Re: "Classic Sesame Street Boxset" Out in October
Regarding the "test show" that's one of the bonus features on Vol. 2 --
Does anyone know who is playing Gordon in that show? (The role was recast before the "official" show went on the air.)
I have read in various places that Robert "Benson" Guillaume auditioned for the role of Gordon, and I thought I'd read that there was an actual clip of him in an A&E "Biography" on Sesame Street (which I haven't seen). But I have also read that Guillaume auditioned later on, to replace the second Gordon, Harold "Hal" Miller, in 1974 (Roscoe Orman was eventually chosen, and he continues in the role to this day). As far as I'm concerned (I'm 41), the late Matt Robinson will always be the "real" Gordon. (But I suppose that depends on how old you are and when you watched the show.)
But about that "test show" -- they call it Test Show #1 or something like that, but there is one segment where Ernie and Bert are arguing over whether to watch "Batman" or "The Man From Alphabet." The animated Batman (Filmation, by the way) appears in this segment, and tells E&B that since they watched Batman "yesterday," it's only fair that they watch "The Man From Alphabet" today. Now this may mean absolutely nothing, but that kind of jumped out at me when I first watched this -- if this was the first show, then there was no "yesterday." (They did, I guess, a week's worth of "test shows" -- five days -- which aired on at least one station before the show officially premiered. I wonder if the other four exist in some archive.)
I wonder what was up with all the changing Gordons. I get that Matt Robinson had ambitions to be a writer and producer, and he moved on to other things, mostly behind-scenes. I wonder what happened with Harold Miller...I can say from my own memory, it certainly was jarring to have a key character replaced like that, let alone twice in two years (and the cast didn't even seem to notice that it was a different guy all of a sudden). I've seen Miller's website -- I know essentially nothing about the man, but I'm gonna guess that maybe this guy just didn't, how shall I say, "mesh" with the rest of the people on the show... Heck, maybe I'll e-mail him some time and ask him.
I also once saw a still from some kids show Miller supposedly did for Nickelodeon...but no other info. I'm curious.