”
Ellen: Tell us something you know about Fred that most people don't know.
Bill: Well, I know a few things that I can’t tell you!!
But, number one, he did not have any tattoos And two, he was not a Navy SEAL. Actor Lee Marvin mentioned on Johnny Carson [The Tonight Show] that his two heroes were Bob Keeshan, who was Captain Kangaroo, and Fred Rogers, who was Mister Rogers. He said they were both Navy SEALS and were very heavily tattooed. I would get calls all the time—I mean—I still get calls about it. It is absolutely not true!
Here’s another thing about Fred that I think is really important. You know how hard you work. And teachers—you know when you hit that classroom, you have to be ready. It's the same thing in a studio. Fred worked incredibly hard every single day. He had ultimate patience for children, but he was not enamored with people who didn't put their best forward every single day.
We all knew what the expectations were, and they were high! He was not shy about sitting you down. Margaret would come into my office…
Ellen: So… was she the spokesperson for Fred if you didn’t meet expectations?
Bill: Every once in a while. If he wouldn't tell you in person that you screwed up, she would sit you down and say, "Now, Bill, we're friends”…
Fred and I—we did have disagreements. I mean, we didn't always agree on everything. But I knew the difference between my friendship with Fred and my working responsibility to Fred. I think that's really critical. You can work with your friends if you can understand that friendship is not more important than the job you have to do.
The other thing is Fred was a fast driver. Very fast!!!
Ellen: WOW, I am imagining.
Bill: He had a tremendous sense of humor. Really!
Ellen: Like you. I’ve always thought of you as my teenage brother. You’ve never grown up.
Bill: Why did I go into early childhood? I never came out of my adolescence. Fred had a tremendous sense of humor. What he didn't have is any willingness to tolerate meanness. So, for instance, if a good friend of mine would come in and I'd say, “You're a little overweight. Don't sit in that chair."
Fred would say, "That's just how Bill tells you he loves you." He wouldn't call me out—but he would make it very clear that what I said was inappropriate.
Ellen: My colleagues want to know—was Fred really so nice?
Bill: [A friend asked him]: “Fred, do you ever get really mad at somebody?” And he would say, "No, I just think of their pain.”
Now the song: “What Do You Do With The Mad You Feel” was inspired by a three-year-old when she said to Fred, “Mister Rogers, did you ever feel so mad you wanted to bite somebody?”
A lot came from children and from other people. He took notes constantly. We have a note from Fred from when my son was three-years-old. He was with Fred, and he told him, "My dog Meg died. Her heart stopped barking.” Fred wrote a note, dated it and gave it to us.
Ellen: What was a day with Fred like?
Bill: Okay, I'll tell you, he never changed his watch. So, if you were in California with him and people would say, "We're going to have dinner at 6 o'clock,” and he would go, "Mercy, that's 9. It's almost my bedtime."
He was spiritual. [He was an ordained Presbyterian minister.] He would get up and pray; he would read scripture.
If he was in a hotel and someone would ask if he wanted coffee or tea, he’d say, “l’ll have cranberry juice in the radar range, set number five.” And everybody was saying, “What in the hell is a radar range?” There’d be this look, and I'd say, "It's the microwave.”
At home, he would sit with his cat, Sybil who lived to be about 22. And then would get ready and go swim and then come in the office. And he would be in the office until 4 and go home. He and Joanne [his wife] would have dinner.
Fred was much happier being with a couple of people than being in a large crowd. We would have to beg him to do speeches. It was not his thing. He really liked to talk WITH people.
He wrote a book called “Mister Rogers Talks With Parents,” and the editors called me and said, "The book title is going to be ‘Mister Rogers Talks To Parents.’"
I said, "The book title is going to be ‘Mister Rogers Talks With Parents,’ because he doesn't talk to anyone. He talks WITH.”
And they got really aggravated. And I said, "You have two choices. You either take this title or the book's never going to be published."
And they took the title.
When people would write with him—nobody really wrote for him—he would take it back and rewrite it. He spent an incredible amount of time writing. And up until the last minute. It used to drive me crazy. You know, I learned why Greeks killed the messengers, because I was always a messenger. I would say, “No, hold the book. We've got two more changes.” That is literally the way he worked, all the time.
There was a line with Fred. It was “Call Ellen.” We did a series [for children]. There would be a week on child care, a week on hospitalization, a week on divorce. And he would also have a panel on television—on PBS—for parents.
Ellen was on the panel [as were others]. Fred did not consider himself an expert in child development. If somebody [in the live audience] would ask a question, Fred would say, “I think Ellen could answer that question very well.”
Ellen: You can imagine my situation. People wanted to hear from Fred! So, I would say, “Why don’t you go first, Fred.”
Bill: When Fred stopped doing Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, he wanted to stay involved in children's media and child development, so we wanted to create a center. We needed position papers to raise the funds to get the center off the ground. The two people chosen were Ellen and Milton Chen. Milton at the time was head at the George Lucas Education Foundation. So, those two position papers became the foundation for the center—now the Fred Rogers Institute in Latrobe, where Fred grew up.
Ellen: Was Fred ever inspired by teachers? What was his relationship with educators?
Bill talked about teachers being a critical part of his kitchen cabinet and all of the things he learned from and with them, including the importance of play, which Bill says has to be seen as a right—"kids have the RIGHT to play.”
We then talked about 2019 movie about Fred, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers.
Bill: When we met Tom Hanks, he said, "What do you think Fred would say about me playing him in a movie?”
I said, "Well, this may come as a shock to you, but he saw Forrest Gump [a movie starring Tom Hanks] at least 40 times.” And Tom Hanks looks at me and said, "Did you ever see it?" I said, "No."
But there’s a story.
Bill: Fred came into my office one day—I was having a bad day. He said, “I want to meet you at your house at 2 o'clock. I want to give you a gift, something for you. I get to the house and he said, “I want to take you to see Forrest Gump.”
I said, “Fred, I’ve got work to do. You go to the movie theater. I'm going back to the office. No judgment.” He went.
I told [Tom Hanks] Fred made us all see the movie “Big” because what was important about that movie is you never lose your inner child. Fred was always working on a song about that child who's in me still. He never completed it
They’re more fun stories to tell you.
Joanne and Fred’s favorite story was about Orville Redenbacher—the popcorn guy. Fred always wore a bow tie except when he was on TV. One day, he came home [from a trip] smiling and Joanne said, “Did you have a good day?”
He said, "Funniest thing in the world happened to me today. I'm getting on the plane, and the flight attendant says, "I just love your popcorn."
He said, “I love popcorn, too.”
She then came back and said, "You’re Mister Rogers. I am so embarrassed." He said, "You made me smile. It's not nice to be embarrassed, and you made me smile.” That was Fred!
I then told a story of a speech Fred committed to do before his illness. When he found he had to have surgery, he asked me to do it. Then, sadly, he died. I did the speech and it was heart-breaking—we all wanted Fred to be there. Importantly, it gave me hours in the car, traveling with Mister Rogers’ team and hearing stories about him.
I told our assembled AASA colleagues that I’ve never—EVER—heard a team talk about the person at the helm with such admiration, devotion, respect and love. It was beyond inspiring.
During that car ride, the team also talked about how to continue Fred’s legacy with more children’s programming. Nine years later, the result was the award-winning Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.
I asked Bill if Fred would be surprised about the popularity he has now, more than 22 years after his death.
Bill: Joanne [who died in 2021] and I used to talk about this all the time—about how Fred was much more popular in death—in some ways—than he was in life. It's not a negative at all. It’s interesting how this goes on. Daniel [Tiger] has been an incredibly popular program, still on PBS.
What I often hear today is, “I wish Fred were alive with what's going on with PBS” [politically, like federal cuts in funding, etc.].
There’s a video clip on YouTube—if you’ve never seen it—oh please watch it. Fred was young, and he was nervous. He really didn't want to go [to testify in Congress about funding for PBS], and you could see him rubbing his hands. Senator Pastore was less than kind in the beginning but was won over at the end [by Fred’s reaching out to and focusing on the good in the Senator].
You cannot speak for a dead person about what he would think about today—what he would have said or done. Every day was a different day with that man.
Here’s what I do want to tell you. Fred, at the end of his speeches, would always do a moment of silence. When he got his Lifetime Achievement Award, Dick Clark [of American Bandstand fame] was producing it and he said, "Fred, we can't give you a moment of silence."
Fred said, "Can you give me ten seconds?" And Dick Clark did!
It’s always the same. Fred would say, "I'm going to give you a minute of silence—a minute for you to reflect upon those people in your lives who have made you who you are—who have helped you grow and be who you are today.” There would be the little twitters of laughter, then there would be tears.
He would then say— “just think how pleased they are—to know that you're thinking about them.”
The other saying of Fred’s that I love is that “Anybody in this life who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.” You folks are all heroes!
We don’t have a day to celebrate this kind of heroism, but I think we should. Thank you Fred and Bill for being heroes to me!
I'm so grateful you're reading Research to Thrive By on Substack! My book, The Breakthrough Years is available for purchase here.
Such a wonderful article!