too Black, but it was actually the
Black parents. It was the parents of the Black children who didn’t want that to be symbolizing their culture,” director Marilyn Agrelo said in TheWrap’s Sundance Studio presented by NFP and National Geographic. “We love that people think this is a story about ‘Sesame Street’ and we’re going to see the Muppets and it is but it’s a hundred other things you don’t see coming, and that’s what we love the most.”
Robinson and the other creators felt Roosevelt was a proudly Black character, but it too quietly disappeared from the airwaves after families objected. It ultimately led to Robinson’s departure from the show and was a blow to the creators who had from the beginning intended for “Sesame Street” to be a show for inner-city children. Even the stoop and street corner of the “Sesame Street” set was modeled off the look of New York City blocks that kids would see from just outside their windows.
‘Street Gang’ Film Review: Documentary Celebrates How ‘Sesame Street’ Changed the World
Sundance 2021: Let’s face it, blooper reels in which Muppets blow their lines and curse will always be pricelessSteve Pond | January 30, 2021 @ 10:57 AM Last Updated: January 30, 2021 @ 1:15 PM
AWARDS BEAT
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
It makes perfect sense that there’s now a documentary about the long-running children’s television series “Sesame Street.” After all, there’s already been a doc about the puppeteer who played the characters of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on that show (“I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story”), and one about the man who played Elmo (“Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”) while “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” Morgan Neville’s 2018 film about another children’s TV icon, Mister Rogers, recently became the 12th highest-grossing nonfiction film of all time.