I have always said that Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is the best childrens' television show ever. The best thing about the show has to be his message that everyone is best just the way they are, and he is famous for that message. Almost as important, however, is the shows' focus, or rather, the absence of the constant barrage of thirty second long scenes; instead, each episode has only two major parts, in his house and in the land of make-believe. As a kid I liked the longer-form nature of Mr. Rogers over Sesame Street's short, constantly changing scenes. The calmer tone of Mr. Rogers is great too, I really like it; not being another one of those kids shows that is a 'barrage on the senses' was one of Fred Rogers' major aims with the show, and I at least always liked it more for that. Of course Mr. Rogers' way of speaking straight to the audience is the most important part of what makes it so great, but the tone and longer story arcs, often even with stories that continue through multiple episodes, is fantastic as well.
So, while I didn't watch much of the previous two Twitch PBS show marathons, Bob Ross (painting) and Julia Child (cooking) shows, I do think that was a quite interesting thing to do, and this time I'm watching a lot because Mister Rogers holds up great, I still like it a lot! This is a long series, with well over 850 episodes, so it'll take quite a while to get through but it is addictive. The very long 130-episode first season, which of course they're still in the middle of, is really interesting since not only is it in black and white, but few of these episodes have ever been rerun since they first aired in 1968, so only people watching then saw them. I wouldn't have ever watched this show before the mid '80s, so these are fascinating to watch; it's so similar to what I remember, but different in some ways. So yeah, I've been watching a bunch of this, and it's great stuff. The songs are even charming, and I am not exactly a fan of music.
(On a sort of unrelated note, it's kind of too bad that the second series has so many fewer episodes per season than the original -- the first season, from 1968, is 130 episodes, all black and white and not rerun. Then season 2 through 9, from '69 to '75, are about 65 episodes per season, and are all in color. Then there were no new episodes, only reruns, for over three years. When it returned in 1979, for the second series that ran 22 seasons until ending in 2001, the number of episodes dropped to only 10-20 per season most of the time, so that shorter first series ended up producing far more episodes than the longer second one. Huh.)
... Now, on the one hand, you've got this incredible childrens' show, with lots of not-seen-in-49-years episodes on right now (and for the next day or two as well)... and on the other handyou've got it on Twitch, representing the internet, with its often-toxic comments bar scrolling by on the right. It's a pretty weird mix. The internet is both one of the best things ever and one of the worst things ever, depending on when and where you look... but it's very much worth watching anyway, just ignore a lot of that chat stuff.
To get a bit more in detail about Mister Rogers' main message, 'you are great just being as you are', it is a great message that I like a lot... but you can criticize it, because some people are really bad in ways that that message doesn't cover. I do think it works for the intended audience though, which is what, 3-8 year olds or such. In the songs in the first season, one song he has relating to this starts this way: "Sometimes people are good, and they do just what they should, but the very same people who are good sometimes are the very same people who are bad sometimes". Maybe he could make the "and you should try to be good" part of the message stronger, but it is there -- 'everyone does bad things sometimes, but generally try to be good' is the subtext I think. Or maybe the message is 'some little bad things sometimes are understandable, but try not to and don't do the really bad stuff'; see the early arc about the fire for more on that, for example. I'm sure his message would be quite different for adults, but for little kids it works fine as it is. That fire arc, which I think was about episode 50 or something, goes like this for anyone who missed it: the factory in the land of make-believe caught fire and burned down. The story continues through the whole week of episodes, as the guy who owned the factory was very sad, King Friday uselessly commanded the fire to stop since he was afraid), Mr. Rogers tells children not to play with fire, and such, initially... but then there is a happy ending, as it gets rebuilt nicer looking than before. The series does occasionally cover issues more serious than the usual stuff like what that song I reference at the start of this paragraph does -- the next line after that one is like 'sometimes you get wet, and your parents get upset', and such; not exactly the worst kind of behavior, but just the right kind of thing for the target audience.
On another note... Yes I'm watching the stream now, and I love the time stuff. Like, 'I will see you again in 187 1/4 seconds"... heh.

Or when Handyman Negri asked for "9" as a payment for some work, so he was given... a round piece of paper or wood or something with a 9 written on it, which he accepted. It's good stuff.
The kinds of subjects in the episodes from '68 are sometimes weird as well. Sometimes it's Mister Rogers playing with finger paints or toy trucks, or helping teach the alphabet or basic addition... but other times there are guests doing things such as interpretive dance segments (and there are more than a few of these), gymnastics, tap dancing, glass blowing... it's weird stuff, but what should you expect from the '60s? The series' very first story, from the first five or so episodes, is interesting stuff as well. Presumably inspired by fear about the Vietnam War, it is an arc in the land of make-believe about how the king is scared and trying to wall off the kingdom and has put barbed wire on the castle battlements. To try to fix the situation Lady Aberlin comes up with a plan to float balloons with peace messages over the castle. After initial fear --King Friday sees them and says 'paratroopers! man the cannons!' -- once he is shown what they are, King Friday likes it and gives up on the whole barbed-wire thing. It is quite a fantasy in that real wars don't end so easily, but it's a nice aspirational message at least! Then soon afterwards there's an arc where they hold a peace party, like a party party and not a political party. So yeah, definitely a nice antiwar message there at the start.
Another thing... while right from the beginning he sings the same song at the beginning of each episode, mid-series the ending song changed. In much of the first series it's a song called "Tomorrow", which is catchy stuff. Also it's only midway through the first season when he starts changing his shoes at the beginning and end of each episode -- at first he only changes from coat to cardigan, that's it. I noticed very quickly when starting watching this stream that the shoe-changing bit wasn't in the early episodes, going from outdoor shoes to house shoes, but he added it fairly early.
Anyway, I should stop, but this show is great. I've never seen any of these B&W episodes before but they're really good, just like the show would be later but with less rehearsed scenes (since most 1st season episodes clearly were done in one take) and no color. There are a few dated messages here and there of course, particularly with gender roles, but it is from the '60s so I can forgive it that.