Trend Forecast Alert: Fred Rogers Style

Tom Hanks stars as Mister Rogers in TriStar Pictures’ A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. Photo by: Lacey Terrell

The Mr. Rogers film trailer has “dropped,” as the kids say. “A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood,” starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers, is scheduled for a Thanksgiving release. Expect a fall fashion trend of collar pins, bow ties, penny loafers and blue canvas sneakers, and cardigans (alas zippered). 

11 Comments on "Trend Forecast Alert: Fred Rogers Style"

  1. I give the trailer a thumbs down. Mr. Hanks doesn’t even try to imitate a Pennsylvania accent. Yinz guys are not going to like it.

  2. whiskeydent | July 22, 2019 at 12:54 pm |

    Mitchell
    With all due respect to Western Pennsylvania (I had to look it up), I doubt his accent will affect the movie’s popularity. Hanks’ voice is better known than a Yinz, for one reason. Everything else was so dead-on I think this movie will really pluck the heart strings for millions of Americans. I loved the trailer, and I didn’t even grow up on Mr. Rogers.

    I’m going to chalk up your negativity to Monday. Nevertheless, you can still be my neighbor, even if I’m way down in Texas. Have a good’n.

  3. @whiskeydent:

    Thanks, neighbor. Have a wicked pissa day.

    Boston, MA

  4. Roger Sack | July 22, 2019 at 4:20 pm |

    One of the joys of this site is the linguistso-cultural (is that a correct term?) arcana ( at least to me)
    that it regularly provides along with insights into style and its’ history. I consider myself as something
    of a dialect junkie but I had never heard of “yinz” having only visited Pittsburg a few times on business.
    As it turns out, its’ origin is akin to “”youse” ( often pronounced “yiz”) which was a feature of language
    in the Archie Bunker neighborhood in Queens where I spent my first 18 years.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinz

  5. Lots of Ivy guys live in Archie Bunker’s neighbordhood! Me, DCG, and employees of J. Press and Kamakura.

  6. Al Creeley | July 22, 2019 at 11:50 pm |

    A society that mocked Mr. Rogers for being effeminate and bullied young boys who followed his advice, now hypocritically pretends to idolize him in a Hollywood movie.

  7. Caustic Man | July 23, 2019 at 6:56 am |

    I agree a Yinzer accent would have been better. ? 🙂

  8. Poison Ivy Leaguer | July 23, 2019 at 8:13 am |

    Fred Rogers would have been more likely to say, “Go f*** yourself” than to use the word yins (aka youns.) Fred was definitely not lower lower middle class!

  9. whiskeydent | July 23, 2019 at 12:54 pm |

    I think Bruce Boyer, a native Pennsylvanian and former English professor, should provide the final word on this very important debate.

  10. Fred Rogers was not a yinzer. His version of the Western PA accent was much closer to Jimmy Stewart’s. At any rate, he was a great man and a swell dresser. Dig this plaid wool tie and cardigan: <a href="https://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/fred-rogers-pbs-CONTENT-2018.jpg

  11. Native Pittsburgher here. This probably won’t come as a surprise to most of you, but the “yinzer” accent tends to be spoken by those who grew up in and immediately around the City of Pittsburgh. It’s much more prevalent in working class communities (The North Side and Manchester, Homewood, old Mount Washington, Homestead, etc., just to name a few) and significantly less prevalent in middle- and upper-class communities (Shady Side, Squirrel Hill, Fox Chapel, and Sewickley). It’s important to note that, although Fred Rogers spent most all of his adult life living in the City of Pittsburgh, he grew up in Latrobe, PA, in a relatively wealthy family. For those reasons, he never had much of a “yinzer” accent. To portray him with one wouldn’t be very accurate.

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