Mr. Rodgers Gets Autotuned [Video]

Mr. Rodgers Gets Remixed, It Could Be Worse:

Yes, I do believe it could be worse. Antoine Dodson/I Got Bronchitis, worse. Seeing a cultural icon of early education and public broadcasting brought into the modern digital, social media era with a remixed, Autotuned music video gives me mixed feelings… mostly bad. Apparently, PBS felt they needed to re-image Mr. Rogers with updated packaging to make him relevant again, which is a sad statement to what we consume from the media realm. But PBS should be applauded for having the courage to take chances in bolstering up their viewership. I guess POV, Frontline, Charlie Rose, Nova scienceNow, NYC Arts and Tavis Smiley aren’t Hipster, Hip Hop or YouTubey enough for the smartphone/tablet crowd. Read more on the details from this Digiday article and then take a look at the video. In the comments we would love to hear what you think. And who should be the next character to get a makeover, Big Bird, Angelina Ballerina or Sid the Science Kid/

PBS had to face up to a stark reality: Despite ranking at the top in surveys of trust in broadcasters, its biggest fans were either children or elderly.

That’s when it decided to go out on a limb, particularly with digital media. That meant more than just putting its programming online but also doing controlled experiments. In one notable effort, the PBS digital team spent countless hours doing what we all do on a daily basis: surf YouTube for great content. They identified YouTube creators they felt were doing interesting and provocative stuff and reached out to a few asking if they’d be willing to work with PBS. Some bit

That led PBS to John Boswell, who had been autotuning on YouTube. The somewhat wacky idea was to have Boswell autotune Mr. Rogers as a way to reintroducing him to an audience that moved on. After getting internal buy-in from not only the corporate body but also from owners of Mr. Rogers’ intellectual property, as well as owners of local stations, the team went to work.
source: Digiday

At the end of the day, it’s hard to argue with success. This video has currently amassed over 7.2 million views and generated a significant boost to the PBS websites (the power of video!). Seeing that they have a good thing and running with it, PBS commissioned similar remixes for cooking legend Julia Childs and the afroed, smooth talking painter Bob Ross.