Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | January 28, 2026
Lady Gaga is launching a Super Bowl campaign in which she reimagines Mr. Rogers’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.” Her rendition works better than I expected. It’s heartfelt, poignant, and slightly bittersweet given what’s going on in the world today, where no one at the national level seems interested in being anyone’s neighbor (even as, at the community level, some of our communities have never been more neighborly).
You can listen to it here. If you want to skip the preliminaries, it starts around 1:45.
At one point, Lady Gaga wonders, “What would he say right now?” and all I could think was, Thank God he’s not around to see what has become of this nation. It would kill that poor man’s soul. He’d probably get dragged into some culture war, Truth Social would turn on him for being too woke, the show’s funding would collapse over promoted diversity, and the manosphere would throw him under the bus for expressing empathy.
It’s terrifying to think that parts of this country might turn on Fred Rogers, but knowing Mr. Rogers, he’d probably keep reaching out, trying to find the humanity in everyone, and Bluesky would blow him up for that, too.
What a world we live in. And just to compound it, this Super Bowl campaign is not brought to you by PBS in an attempt to raise funds to save stations across the country (although I hope that will be a side effect). It’s brought to you instead by Redfin Rocket, a mortgage company, though I suppose, cynically, there’s some synergy in evoking beautiful neighborhoods for prospective homebuyers.
