This Day in Pop Culture for February 19

1967: Mister Rogers Moves into the Neighborhood

Fred McFeely Rogers was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1928. After earning his bachelor’s degree in music from Rollins College in 1951, he began working for NBC for a short time in New York. In 1953, he began working at the new public television station WQED for the show, The Children’s Corner where he learned that wearing sneakers were a lot quieter on the set than his dress shoes.

In 1961, Rogers moved to Toronto, Ontario to work on a new 15-minute show called Misterogers for CBC Television. In 1966, Rogers went back to WQED to create Misteroger’s Neighborhood, but it was cancelled due to lack of funding less than a year later. However, the Sears Roebuck Foundation chipped in funding for the show and the first nationwide episode of his who premiered on this day in 1967.

He wasn’t alone. Michael Keaton also worked for WQED and would often help out with Roger’s show. Also, future horror director George A. Romero worked on the show shooting short films!

In 1970, the show was renamed Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The series ended again in 1976 but was picked up three years later when Rogers felt as if his work speaking to children wasn’t done. The show continued from 1979 through 2001. Rogers passed away on February 27, 2003.

In 2011, PBS created an animated “spinoff” of the show called Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood featuring the characters Rogers had created in his “land of make-believe” and in 2019, Tom Hanks portrayed Rogers in the film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” a role that earned him an Oscar nomination.

2021: The First Asian Woman to Win the Best Director Oscar

Based on the non-fiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder, the movie’s title was shortened to just Nomadland. Released wide on this day, it starred Frances McDormand as a widow who just uproots herself and travels across the county in her van.

Directed by Chloé Zhao (who also wrote the screenplay), the movie was nominated for six Academy Awards and won three Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Actress (McDormand). Zhao became the first Asian woman and the second woman ever to win the award for Best Director. (The first was Kathryn Bigelow for 2010’s The Hurt Locker.)

1974: The Birth of the American Music Awards

Jennfier Lopez hosted the 51st AMA broadcast. (TVDB)

When ABC’s contract for presenting the Grammy Awards expired and transferred to CBS, Dick Clark created the American Music Awards to compete with them. The hosts for the first music award show production were Helen Reddy, Roger Miller and Smokey Robinson. (The show has gotten a little racier since then.) Reddy was also the first winner for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist.

Nominations for the AMA are based on sales, airplay (including social media) and video viewing. The winners are chosen by fans through a poll on the AMA website.

Many years later, CBS acquired the rights to the AMA award show. The 50th AMA telecast aired on ABC on November 20, 2022. The 51st AMA didn’t air on CBS didn’t air until May 26, 2025 with host Jennifer Lopez.