David Letterman’s 1982 Interview of Mister Rogers Is Pure Gold

We think of Mr. Rogers as patient, kind, and as David Letterman puts it in this clip from Late Night: “unflappable.” In 1982 Mister Rogers appeared on the program, after Letterman rolled a clip of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood where our protagonist unsuccessfully attempts to put up a tent and rather cooly throws the thing on the ground by the end! Even the king of calm sometimes got frustrated. When Letterman asked him about it, Mister Rogers hung his head and quietly said: “Sometimes things don’t go right in the Neighborhood.”

Mister Rogers then reminisces about his first job at NBC as a floor manager for a terrible show in the same studio where Letterman filmed his talk show! Mister Rogers always put us at ease, but it’s nice to see this side of him as well. Have a look in the video below.