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.