She marveled at how effectively Rogers’s puppets carried a childhood connection into their relationship with the program’s viewers: “In Fred’s hands, with love and gentleness, the puppets draw forth the underside of childhood. By ‘underside,’ I don’t mean macabre, warped, or seamy; they tap into the vein of fear, anger, and awkwardness, and unadulterated self-centeredness that lies beneath the sunny surface of childhood.
