This weekend I was at a get-together and someone said “Mr. Rogers always wears long sleeves because he was a sniper in the military and his arms are covered in tattoos.”
I said “That is absolute bullshit. I’ve never even heard that. I’ve read a lot about him and I don’t even think he was in the military.”
“No it’s true. It’s one of those ‘Known Things’” (to which TWO other people said “Yeah, it is”)
So now I’m all crabby because I wasn’t able to disprove them right away, nor prove the thing about Dr. Ruth. No smartphone for me! And if I go posting links to Snopes on their Facebook pages I’ll look like a total bitch.
So make me feel better - have you heard the Mr. Rogers tattoo myth and did you think it was real?
I know that anecdotes aren’t data, but a commenter on this site claims to have met Mr. Rogers in person. They say he was wearing short sleeves and there were no tattoos in sight.
You left off the “I’ve heard of it and it’s utter BS” poll choice. I’ve heard this before, and read the Snopes. I’ve met Mr. Rogers in person (when I was a child in the hospital) but I don’t remember what he wore, so that means nothing.
Heck, didn’t he roll up his sleeves from time to time when he was getting into something messy? It’s been almost 40 years so I don’t have encyclopedic knowledge of the show, but I recall that vaguely.
Heard sniper. Never heard tattoos. Besides, his Vietnam service record is still Classified for national security reasons, and was so traumatic that he became a minister upon his return to the US.
Read Rotten’s page about him. They routinely list any & every salacious rumor possible about every celebrity, and yet they freely admit that the man had not a hint of anything even remotely scandalous…