TV Talk: Fred Rogers Productions’ ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood’ turns 10
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After ordering dinner at a restaurant last month, my 12-year-old son declared it was time to play “What’s Missing,” a game where everyone closes their eyes except the one person at the table who gets to take something from the table and hide it underneath. Then everyone else opens their eyes and begins guessing what item was removed from the table.
All credit for “What’s Missing” goes to Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions’ “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” which introduced us to this how-to-survive-long-waits strategy in an early episode, season one’s “A Night Out at the Restaurant.”
In a few weeks, “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” turns 10, a milestone for the series and for FRP, which faced some darks times after Fred Rogers’ death in 2003. Selling “DTN” to PBS and getting it on the air in 2012 proved FRP could continue to create children’s programing even after the passing of its namesake.
“DTN” begins its 18-episode sixth season Sept. 5 with a week of new episodes (8 a.m. on WQED’s Channel 13.5, the PBS Kids Channel, and 9:30 a.m. on Channel 13.1, the main WQED channel).
Ellen Doherty, chief creative officer at FRP and an executive producer on “DTN,” said other than some small alterations, most notably the addition of Daniel’s little sister in season two, “DTN” remains pretty similar to when executive producer Angela Santomero first adapted the show as an animated spin-off of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” “DTN” follows the adventures of preschooler Daniel Tiger, the son of Daniel Striped Tiger, a puppet featured on the original “Neighborhood” series.
“The core of this, the heart of the show, is the social-emotional learning,” Doherty said in an early August virtual interview. “Daniel is that young child who’s trying to figure out all this stuff just as a four-year-old does, spending more time with friends or with his little sister. To an adult, a child’s life seems simplistic and easy. But to a child, their life is just as hard as a grown-up’s.”
“DTN” continues to feature live-action interstitials filmed in Pittsburgh with the “sweater kids,” local children who wear Daniel’s trademark red sweater.
“For season six, we brought back some of the kids from earlier seasons,” Doherty said. “Partially, this was a covid choice. We didn’t want to cast and bring on younger children who were unfamiliar with this process, so we brought in some of the kids that we’ve worked with in the past, and they’re all terrific.”
This season’s “sweater kids” include Janae Reed, 11, and Lyric Reed, 10, of Verona; Camille Luster, 11, of Moon; Brooke Dunn, 7, of Ross and Samuel Lynch-Liendo, 11, of Bethel Park.
While an interstitial in season five showed off Pittsburgh’s skyline and river shorelines, the new season takes a different approach.
“We don’t show the city in the same way but we show some great cultural institutions,” Doherty said, including the Carnegie Library, the Irma Freeman Center in Garfield, the Hill District’s Hill Dance Academy Theatre and Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. “We have so much animation and puppets [with ‘Donkey Hodie’] but I really love that we also show real kids doing interesting stuff.”
Production on the 25-episode second season of FRP’s “Donkey Hodie” began earlier this month in Chicago for a fall 2023 premiere. FRP’s “Alma’s Way” was recently renewed for a second season.
All of the third season of FRP’s “Odd Squad” has premiered on PBS, but its future beyond that is unclear.
“Ideas are percolating,” Doherty said of the company’s sole live-action series, a favorite in my household. “We know there’s great love and interest for this series. … We have ideas, things are being very actively worked on, but nothing too specific that I can share.”
FRP recently hired a full-time creative development manager to assist in getting new series off the ground for PBS Kids and other platforms.
A Ben Folds musical series that’s been in development for years remains in neutral.
“Things sometimes end up simmering for a variety of reasons that have a lot to do with mundane things,” Doherty said. “We’re working on it. I’ll just say that a pandemic is a complicated time to try to produce an unscripted show that involves singing.”
Kept/canceled
Showtime renewed “The Chi” for a sixth season.
HBO will bring back Nathan Fielder’s “The Rehearsal” for a second season and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” for a 12th season.
Disney Channel renewed “Villains of Valley View” for a second season.
CNN canceled “Reliable Sources” and dismissed host Brian Stelter.
Channel surfing
National Geographic Channel premieres the Garth Brooks-narrated “America’s National Parks” over five consecutive nights beginning Monday at 9 p.m. with the whole series streaming Aug. 31 on Disney+. … The 10-episode sixth season of former CBS series “SEAL Team” streams new episodes weekly on Paramount+ beginning Sept. 18. … Per Nielsen, for the first time streaming viewing (34.8%) surpassed both broadcast TV (21.6%) and cable (34.4%) viewing in July in U.S. households. … HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” drew almost 10 million viewers across all platforms to its premiere episode Sunday, making it the most-watched HBO series premiere in the cable network’s history. … “Jurassic World Dominion” comes to streaming service Peacock Sept. 2, including both the version seen in theaters and an extended version with an additional 14 minutes, including an alternate opening. … The final (for now) “Halloween” movie, “Halloween Ends,” will premiere in theaters and on streaming service Peacock on Oct. 14.