Garrett Saunders

CherryPizza

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Having a bit of a skim through Street Gang, Michael Davis' description of Saunders' performance as Gordon struck me as... 'interesting'. While it's no secret that the character was not properly developed at that stage, and that Saunders didn't click in the role, I'm not entirely sure if I would have used Davis' description of "stiff, stumbling actor" or "a person in the neighborhood that children would run away from, not to."

So I am now intrigued to hear, those of you who have seen the episode, what is your personal feeling about what was wrong with his performance?

My own feeling is that, while he could be passionate, with the wide smile, he may have been just a bit too intense with his wide smile and maybe needed to pull back in order to be more 'smooth' a la Matt Robinson. Also, in the 'Everybody Dance' video that was widely circulated at the time that Sesame Workshop was trying to identify the actor, he was clearly getting into the swing of it (literally), but clearly backed down and modified his dancing later in the music. Whether he was similarly unable to live up to his own performance in other places, may have been another factor.
 

fuzzygobo

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The people on the set would've had a better take on him. I guess it would've been up to people like Jon Stone whether or not he really had the necessary chemistry to make it on the show.

I thought it was amazing, that up until a couple years ago, NOBODY could remember who he was. Caroll Spinney couldn't remember, Bob couldn't remember, there didn't seem to be any tangible accounts at CTW/Sesame Workshop. For the longest time it was a mystery to whether or not anybody could identify him.

My own take on him? Okay, if not great. Maybe given time, he could've grown into the role. But that wasn't up to 1-and-1/2-going-on-2-year-old-me to decide.
 
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