Roosevelt Franklin may return in Sesame Street Season 45

[CensoredAlso]

It would be great to bring back Roosevelt Franklin even in cameo form. It was a PC crime that he was ever kicked off the show.

 

[Drtooth]

I still think the less romantic version is that Matt Robinson was about to leave the series anyway, and the character left with him. If he were to have been recast with another Muppeteer or something, or just recorded the lines as it was looped dialogue anyway... well, I'd still see the character fading out while characters like Grover, Bert, Ernie, et al would take his place anyway.

 

[AquaGGR]

I think Matt Vogel would be able to pull off Roosevelt, he just seems kinda like a good fit.

 

[minor muppetz]

I still think the less romantic version is that Matt Robinson was about to leave the series anyway, and the character left with him.

I'm pretty sure that Matt did continue performing his voice for at least a few years after he stopped playing Gordon. Roosevelt did have a speaking part during Hal Miller's first scene as Gordon, and Roscoe Orman did perform Hard Head Henry Harris (though Harris' voice does sound a bit more like the deeper voice Roosevelt had in his first few appearances... Is Sesame Street Unpaved the only source for Orman voicing that character? Was he credited as such on that Christmas album where Hard Head Henry Harris sang a line in The Twelve Days of Christmas?). Hulu cites one Roosevelt Franklin sketch as being from season 6, and the 40th anniversary DVD cites another as being from season 4 (and there are no known episodes from the first three seasons that feature any classroom sketches).

I sort of wonder, if a character is taken off the show, particularly after being on for such a short time, if Sesame Workshop tries not to show old segments with the characters too much, for fear of them creating a fan base and demand for more new segments with those characters. Though some did continue to appear in repeats for years... It seems there's not many Lefty segments, and I'd be surprised if there were any after the 1970s ended, but I recall seeing them a lot as a child (the last time I remember seeing one on the show was in season 29). And Harvey Kneeslapper segments were shown until season 32 (though it seems like there'd be periods when the character wasn't shown, and then periods when segments with the character were shown a lot... I recall seeing quite a few Harvey Kneeslapper segments in seasons 25-26, and I know a few were shown in season 32). And I think segments with Herbert Birdsfoot were shown very occasionally up until at least season 25 (I remember seeing the M/W one that season).

Though when Jim Henson died it was originally decided not to recast Ernie or Guy Smiley, but those characters had plenty of segments to reuse (and there were plenty of Kermit segments to reuse, in case Steve Whitmire never performed on the show). And the case is similar with Richard Hunt, though I feel there weren't many inserts with Placido Flamingo or Don Music (and segments with them were shown up until the late-1990s). Though there are also a lot of recurring characters who seemingly weren't in a lot of sketches but their sketches were repeated for many years. Characters like Mr. Chatterly, Bip Bipadotta, Little Jerry and the Monotones, Chrissy and the Alphabeats, Sinister Sam (though there's not much you can do with a character with a reputation for being mean who always ends up being nice), Bad Bart (ditto), or Colambo. In fact it also seems like Simon Soundman, the Twiddlebugs, and the Martians only did a few inserts a year (or every few years), though they all ended up with a fairly big back catelogue of inserts. I also feel like there weren't that many Sherlock Hemlock inserts. It seems to me that most of his appearances were in season two, and then he showed up for new segments every few years. I don't know of any Sherlock appearances during the 1980s (aside from background appearances in a few movies and specials, mostly Muppet productions with Sesame Street characters), and then he had a regular role again with the Mysterious Theater segments (which only had four known installments).

And then there are characters who were only on the show in new material for a very short amount of time, and it seems inserts with them have very scarcely been repeated (in English) after they were departed. It's very rare to find English-language copies of segments with Professor Hastings, Aristotle (who was probably more of a street scenes character), Deena and Pearl, Leslie Mostly, Warren Wolf, Leo the Party Monster, or Dexter (again, he was probably more of a street stories character, and considering how complicated he was to perform, there probably weren't many segments with him, whether they were street scenes or inserts).

 

[Drtooth]

I'm pretty sure that Matt did continue performing his voice for at least a few years after he stopped playing Gordon. Roosevelt did have a speaking part during Hal Miller's first scene as Gordon, and Roscoe Orman did perform Hard Head Henry Harris (though Harris' voice does sound a bit more like the deeper voice Roosevelt had in his first few appearances... Is Sesame Street Unpaved the only source for Orman voicing that character? Was he credited as such on that Christmas album where Hard Head Henry Harris sang a line in The Twelve Days of Christmas?). Hulu cites one Roosevelt Franklin sketch as being from season 6, and the 40th anniversary DVD cites another as being from season 4 (and there are no known episodes from the first three seasons that feature any classroom sketches).

I really wonder when Matt just left the show altogether. All he really had to do for Roosevelt was record dialogue, and you don't even really need to be on site to do that. While the self censorship of his class being the stated reason for his removal, it almost makes no sense that they just couldn't get rid of the students and keep the character.

Then again, there's another theory I have. Roosevelt was disconnected from the rest of the show. I never saw or heard of Roosevelt interacting with the likes of Bert, Ernie, Grover...etc. At least not silently as a crowd filler. He seemed like his own disjointed segment. Maybe there's something to that which lead to the character being dropped. Like how David said that they tried to integrate Murray into one of the street scenes and he wanted the character to be its own separate thing.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm pretty sure Roosevelt participated in an opening sequence where various different residents on the street, humans, kids, and Muppets did the alphabet, one at a time (him doing R for Roosevelt, of course).

 

[minor muppetz]

I really wonder when Matt just left the show altogether. All he really had to do for Roosevelt was record dialogue, and you don't even really need to be on site to do that. While the self censorship of his class being the stated reason for his removal, it almost makes no sense that they just couldn't get rid of the students and keep the character.

Most of the classroom segments I have seen don't really seem to show the class acting too rowdy, aside from throwing paper airplanes (but then they do stop when Roosevelt shows up). Segments like "Morty Moot Mope", "Bad Luck to be Borna Duck", the poison segment, "Talking Loud/Talking Soft", the one where Hard Head Henry Harris hurts Suzetta Something's feelings, and maybe the one where they recite poems about trying all seem tame in that regard. I can see problems with the Africa and "Here and There" segments, especially their endings (in fact the ending to the "Here and There" segment used to be cut on sesamestreet.org, but now the whole segment is there).

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing I wonder about is, was Roosevelt really used that much in the first three seasons? I recently saw a magazine article about the second season (it was pictured on the Red Book site) which mentioned Roosevelt Franklin as if he was a new character for the season, though he had starred in three segments the previous year. I took that statement to mean he'd be on the show more, and yet there aren't many known Roosevelt segments outside of the Elementary School ones (and non-speaking background appearances). I assume those began in season 4 (Muppet Wiki doesn't have any episode pages that include those until seasoon 4). And there aren't many starring roles I know of for Roosevelt that were not classroom sketches (which also limits the number of appearances his mother made), mainly three from the first season and a segment where he sings about a time when he couldn't spell (the Sesame Street Unpaved documentary shows a very brief clip from that). I assumed that was a song I saw listed as "Roosevelt Franklin Spells His Name", but then I found that song was actually part of a street story (and he actually sang it with Susan).

When I first saw that season 45 photo of Roosevelt and Gordon, I wondered if maybe there'd be some kind of tribute to the various actors who played Gordon over the years. Though I can't imagine what they could do to represent Hal Miller (for Garret Saunders they could make a reference to not knowing the name of somebody).

 

[Oscarfan]

I'm sure his segments were in heavy rotation enough to make him a almost Grover-style star. He's the first Muppet to get his own solo album.

 

[FrackleFan2012]

Woo hoo! Roosevelt Franklin's returning soon!
I wonder who will voice him.