Whenever Mr. Rogers showed a film to his TV audience he would hold up a little film container saying that he’d brought something to show us. Then he’d put the container into a little opening in the side of the wall and the film would magically start running. Now of course there was post-production to edit the actual film into the show, but when you’re four you don’t know about these things. I was savvy enough, however, to decide that there must be something “real” going on in that wall to allow him to stick a film canister in and have the movie come on like magic. So I had a scenario worked out in my head that behind the wall was a guy who would take the film out of the canister and run it into a projector so I could see it on my TV. And then when the film was over the guy would have to quickly put the film back in the canister so Mr. Rogers could take it out of the wall again. It never really dawned on me that this film trick was as make-believe as the land where all those fake puppets and the purple panda were. Mr. Rogers clearly delineated what was real and what was make believe. He would show us how he played the trolley noises on his piano. He showed us the puppets used in the land of make-believe and how he did the voices. Sesame Street, which makes no such distinctions, is pure escapism, educational as it is. Mister Rogers, in some ways, prepared his viewers for his death better than any other children’s characters because he wasn’t a character. He was genuine.