Family Communications

Background

Family Communications (originally "Small World Enterprises" until 1971) was the production company of Fred Rogers, creator, producer, and star of the show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Following his death in 2003, the company was properly reorganized as a non-profit organization, and was renamed in 2010 to The Fred Rogers Company, named so in honor of his legacy in children's television.

1st Logo (September 6, 1976-August 31, 2001)

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Visuals: Superimposed over the ending titles of the show is custom text that reads:

a production of Family Communications ©[YEAR] Family Communications, Inc.

The M's in the the name are made up of curved lowercase I's, minus the dots.

Variants:

• On its first appearances (Let's Talk About Wearing a Cast and Let's Talk About Having an Operation), the logo is dark orange and is superimposed against a wood paneling background. "PRODUCED BY" appears centered above, and the copyright stamp reads "©1976 FAMILY COMMUNICATIONS" below.
• On Christmastime with Mister Rogers, the text, closely resembling the familiar 1979 version, is yellow on a blue background, and appears in the lower half of the screen, separated from the title in the top half by a centered asterisk. "a production of" is centered, and the copyright stamp is in all caps.
• On Divorce #1480 and the Play week (#1486-1490), "a production of" is in blue, just like all of the credit titles during these episodes. (At least one episode with blue credit titles uses the normal version, however.)
• On the 1980s series of programs entitled Mister Rogers Talks with Parents About..., the logo is usually superimposed against a wide shot of the set.
• On Mister Rogers Talks with Parents About Competition, the logo is harvest gold.

Technique: A still, chryoned graphic.

Audio: The end theme of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, sometimes accompanied by a ding sound when the text appears.

Availability: It first appeared on two 1976 programs entitled Let's Talk About..., followed by 1979-2001 episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on PBS and other TV shows.

• PBS stopped airing re-runs of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood weekly in September 2009, but it remains on-air, often in early-morning weekend timeslots on some stations such as KAWB and KTCI in Minnesota, and it returned to national airwaves in said timeslots in 2017. Most of the episodes are also available for download or burn-on-demand at Amazon.com, and are occasionally streamed on Twitch.
• Also appears on a few VHS & DVD releases of episodes from Playhouse Video, CBS/Fox Video and Anchor Bay Entertainment.
• The variants seen on the Mister Rogers Talks with Parents About... series of specials can be found on their 1980s PBS Video releases.
• The only available evidence of the original versions on the Let's Talk About... programs is a series of screenshots on the Neighborhood Archive website. It probably also appeared on Let's Talk About Going to the Hospital, but it is not included in the Neighborhood Archive frames.

2nd Logo (Early 2000s)

Visuals: There is the text:

Family

Communications

with a drawing of the Neighborhood Trolley on the top right of the Family Communications logo. Unlike the previous logo, there are no lowercase I's minus the dots. The web address www.fci.org is on the bottom of the logo.

Technique: A still, digital graphic.

Audio: None.

Availability: Seen at the beginning of each episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on the 2005 Anchor Bay Home Entertainment DVD set.

Family Communications

Fred Rogers Productions ►