Fred Rogers describes the shock of his initial exposure to commercial television as his parents fired up their first TV set in the early 1950s like this: “They were throwing pies at each other.” The sight of grown adults using this amazing new medium to showcase something as juvenile and pedestrian as a pie fight unsettled young Fred so deeply that he decided to spend the rest of his life showing the world how television could be good for you. And that is exactly what he did. By the time I was in high school, though, a pie fight would have been a welcomed respite from the drivel Hollywood was
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