The incomparable Fred “Mister” Rogers talks about his work in puppetry in this excerpt from a truly epic, four hour (!) long interview from 1999. It was recently posted online by The Archive of American Television, which has conducted dozens of these hours-long interviews with notable figures from television history.

My fellow Canadians will probably get a kick out his anecdotes about his early work for the CBC here in Canada (where Mister Rogers format was originally developed) and his early collaboration with Ernie Coombs, who would go on to fame here in Canada as the “Mister” of Canadian children’s television, Mr. Dressup.

On a related note, if you’re a fan of Fred Rogers – and really, how can you not be? – I highly recommend the excellent documentary Mister Rogers & Me, which I recently watched this as part of my ongoing research for PuppetVision: The Movie. It’s an inspiring, “deep and simple” portrait of Fred Rogers and what he believed.

(Archive of American Television interview clip via Boing Boing)