Roosevelt Franklin

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Not to be confused with Franklin Roosevelt.

The cover of Roosevelt Franklin's groundbreaking 1971 LP, The Year of Roosevelt Franklin

Roosevelt Franklin is a fictional character featured on the children's television series Sesame Street during the early 1970s. He is purple with shaggy black hair that stands on end. Sesame Street cast member Matt Robinson, who also played Gordon, provided Roosevelt Franklin's voice until he left the series in 1972,^{[citation needed]} and muppeteer Jerry Nelson replaced him as the voice of the character. Franklin often speaks in rhyme or scat, and he misbehaves and makes mischief in school. Franklin began to appear less frequently in episodes created after the mid-1970s until he no longer was on the series.^{[citation needed]}

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.

In episodes from Robinson's tenure, Roosevelt Franklin usually appears in scenes with his mother, voiced by Loretta Long, who plays Susan on the series, and Roosevelt frequently recited poetry.^{[citation needed]} Later scenes are set in a classroom, in which Roosevelt appears to fill in for an absent teacher.