Why We Turned to PBS: 50 Reasons Over 50 Years

We asked our writers to reflect on PBS’s lasting imprint on our culture, while Rachael Ray, Gary Clark Jr., Damon Lindelof, Kal Penn and others share first-person reminiscences about the television that changed their lives.

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

1. Empathy and honesty wrapped in a cardigan.

Death, war, divorce: None of these seem like auspicious subjects for a children’s television program. But for more than 30 years, beginning in 1968 on National Educational Television (the precursor to PBS), Fred Rogers covered all of these topics and more, with empathy and honesty. The soft-spoken, cardigan-wearing, former Presbyterian minister was concerned with not just the academic but the emotional education of children. As he told members of the Senate who were debating whether to defund public television in 1969, “I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service.” With the help of Daniel Tiger, King Friday XIII, Officer Clemmons and the rest of the residents of his neighborhood, Mr. Rogers taught viewers of all ages to not be afraid of their feelings, to always look for the helpers and to like themselves just the way they are. Jennifer Harlan

An American Family

2. When the mundane became must-see TV.

The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard called it “dissolution of TV in life, dissolution of life in TV”: “An American Family,” the 1973 documentary series revealing seven months in the home of Santa Barbara’s Loud family, presaged the coming of reality television by many years. In retrospect, the series is an appealingly loose portrait of mundane family life, captured before the tropes of reality TV calcified and the banal was repackaged as slickly sensational. But at the time it was controversial, dismissed by some as voyeuristic, fake-seeming or unfairly edited. The series represented a disruption both for television and the American family’s self-image: It chronicled Bill and Pat Loud’s divorce, and followed their eldest son, Lance, as he moved to New York and came out as gay. Lance became perhaps the first reality star, emerging from the show as a gay icon and epitomizing, as he put it himself, “the middle-class dream that you can become famous for being just who you are.” Amanda Hess

Monty Python’s Flying Circus

3. Because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

While now entrenched in the comedy pantheon, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” was relatively unknown in America when it finished its run in England in 1974. Few, including its six members, thought its humor would translate. It was too highbrow, too weird, too British. That this was proved wrong by PBS, which is not known for anarchic humor, is an absurdity worthy of Python. Classic sketches about the Ministry of Silly Walks, dead parrots or the military’s weaponization of a joke so funny people die laughing became instant hits among public television audiences. When ABC aired edited episodes of the show, Monty Python sued, becoming the rare comedians to actually fight to stay off network television. Jason Zinoman

Julia Child and The French Chef

4. For Rachael Ray, a reason to ‘just keep going.’

When I was a kid my mom and I would watch PBS together, and Julia Child was just the most fascinating figure to me because she took herself — not seriously! At all. I just remember how funny and real she was — hitting the garlic and it would kick across the room and she’d just keep going, and she’d throw in fistfuls of salt, and she’d drink. My mom worked in restaurants for 60 years and I always wanted to be just like my mom, so I was constantly on her hip in the kitchen and trying to mimic her. Food is what brought us together, so if she liked something, I liked something.