Mister Rogers' Neighborhood of the Living Dead

Enter the Moviehouse and discover the symbiotic parallel between dissimilar talents and Pittsburgh native sons Fred Rogers - overseer of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe -  and George A. Romero - the lord over the "Living Dead."

George A. Romero succumbed to a "brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer" in the middle of July 2017. As a film auteur - scriptwriter, producer, director, frequent editor - Romero essentially created the "walking dead" genre with 1968's "Night of the Living Dead."

Bill Hinzman achieves cinematic immortality as the screen's first
modern zombie in "Night of the Living Dead."

The independent feature, produced initially with Romero and nine associates anteing up $6000 each under the banner of Image Ten, would inspire decades of motion pictures, straight-to-video pap, and TV series imitating, remaking, and reinventing George's vision of reanimated cadavers.

Romero devoted his career to continuing the saga of his beloved ghouls over four decades, from 1968's "Night of the Living Dead" to 1978's "Dawn of the Dead" to 1985's "Day of the Dead," 2005's "Land of the Dead," 2007's "Diary of the Dead," and 2009's "Survival of the Dead," a track record that earned the filmmaker the epithet "The Godfather of the Zombie Film."

According to Leo Braudy, a professor at USC, Romero "took the image of the zombie, which up to that point was rooted in the Caribbean and part of a black Caribbean culture, and turned it into a metaphor for all sorts of things in American culture."

Unlike classic movie monsters like Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, Wolf Man, and the Mummy, the zombie, according to Professor Braudy, "is unique because it's part of a group representing the potential threat of a mass mind."

(Top) Actor Darby Jones personified the '40s Hollywood version
of zombies in "I Walked with a Zombie," a 1943 production inspired
by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. (Bottom) The risen dead besiege
the isolated farmhouse in 1968's "Night of the Living Dead."

George Romero initially was not fond of the term "zombie." "All I did was I took them out of 'exotica' and I made them the neighbors," he said. "I have a soft spot in my heart for the zombies," he explained. "They are multipurpose, you can't really get angry at them, they have no hidden agendas, they are what they are. I sympathize with them."

Movies like "28 Days Later," "Shaun of the Dead," "Zombieland," and "World War Z" took their cue from Romero's  films, as well as such TV series as "Z Nation" and that juggernaut of AMC, "The Walking Dead." Romero, however, matter-of-factly dismissed "The Walking Dead" as "a soap opera with a zombie occasionally. I always used the zombie as a character for satire or a political criticism and find that missing in what's happening now."

Born in the Bronx, Romero studied graphic arts at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, graduating in 1961 from the university's College of Fine Arts. His first job was at the Pittsburgh Motion Picture Library, bicycling edited newsreels to local news stations. "I wasn't paid," he recalled, "but I was sometimes given lunch money."

He began his career shooting short films and commercials, including mini-documentaries for "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" at WQED, Pittsburgh's public television station. "I shot a dozen or so of those short films. Some were meant to be educational," he said, mentioning "How Light Bulbs Are Manufactured." "Some were meant to be purely exploratory, to inspire thought in a four-year-old ('Things with Wheels,' 'Things That Feel Soft'). Some were meant to defeat fears, to show that Mr. Rogers had to go through the same scary shit that a four-year-old had to go through sometimes, and that he came through it unscathed, so the four-year-old was likely to come through it unscathed, as well."

The brunt of George A. Romero's cinematic contributions
to "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" were presented on
Fred's framed "Picture Picture."

Romero would later remember Fred Rogers as "the first guy who trusted me enough to let me have final cut and trusted me enough to do that." He recalled "Mister Rogers Gets a Tonsillectomy" as his "first really big production."It was shot in a real, working hospital. Romero said, "I still joke that 'Mister Rogers Gets a Tonsillectomy' is the scariest film I've ever made. What I really mean is that I was scared shitless while I was trying to pull it off."

"Everyone in Pittsburgh who somehow wound up working professionally in movies or film or television all started on 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,'" Romero noted.

In the late 1970s, Michael Keaton, who was born in Coraopolis, near Pittsburgh, spent a couple of years at WQED, the public television station, where he was employed on the floor crew of a number of shows, including "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." He worked as a full-time production assistant and appeared on the program, as well, as a member of "The Flying Zookeeni Brothers."

Michael Keaton works on the set of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe
with Chef Brockett (Don Brockett) and Lady Aberlin (Betty Aberlin).

"It was a simple, old-fashioned production that everybody really enjoyed working on," Michael Keaton recalled. Fred Rogers, he said, "was essentially the same guy off-camera as he was on-camera."

"He was a beautiful guy," George Romero said. "He was the sweetest man I ever knew. What you see is what you get. That was Fred. He was dedicated to educating kids and telling them, 'There's nothing wrong with you. I like you just the way you are.'"

Fred Rogers poses with his puppets and the Neighborhood Trolley,
George A. Romero poses with his zombies.

As difficult as it may be to picture, Fred Rogers watched both "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead." According to Romero, Rogers enjoyed both films. After watching "Dawn," Fred told Romero, "It's a lot of fun, George." Romero remarked, "He was always a huge supporter over the years."

Incidentally, Romero originally wanted Betty Aberlin, a frequent player on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," for the role of Judy in "Night of the Living Dead." Judy and Tom are the hapless young couple in the movie who perish in a gas pump explosion. However, Fred Rogers, according to Romero "wouldn't allow that...Fred put his foot down and said no."

One neighbor who did work with George Romero was Don Brockett. With a burly build and raspy voice, Brockett appeared frequently on "Mister Rogers" as the jovial neighborhood baker, Chef Brockett, usually clad in a colorful toque blanche and apron.

Don Brockett played a zombie in both George Romero's "Day of the Dead" and the 1990 color remake of "Night of the Living Dead," which was executive produced by Romero. In the latter, he is predominantly displayed chomping on a dismembered hand.

Director Tom Savini (left) poses with Tom Towles (Mr. Cooper),
Patricia Tallman (Barbara), and a makeup artist
on the set of 1990's "Night of the Living Dead."

Tom Savini, who often collaborated with Romero as a special makeup effects supervisor and actor, as well as directing the remake of "Living Dead," once said, "If you're born in Pittsburgh, one of the things you want be when you grow up is a zombie in one of George Romero's 'Dead' movies."

Even macabre cartoonist Gahan Wilson (center) got into the act,
portraying a zombie in the remake of "Night of the Living Dead."

In fact, Don Brockett was a preeminent figure in Pittsburgh theater. He produced, directed, composed, and usually performed in several presentations from the late 1950s until his death. One-half of a popular stage comedy duo called "Brockett and Barbara," he also managed a number of other entertainment acts. Most of his productions toured in neighboring states and some were performed nationwide and on Off-Broadway in New York City. In 1985, he premiered "Forbidden Pittsburgh,"
featuring popular Broadway tunes customized to poke fun at local topics, trends, and personalities. The show became a celebrated event that ran annually for the next decade.

Don Brockett was also heavily involved in local charities, particularly polio research. His noticeable limp on Fred Rogers' show was the result of a childhood bout with the disease.

Brockett had roles in several films, beginning with the Pittsburgh-based "Flashdance" in 1983.

Don Brockett (left) as the Sheriff escorts Chevy Chase to jail in 1989's
"Fletch Lives." Brockett also appeared in, among others, the Patrick
Swayze drama "Tiger Warsaw," Tim Robbins' "Bob Roberts," "Hoffa,"
starring Jack Nicholson, and "Money for Nothing," with John Cusack.

If a motion picture was shot in Pittsburgh, Don Brockett could usually be counted on to pop up in the cast. Such was the case with "Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh," a 1991 splatter parody about a serial murderer who preys on prostitutes with a variety of power tools, including a chainsaw, weed whacker, jackhammer, and industrial shop vac (the phantom killer conveniently carts a portable generator in a toy wagon). Did we mention impalement by parking meter?

The film centers on two harried detectives (played by Joe Sharkey and Jake Dengel, a pair of character actors with marvelously lived-in faces) assigned to the case by the apoplectic Chief "Buzz Saw" Ryan (Don Brockett).

Spouting dialogue that would make Fred Rogers blush, the chief
barks at his inept underlings, "Just what in Sam-fucking-Hill is
going on here?" The end credits of the film included a special
thanks to the Pittsburgh Police Department "for their patience
and sense of humor."

Written and directed by Dean Tschetter, better known as an art director and production designer who worked on 2010's "The Sorceror's Apprentice" and 2011's "Water for Elephants," the dark comedy was intended as an homage to the "Godfather of Gore," Herschell Gordon Lewis, in particular referencing "Blood Feast," about a food caterer who kills women for their body parts as a sacrifice to the Egyptian goddess Ishtar. Tschetter plops an "Egyptiantown" (not unlike Chinatown) smack dab in downtown Pittsburgh, replete with camels and belly dancers.

Adult film star Veronica Hart (referred to as "the Meryl Streep of
porn") was billed under her birth name Jane Esther Hamilton for
her role as Grace, a klutzy carhop on roller skates in Egyptiantown.

One of the producers of the movie, who also played a prominent supporting role onscreen, had final cut and apparently altered the content to the extent that Tschetter had his name removed from the credits for the show business pseudonym "Alan Smithee."

In one of his most memorable, albeit briefest, film roles, Don Brockett played a "Friendly Psychopath" who cordially greets FBI fledgling Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) in the state hospital for the criminally insane when she arrives to interview Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins).

Moments after the congeniality, the Friendly Psychopath snaps when a neighboring inmate, the masturbating Miggs, flings his handful into the face of a startled Starling. Fred Rogers' beloved chef unleashes a repeated barrage of "Miggs, you stupid fuck!"

Director Jonathan Demme, born on Long Island, utilized a number of Pennsylvania locations, including Pittsburgh, so it wasn't surprising when George Romero himself showed up on the screen in a breeze-by cameo (pictured below).

Oh, and another frequent visitor to "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" made an appearance in "The Silence of the Lambs," namely Chuck Aber, sometimes lightheartedly referred  to as "Neighbor Aber" (pictured below, in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe with King Friday XIII).

In "The Silence of the Lambs," Chuck Aber portrayed FBI agent Terry, who, with Vicks VapoRub firmly smeared beneath his nostrils, solemnly extracted a death's-head hawkmoth from the throat of a murder victim (pictured below).

Chuck Aber later recalled his audition for "The Silence of the Lambs," saying, "When I was called in, it wasn't really an audition. (Jonathan Demme) just wanted to talk about Fred Rogers. They were similar kinds of people, just the nicest you'd ever meet." On one occasion, after Aber showed up on the set, Demme drew him aside just to make sure he'd had breakfast. Aber said, "I thought, 'Wow, here's this big director worrying about me.' I remember saying to him, 'You could be a Pittsburgher.' He was that nice."

Nine years earlier, Chuck Aber worked with director George Romero on the Stephen King anthology horror flick "Creepshow" (1982). In the segment titled "The Crate," Aber appeared as a guest at the cocktail party where henpecked hubby Hal Holbrook fantasizes about dispatching harridan wife Adrienne Barbeau with a between-the-eyes headshot.

Chuck Aber: "Hell of a shot."

In "Two Evil Eyes," the 1990 double-feature directed by George Romero and Italian horror auteur Dario Argento (who collaborated with Romero on "Dawn of the Dead") loosely based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Chuck Aber was reunited with Adrienne Barbeau in Romero's take on Poe's  "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," a morbid tale of a man suspended in hypnosis at the moment of death.

Yet another of Mister Rogers' neighbors, Bob Trow, had minor roles in two of George Romero's early films. Trow, who regularly appeared as the neighborhood handyman (pictured above), also displayed his talents in portraiture and as a model-maker, having created the miniatures of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe Fred frequently displayed in his "television home." In the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Trow often portrayed the gibberish-prattling Robert Troll and the howling Bob Dog (pictured below).

After "The Night of the Living Dead," Romero didn't want to be pigeonholed as a guy who only made gritty black-and-white horror pictures, so he directed "There's Always Vanilla," a color-splattered romantic comedy, which, unfortunately forgot the comedy and put the romance on the back burner. Romero followed that with 1973's "Season of the Witch," a supernatural thriller that forgot the "super" and replaced the thrills with daytime drama. Both films suffered from the starring non-presence of an actor named Raymond Laine, a mop-topped, contemptible embodiment of smarmy '70s hipster-tude (pictured below).

Kinda makes you want to slap him up the side of the head, doesn't it?

In "There's Always Vanilla," Robert Trow provided a refreshing breath of comic relief as a bumbling advertising executive who has problems with his eyeglasses. In "Season of the Witch" (originally title "Jack's Wife" and recut as "Hungry Wives"), Trow again reliably pumped some needed smiles into an otherwise turgid soap opera as an inept police detective who does some scene-stealing shtick with a pipe.

Trow's youngest son Eric noted, "Dad, without a doubt, had a natural, everyday sense of humor. He was a scream. In fact, some of the funniest stuff I remember was just his natural way of dealing with his shortcomings."

Before "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," Robert Trow was a prominent radio personality. Pittsburgh airwave legend Regis Cordic recruited Trow and radio partner Karl Hardman, along with Sterling Yates, as fellow zanies who visited his morning shows, first at WWSW-FM in Pittsburgh, then on KDKA. From 1948 to 1965, Cordic was the dominant morning drive-time radio host in Pittsburgh. When Cordic left KDKA, Trow and Art Pallan took over the morning slot.

Robert Trow also wrote and produced local radio and television commercials. However, even if it meant more fame and fortune, he turned down repeated offers to leave Pittsburgh. Son Eric, who has done voice-over work since childhood, once remarked, "If there's ever been a Pittsburgher, someone who had pride in the city, 'I don't need anything beyond here,' it was  him. He loved this city, he never had any desire to go anywhere else." Eric's brother, Rob Trow, lives in Chicago and works as a studio vocalist and voice-over talent.

A retired promotions director recalled Bob Trow as "an extremely talented man and one who had more facets to this creativity than anyone I know. And yet, he was very self-effacing. He was always very quiet about himself."

"My favorite work is comic stuff," Bob Trow said.
"If anything happened to my sense of humor,
I'd be lost."

After Bob Trow passed in late 1998, Fred Rogers commented, "He was an enormous talent, and for him to have been able to offer that to children through the neighborhood all through these years was a great gift." Musing that Trow's personality was "woven throughout the neighborhood," Rogers said, "He was such an integral part of the Pittsburgh broadcasting family...One of the last things he said to me was, 'Thank you for having me, Fred.'"

One of Fred Rogers' later neighbors, in the mid-1980s, was Keith the coin collector at Chef Brockett's video arcade, played by actor Keith David. David did not appear in any movie made by George Romero but was cast in a pair of pictures directed by horror-meister John Carpenter. In 1982, David costarred with Kurt Russell in "The Thing," and in 1988, with wrestler-turned-actor Roddy Piper in "They Live" (pictured below).

In the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Keith David played the resident carpenter of Southwood. "That was my first job on TV," David recalled. "When I got that job, I was working in Pittsburgh at the Public Theater there...I was playing Oberon (in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream')...and then somehow that job came up, and then I kept coming back periodically. A wonderful director, Paul Lally, was the director. And Mr. Rogers was a wonderful cat. He really was."

In a 2014 interview, Keith David said, "When you think that he was a Presbyterian minister whose ministry focused on children 2 through 6 years old...it was phenomenal...I've grown to have a great appreciation for Mr. Rogers, because he did not placate. He didn't talk down to them...And he was fun, too, with the puppets. I was just like, 'Wow, okay I get this.'"

An accomplished voice actor, David has narrated several documentaries by Ken Burns. Besides Burns' "Baseball" and "Mark Twain," Keith David won Emmy Awards for narrating Burns' "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," "The War," and "Jackie Robinson."

So, just what is there to make of the curious transition from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood to George Romero's graveyard of the walking dead or Jonathan Demme's state hospital for the criminally insane or John Carpenter's landscape of alien invaders? In Romero's case, maybe it is just what Tom Savini said about anyone born in Pittsburgh wanting to be a zombie in one of George's "Dead" movies when they grow up. Or perhaps it's just the fact that the individuals discussed here were working actors first and Fred Rogers' neighbors second.

One neighbor who remained firmly rooted in the 'Hood was David Newell, who steadfastly portrayed the fast-talking Speedy Delivery man Mr. McFeely in 434 episodes of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," from 1968 to 2001. Although McFeely was Fred's middle name, Newell's character was actually named McFeely in honor of Rogers' grandfather.

Newell had worked as a clown and as a host for children's theater at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. He was assistant stage manager and assistant to scenic artists at the Civic Light Opera before landing a job as a prop handler for Fred Rogers in 1967. The following year, he was hired as the iconic delivery man. Beginning in 1972, Newell also became an associate producer of the program.

In a rare out-of-character photo, David Newell
jokes around with Fred Rogers.

Since Rogers' death in 2003, Newell became director of public relations for Family Communications Inc., a nonprofit company Rogers founded that continues his mission of serving young children and their families. Often in character, Newell tirelessly tours the country, continuing to carry on Fred Rogers' legacy and promote his philosophy.

Remember our mention of Betty Aberlin, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe's beloved Lady Aberlin, whom Fred Rogers adamantly refused to relinquish to appear in George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead"? Like David Newell, Aberlin had been with Rogers from the get-go, appearing in 491 episodes.

In 1975, Betty Aberlin stepped out beyond the realm of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe to appear as a regular on "The Smothers Brothers Show" on NBC (not to be confused with the earlier, canceled CBS variety series "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour").

Later in her career, as "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" was winding down, Aberlin formed an apparently unlikely friendship with New Jersey-born filmmaker Kevin Smith, the creator of the stoner duo Jay and Silent Bob in "Clerks." It almost seemed as if it was an act of sacrilege when Betty played a nun who questions her faith in Smith's "Dogma," which featured Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as fallen angels (pictured below).

Betty Aberlin subsequently had roles in director Kevin Smith's "Jersey Girl," "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," and "Red State." The latter, a dark comedy about a sinister fundamentalist church, featured an ensemble cast, including John Goodman, Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, Stephen Root, Kevin Pollak, and Kevin Smith himself.

Betty Aberlin promotes Kevin Smith's "Red State."

Postscript

Fred Rogers himself rarely made appearances on television programs outside his Neighborhood. In 1982, he appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman." It was also in 1982 when Rogers paid a surprise backstage visit to "Saturday Night Live's" Eddie Murphy, who hosted a recurring segment on the program called "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" (pictured below).

"SNL" cast member Robin Duke snapped this Polaroid.

In 1983 and 1986, Fred Rogers was a guest on "The Tonight Show" with guest host Joan Rivers.

Fred Rogers serenades Joan Rivers with his show's closing
theme song, "It's Such a Good Feeling."

Rogers made two appearances on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," in 1996 and 2000. In 1997, Rogers guest-starred as "himself" in an episode of the animated PBS series "Arthur" (pictured below).

On a 1998 broadcast of "Wheel of Fortune" from Pittsburgh, Rogers showed up for the unveiling of the solution to the word puzzle, which was, "IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD."

The only time Fred Rogers played a fictional character was on a 1996 episode of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," the family drama set in the Old West starring Jane Seymour. In the segment titled "Deal with the Devil," Rogers portrayed Reverend Thomas, the mentor of Colorado Springs' troubled minister, Reverend Timothy Johnson.

Rev. Thomas (Fred Rogers) comforts Rev. Johnson (Geoffrey Lower)
on a fourth season episode of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."