Miss Paulificate / Audrey Roth

Miss Paulificate tap dances (1985)
Miss Paulificate tap dances (1985)
Audrey shows her mobile home office (1975)
Miss Paulificate has trouble with the telecan (1972)

She’s a smooth operator

Miss Paulificate, played by Audrey Roth, serves as the telephone operator in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe and the owner of “Audrey Cleans Everything” in Mister Rogers “real” neighborhood.

As phone operator, Miss Paulificate works for King Friday XIII. In that role, she enjoys  connecting people throughout the Neighborhood using her special “Tele-can.” It’s a complicated looking device suspended in air that’s a sort of a suspended phone booth that houses a simple can-and-string type phone, not unlike something children might make themselves. Whenever anyone needs to make a call (with the help of Miss Paulificate the Castle operator), he or she would stand under the tele-can, look up and signal for it to come down. In later years, the tele-can was retired for a more traditional antique telephone. As a dutiful and loyal servant to the King, she also responds willingly when he needs her to join the others in guarding the castle when needed to protect the kingdom.

 

When she has time in her busy schedule, she visits with the other neighbors – at times to console and comfort them. At other times she entertains them with her tap-dancing and singing or when she performs in variety shows. Her talents have also led her to joining the Neighborhood operas as a queen, an angelfish, and a mother kitty.

 

Did you know?

Miss Paulificate’s quite unusual name came from the combination of the names of three children of a friend of Fred Rogers’ from Toronto. Paul, Iffy (a nickname for Elizabeth) and Cate. Her first name is her own, Audrey. 

 

Audrey Cleans Everything

In the “real” neighborhood Audrey lives in a mobile home which doubles as her “Audrey Cleans Everything” office. She’s more than willing to take on jobs small and large, from getting a stain out of Mister Rogers’ shirt or dry-cleaning his curtains to cleaning the inside of an airplane and a football stadium!