Roosevelt Franklin was a Muppet featured on the children's television series Sesame Street during the early 1970s. He is purple with shaggy black hair that stands on end. His name is word play on the name of US President Franklin Roosevelt. Sesame Street cast member Matt Robinson, who also played Gordon, provided Roosevelt Franklin's voice.
Franklin is an intelligent boy who often speaks in rhyme or scat. Franklin began to appear less frequently in episodes created after the mid-1970s until he no longer was on the series.
Roosevelt Franklin usually appears in scenes with his mother, voiced by Loretta Long, who plays Susan on the series, and Roosevelt frequently recited poetry. Later scenes are set in a classroom, in which Roosevelt appears to fill in for an absent teacher.
Franklin is featured on a 1971 record album called The Year Of Roosevelt Franklin, which was reissued in 1974 as My Name Is Roosevelt Franklin.
Famous quotes containing the words roosevelt and/or franklin:
“A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs, who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest ... of his head.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“That which resembles most living one’s life over again, seems to be to recall all the circumstances of it; and, to render this remembrance more durable, to record them in writing.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)