“I went into television because I hated it so,” the late Fred Rogers famously told CNN in 1999. “I thought there was some way of using this fabulous instrument to be of nurture to those who would watch and listen.”
Twenty-five years after the creator of the groundbreaking “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” said those words, the production company that bears his name is embracing technology to make children’s content easier to watch for a wider swath of young viewers.
In the American Sign Language (ASL) space, for example, Fred Rogers Productions currently offers episodes from “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” “Donkey Hodie” and “Alma’s Way” that have been fully translated on screen by an ASL interpreter so that hard of hearing or deaf children too young to read can still follow along.