Mr. Rogers Takes Breakdancing Lessons from a 12-Year-Old (1985)

Feb­ru­ary 13th, 1985 shall be remem­bered as a tru­ly beau­ti­ful day in the neigh­bor­hood, for that is the date on which Fred Rogers learned to break­dance (sort of).

In no time at all, 12-year-old instruc­tor Jer­maine Vaughn had Mr. Rogers wav­ingmoon­walk­ing and learn­ing how to press play on a boom box so he could demon­strate some “very fan­cy things” regard­ing the first pil­lar of hip hop. (“I’d nev­er be able to do that,” his pupil says admir­ing­ly, and pre­sum­ably truth­ful­ly.)

The tele­vi­sion icon’s leg­endary sin­cer­i­ty is on dis­play through­out, even in this pirat­ed ver­sion, which swaps out the wimpy orig­i­nal track in favor of NWA’s 1989 “Fuck Tha Police,” a move that would’ve pleased Eddy Mur­phy’s Mr. Robin­son.

If that med­i­cine’s too bit­ter for you to choke down, soothe your­self with an ani­mat­ed GIF.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mr. Rogers Goes to Wash­ing­ton

See Ste­vie Won­der Play “Super­sti­tion” and Ban­ter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

Ayun Hal­l­i­day will always be Fred Rogers’ tele­vi­sion neigh­bor. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday


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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.