In 40 seasons, Sesame Street has featured over 1,000 characters. Although we’ll always have mainstays like Big Bird, Elmo, Bert and Ernie, many Muppets have been forgotten or deemed unnecessary. Here are a few Sesame Street residents who were evicted, or just created a stir.
1. Roosevelt Franklin
Perhaps the most famous of the retired Sesame Street Muppets is Roosevelt Franklin. Originally voiced by Matt Robinson, who portrayed the first Gordon on Sesame Street, Roosevelt was an African-American Muppet who had his own school (named Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School). He often taught the class important lessons about things such as the geography of Africa and how to avoid drinking poison.
Parents wrote to the Children’s Television Workshop to complain that Roosevelt was a negative stereotype of African-American children, citing his rowdy nature and the fact that his classes closely resembled after-school detention. Roosevelt only lasted from 1970-1975, but he has appeared in many Sesame Street books, and it was recently revealed that he will make an appearance in the background of an episode of Sesame Street in the upcoming 40th season.
2. Harvey Kneeslapper
If a Muppet with a ’70s porn mustache and googly eyes offers to keep an eye on your hat, run the other way. Chances are he’s Harvey Kneeslapper, and he’s about to crush your fedora with an oversized letter I. Harvey pulled practical jokes on unsuspecting victims—jokes featuring bad puns about letters and numbers. Harvey was his own biggest fan, laughing loudly at his gags. One person who didn’t care for Harvey’s trademark laugh was his performer, Frank Oz, who complained that performing the character was too hard on his throat.
3. There’s an HIV-Positive Muppet
In 2002, Sesame Workshop released a statement saying that they would be introducing an HIV-positive Muppet to Sesame Street. What most people in the U.S. missed was that Kami, the Muppet in question, would not be appearing on the domestic version of Sesame Street, but the South African version, which is called Takalani Sesame. The producers of Takalani Sesame agreed that an HIV-positive Muppet would be beneficial because South Africa has the highest percentage of AIDS-infected people in the world, many of which are children. People became outraged that PBS would allow a children’s show to feature an HIV-positive character, and news sources and pundits went to town on the story. Kami never appeared on the American Sesame Street, though she has proven to be a very successful character on Takalani Sesame.
4. Professor Hastings
If there’s one thing kids like, it’s boring lectures. That’s why Sesame Street introduced Professor Hastings, a Muppet whose lectures were so boring, he’d put himself to sleep. And as entertaining as an educational narcoleptic might be, the dull Professor didn’t last long.
For a bunch more ‘failed muppets and basic muppetology’ go to Mental Floss at:
http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/40275.html
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Broken Believers 