Mr. McFeely's purple panda terrifies children

I think one of them freaked and set the rest of them off, like a field of shrieking land mines. The howling combined with poor old Mr. McFeely trying to console the kids is haunting. Speedy Delivery!

I would also like to take this opportunity to make you aware that there are a ton of Mister Rogers episodes up on the PBS Kids website. Have fun, kids.

[Video Link]

Software developer and GIF archivist in San Francisco. Follow me on Twitter.

MORE: Mister Rogers • Mr. McFeely • Terrified Children • the howling

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http://twitter.com/Kra1d Alex

“Look, look! He’s just somebody pretend—” Hahaha! That was brilliant.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  “All right, that’s it. You little wimps don’t deserve to meet Purple Panda!”
- Dan Groom
  
  Yeah, because somebody pretending to be a giant purple panda is much less sinister
  
  ;p
Maddy

“Mr. McFeely?” Really?
- http://deansli.st/ Dean Putney
  
  Mister Rogers’ middle name was McFeely, so yeah, really. The actor playing McFeely keeps up the good work even after Mister Rogers has passed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Newell
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Fred Rogers named the character after his maternal grandfather Fred McFeely, the guy he himself was named after. He loved that old guy.
- Sparg
  
  Perhaps the original Gaelic would better avoid the giggles: Mac Ficheallaí.
lostmongoose

I came here expecting ‘purple panda’ to be a euphemism >.>;;
blueelm

Oh lord, just the post title alone!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

If I ran a company that made disposable toddler training pants I’d hire an army of purple pandas to make surprise visits to nursery schools around the country. PROFIT!
BBNinja

Nobody likes the new World of Warcraft update apparently. :/
- liquidstar
  
  You mean that update was real? I thought it was an April fools gag.
Samsa

Funny, but so fake as to not be that funny.
- siloxane
  
  Fake? Well, of course it’s not a real purple panda… geez.
Antinous / Moderator

I fucking hate pandas.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  Stole all your bamboo again?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    They look like Juggaloes.
    - Daemonworks
      
      They act a lot like them too. They’ll rip you to bits as soon as look at you.
RHK

It’s Sexual Harassment Pan-da!
http://yourseoranking.com/ Kurt Thomas

That is a pretty scary looking panda. ..
Navin_Johnson

He must have escaped from Prince’s zoo..
semiotix

Great clip of Mr. McFeely terrifying children. Now post the one where he testifies before a Senate subcommittee to get a little more funding for PBS, and an enraged committee chairman outlaws all children’s television. Or the one where he accidentally starts a race riot at the Daytime Emmys.

(Seriously, though, you really ought to check these out.)
- http://iynque.com Andrew Williams
  
  Mr. McFeely was not in either of those videos. You lied to me.
  - http://www.megatoothpastemammals.com Carpeteria
    
    “McFeely” is Fred Rogers’ middle name, so it was halfway right.
- BombBlastLightingWaltz
  
  Its wonder day in the white neighbourhood.
http://repeaterband.com skeletoncityrepeater

Purple Panda is from Planet Purple. He is Make-Believe and doesn’t actually belong to Mr. McFeely.
- http://pileofnearmisses.tumblr.com pileofnearmisses
  
  Spoiler alert!
Eark_the_Bunny

Be thankful it was not a purple dinosaur instead.
Chris Specker

I would be afraid, too. Have none of you read “The Colour out of Space” by H.P. Lovecraft?

Clearly that panda was infected.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Wasn’t Whoopi Goldberg in the film adaptation?
- Daemonworks
  
  That would actually explain Michael Jackson…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

I used to live in Mr. Rogers neighborhood! At the time I was going to CMU he lived in a condo just off of campus. The studio where he worked was around the corner (sort of . . . Pittsburgh is kind of a three dimensional city*). As I recall, “Mr. McFeely” often appeared on pledge breaks for the local PBS station.

* CMU’s campus is on Forbes Avenue. You go west on Forbes a bit, over a bridge, and you make a right on Craig. Then you make the next right. And the next right after that, and you drive and you don’t hit Forbes again . . . after you pass Mr. Roger’s Studio you’re in a gulch a hundred feel under Forbes, and if you don’t turn around right away you end up in a chain of working class neighborhoods of squirrely little streets that bend back on each other in non-Euclidian ways.

Man, I loved driving in Pittsburgh.
- http://deansli.st/ Dean Putney
  
  As a fellow CMU alum, I know all the places you’re talking about quite well.
- Maria Pranzo
  
  I lived in Pittsburgh for three years, and at the end still needed GPS to get anywhere. I could get lost just going around the corner.
Petzl

“Bears… I’ve said it before: They’re after our kids. So young. So tender. You don’t even have to throw away the bones.”
Guido

Available only in the US. PBS?

Sigh.
- tmccartney66
  
  tunnelbear.com
  - petsounds
    
    tunnelpanda.com
sockdoll

I was waiting for Mr. McFeely to pull off the panda’s head and say “See? It’s just a make-believe panda.”
http://www.kmoser.com kmoser

Apparently children have a lower uncanny valley threshold than do adults.
liquidstar

Hm. Looks like the bear’s resemblance to a typical “grey” destroyed all the children’s screen memories simultaneously.
Diogenes

Once they started crying, Purple Panda should have just given up and gone with it; growl, roar and chase the kids around the room. What the heck they’re already scared witless; have some fun with it!
timquinn

Apparently McFeely hadn’t heard that pandas are carriers of ebola purpurae. Children are much better informed in the age of the internet, but they still have a hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality.
BombBlastLightingWaltz

Gee, purple panda doesnt do anything but stand there and stare. No wonder the kids got spooked.
http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

Too skinny, too obviously a person in a suit.
pjcamp

I only want to see the outtake where Mr. Rogers can’t get the tent set up and curses like a . . . well, like someone who doesn’t know how to curse. Saw it about 30 years ago and haven’t seen it since.
- Eark_the_Bunny
  
  I would hardly call what he says as “cursing”. Mister Rogers was a gentleman of the finest kind.
  
  http://video.pbs.org/video/1443353693/
Culturedropout

Actually, the kids saw the purple panda and realized it would one day evolve into… Barney. XO
http://twitter.com/DreAmeoba Gordon Klock

If you note that his eyes look like his mouth,his face becomes alien & freaky…..
petsounds

I can’t blame the kids; that panda’s crinkled eyes and sharp smile do look rather sinister.
drippy

Wow. Repressed childhood memories are flooding back. I seem to recall a series of episodes of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood where the Purple Panda (who was a giant) was slowly walking toward the Neighborhood of Make-Believe causing its residents to freak out, causing me to freak out.
WinstonSmith2012

Damn! I knew I shouldn’t have washed my panda costume with that new purple t-shirt!
serpent

The kids knew what’s coming. They knew. You never say no to panda.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X21mJh6j9i4
bluest_one

Oh god – it’s the way he walks into the room. The creepy, floaty walk, with the insincere ‘jolly’ bounce. That and the fixed fake smile. No wonder they freaked; everything about his movement & expression said “I’m faking being nice” (and so obviously hiding sinister intentions).
SwippySlobestra

BTW that is the real Mr. McFeely, David Newell.