Having grown up in Pittsburgh, I know the Fred Rogers story.

WQED Pittsburgh was the first "educational" television station in the U.S. In those early days of television, they had a show called "The Children's Corner" that featured a woman named Josey Carey, who talked to puppets that were worked by a student named Fred Rogers. Josey was a good deal funnier than Fred Rogers, and a little less preachy. But it was on her show that King Friday XIII, X the Owl, Henrietta Pussycat, Lady Elaine and Daniel Striped Tiger made their first appearance.
(Hollowfox was a member of Daniel's Tame Tiger Torganization.)

Josey left public television for commercial broadcasting. (I think I still have my Wing Ding membership card. Wing Ding was one of her shows.)

Fred Rogers took over the show, eventually, and it became what it was, because he was what he was.
Anyone who knew him, and a great many locals did, will tell you. He wasn't acting on that television show. That was what he was like.
He and his wife lived, for many years, in a nice house in Squirrel Hill, a Pittsburgh neighborhood near the Universities. He was a member of Sixth Presbyterian Church.
People would see him in the grocery store, or at one of the local restaurants and leave him alone. He was well liked, and mourned when he died.
His church was sponsoring free concerts in his memory, but the money for them seems to have dried up. Like so many good things.