Hal Miller, the middle Gordon

[StreetScenes]

Hal Miller is on YouTube. Can't remember how I found him last year, but it was by accident. I started a thread about it here, but apparently not too many people noticed it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/lovallp#p/u

very cool. thanks for the link JLG. there's a link from there to his website:

http://www.haroldmilleractorwestbethnyc.us/

while we don't know much about him or his stint on Sesame Street, i think it's because there were three Gordons and it would break up a narrative to try to do justice to all three, so he gets passed over. he has to be mentioned, because he is on the dvd, so his time as Gordon gets a throwaway sentence that doesn't say anything about him or his interpretation of the character.

which is too bad, because from the way he talks about sesame street on his website and youtube channel, it seems like he enjoyed the role. a shakespearean actor whose son wanted him to take the role and was on sesame street himself? sounds like a fascinating comparison to matt robinson, who was cast because of his off-camera personality, not because he had any training as an actor, and whose own pre-school daughter didn't like him playing gordon. and i wonder how a shakespearean actor approached a sesame street script--it's certainly different training from what will lee, or roscoe, or linda had.

or he might have some insight or stories that we haven't heard, because lord knows we've heard the same set of anecdotes from most of the cast & muppeteers in every interview they've given in the past fifteen years. but it seems nobody has bothered to ask mr. miller about being gordon. someone should.

 

[mikebennidict]

very cool. thanks for the link JLG. there's a link from there to his website:

http://www.haroldmilleractorwestbethnyc.us/

while we don't know much about him or his stint on Sesame Street, i think it's because there were three Gordons and it would break up a narrative to try to do justice to all three, so he gets passed over.

I don't see how you came across thinking that.

 

[StreetScenes]

I don't see how you came across thinking that.

well, if you were trying to write a book about a complicated organization that has a thousand people in it, how would you make it coherent? by skipping over people not critical to the overarching story. (but then you get the same anecdotes from the same people, which is good for a general audience, but doesn't answer our questions about gordon #2)

i was just saying that dismissing miller's gordon in a single sentence is a logistic move by a writer, yet we seem to take it as a judgment on the quality of his gordon in comparison to the one we all know. and we seem to follow that judgment even though we haven't seen much of him or heard much about him. and maybe instead of comparing "favorite" gordons and speculating on what his gordon was like, we ought to ask him about working on sesame street and how he interpreted the role.

 

[Drtooth]

I think the problem with Hal's Gordon is just that. He was Gordon. I guess if he played another adult, or Gordon's brother or cousin or something he would have made more of an impact. But then again, I've only seen that one episode where he was talking to Sam... I guess if I had more footage of him to watch, i'd make a better decision.

Considering he enjoyed the role, it does make me feel a little bad about it... but I really think Roscoe brought so much to the character that not even the producers and writers would be able to see.

That said, the only human cast member I had a problem with was that kid in the wheelchair, because they treated the character with such kid gloves, and didn't know how to writer for her, she came off as a wheelchair character, not someone who just so happened to be in a wheelchair. To be clear, I blame the writers, not the little girl who played her. Unlike, however, say... Garret from Extreme Ghostbusters, another disabled character in a chair. They writers didn't treat him like the poor kid that we have to feel sorry for, or that has to be in there so others like him feel normal... they treated him like a character... sometimes his disabilities actually got in the way, and caused some drama... and they weren't afraid to write him with big gaping character flaws... and on the other side, he's the best athlete they know, and he actually hustled basketball games as a result. But that's getting off on a tangent.

 

[JLG]

DrTooth:

Are you talking about Tara, who it seemed was around for a really long stretch in the mid and late 90s? I don't remember thinking that she seemed like a device---in fact it seemed to me that she was given more fleshing-out business than your average Sesame Street kid (it always struck me that most of those kids hanging around the set looked like they didn't wanna be there ).

I remember thinking that Tara had been around a really long time without seeming to change much---just like Imani Patterson as Miles. It seemed like that kid never grew.

Anyway, regarding Hal Miller----I have #573, an episode which seems to have been smuggled out of a TV studio somewhere (it has a teletape countdown sequence at the beginning). The first street scene of that one is on YouTube. Check it out to see Miller interacting with kids. He seems to be pretty good with them.

 

[D'Snowth]

Whatever happened to Tara anyway? She pretty much disappeared after 2000 or so, and then in like Season 33, they had an episode where a new girl moved into the neighborhood who also happened to be in a wheelchair, while Big Bird showed her around the street and introduced her to everybody. I especially remember the scene where Big Bird introduced her to Oscar and she told him that sometimes she can be grouchy too, and if he ever wanted to, they could be grouchy together to which Oscar responded "Hey, I like this kid!"

I think Fran Brill played her mother in the episode, if I recall correctly.

 

[minor muppetz]

Although it's not a great example of him as a character, here is a clip with Hal Miller that can be seen at sesamestreet.org:
http://www.sesamestreet.org/video_p...95-14c5-11dd-908c-b1ad799cf6d2/model_airplane

It seems liek Gordon was sort of the host in early years (though Street Gang claism that it was always decided that there'd be no "host" characters). I wonder if this ended during Hal Miller's time, or if it was when Roscoe Orman joined the cast. I noticed in Roscoe's debut that Gordon hardly did anything... The Count mentioned Gorodn at the beginning and end, and I think he appeared on-screen in one of those scenes, but otherwise all he did was sing in the chorus of "What's the Name of That Song?" and participated in Oscar's demosntration of "none, some, all". Perhaps they were taking baby steps on that third casting.

Though it seems like Hal Miller's first on-screen appearance as Gordon was also a bit of a baby step, though less; He appears when the cast says the alphabet, and his face isn't really seen until he appears and says "G is for Gordon!"

 

[D'Snowth]

Yeah, I agree minor muppetz, recalling the Season One episodes and clips I've seen, the show usually ended with Gordon saying a farewell to the audience on behalf of everyone else on that particular episode, or in that particular closing scene.

Personally, whenever I think of like the "number one" human character on SST, usually Gordon is the first to come to my mind... there's just something about him, he really does serve as like a father-figure on the show; I'm sure Roscoe Orman gets this all the time, but if I were to ever bump into him in person, I probably wouldn't be able to resist giving him a big hug, lol.

 

[Drtooth]

Whatever happened to Tara anyway? She pretty much disappeared after 2000 or so, and then in like Season 33, they had an episode where a new girl moved into the neighborhood who also happened to be in a wheelchair, while Big Bird showed her around the street and introduced her to everybody. I especially remember the scene where Big Bird introduced her to Oscar and she told him that sometimes she can be grouchy too, and if he ever wanted to, they could be grouchy together to which Oscar responded "Hey, I like this kid!"

I think that's the one I'm talking about and not Tara. I don't think I remember here, but I remember the one from Season 33 quite well. Basically all she did was exist and agree with everyone else when they said something (the calling card of the character no one can write for). Other than the obvious fact that they made a "Meet everyone on Sesame Street" episode with her (the one D'Snowth just mentioned) which was strictly by the numbers.

It's a big pet peeve of mine to see a flat, no dimensional character they toss in to make the cast diverse, and then the writers are too afraid to do any writing for the character, or just don't know how to handle the character, because that character tosses off the dynamic. I see an awful lot of wheelchair characters tossed in shows that have no personality (I saw they added one to Dragontales which makes NO sense) and I think it doesn't do kids who are in wheelchairs any favors. Then I hear all the flack Traction Jackson gets, and I have to disagree. The character is dynamic and actually has dialogue. It's off on a tangent that I can explain better somewhere else, but I felt that it was worth mentioning.

 

[JLG]

I think that's the one I'm talking about and not Tara. I don't think I remember here, but I remember the one from Season 33 quite well. Basically all she did was exist and agree with everyone else when they said something (the calling card of the character no one can write for). Other than the obvious fact that they made a "Meet everyone on Sesame Street" episode with her (the one D'Snowth just mentioned) which was strictly by the numbers.

It's a big pet peeve of mine to see a flat, no dimensional character they toss in to make the cast diverse, and then the writers are too afraid to do any writing for the character, or just don't know how to handle the character, because that character tosses off the dynamic. I see an awful lot of wheelchair characters tossed in shows that have no personality (I saw they added one to Dragontales which makes NO sense) and I think it doesn't do kids who are in wheelchairs any favors. Then I hear all the flack Traction Jackson gets, and I have to disagree. The character is dynamic and actually has dialogue. It's off on a tangent that I can explain better somewhere else, but I felt that it was worth mentioning.

Just to confirm---Tara was a skinny brunette with short hair (for a girl, I mean---it was a tapered cut that didn't reach past her chin) and glasses. If the Season 33 girl is the one I'm thinking of, she was a long-haired blonde, somewhat pudgy, and didn't have glasses. Is that the one you mean?


I didn't know anyone was ragging on Traction Jackson. My only beef with him (besides the awkward character design) is that they assigned him that remake of "I Have a Chair." I mean sure, he's tailor-made for a song like that, but the original was just so sweet and soulful. The remake was a poor replacement because it's so unmemorable in comparison.
(Couldn't they have updated the original audio with new footage, like they did in the 90s with "Everybody Sleeps?" Sigh. Oh, well....)