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Happy 90th, Mister Rogers! Twitch to stream all 856 episodes

Won't you be his neighbor? Tune in this week to revisit the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. BYO cardigan.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Need a trip back to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe? Don't we all? Starting Tuesday, you can watch all 856 episodes of classic children's show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on free live-streaming site Twitch.

Host Fred Rogers died back in 2003 at age 74, but if the iconic children's entertainer were still with us, he'd celebrate his 90th birthday on Tuesday. The marathon is meant to honor Rogers as well as Monday's 50th anniversary of his program. 

More retro news

"We're starting the marathon with 90 of the most popular episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood followed by a run through the entire show's history ... all 856 episodes," the site said in a statement. 

If you grew up with Mister Rogers like some of us, you may have some ideas about what those 90 most-popular episodes will contain. In addition to a lot of fish-feeding and plenty of cardigan-sweater-wearing, they'll hopefully feature a lot of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe and plenty of those classic Picture Picture factory tours. (Sadly, a 2012 Marketplace article describes how tough it's been for some of those plants over the years.)

Not that anyone's asking me, but I'd vote for a minimum of the endless opera episodes, but plenty of the ones where Rogers wandered around and met the people in his neighborhood doing their daily jobs. Who didn't wish Chef Brockett's Bakery was a real place in their very own neighborhood?

The episodes start streaming at 10 a.m. Pacific Time on March 20.