Matt Robinson

At 65 years old, Matt Robinson physical status not available right now. We will update Matt Robinson 's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

In 1962, Robinson wrote a slave revolt drama titled Rained All Night.

He began his media career in 1963 as a writer, and soon after producer and on-air talent, at television station WCAU-TV in his hometown of Philadelphia. Robinson produced and hosted Opportunity in Philadelphia, a weekly televised employment service oriented toward African Americans. By televising job opportunities, Opportunity in Philadelphia sought to allay the apprehension many minorities felt when looking for work. Robinson established his talent at WCAU, ultimately leading to future successes as a producer and actor.

Robinson's television breakthrough came in 1969 when he joined the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) to assist in the development of a new children's program for National Educational Television titled Sesame Street. His initial role was to produce and oversee filmed segments focusing on the diversity of different characters on the show. Robinson was eventually chosen to play the fictional character of Gordon in the series, after the performance of the character in test episodes by another actor, Garrett Saunders, did not work out as the producers had hoped. Gordon was the first character with spoken lines on the show, as a result of difficulty in finding someone to fill the figure. This was against Robinson's original intentions upon joining the show, as he preferred a behind-the-scenes role, and was initially reluctant to take the part. Dolores Robinson commented on his backseat role on the set: "He was by nature shy, and he knew that they were having a difficult time casting Gordon. And the people overseeing the taping up in the booth, peering at the monitors, kept saying, 'Matt knows what to do. He should be Gordon.'” Robinson remained with Sesame Street until 1972.

In total four actors have played Gordon. In addition to Robinson, Roscoe Orman, Garrett Saunders, and Hal Miller have filled the role. Each actor's tenure is not exactly clear with some sources citing Roscoe Orman beginning in 1974 and others in 1973. Later, when Gordon and Susan needed a surname, Robinson's was used in tribute.

Robinson wrote one of the first Sesame Street-themed storybooks in 1972, titled Gordon of Sesame Street's Storybook. It was composed of four of his originally written children stories, "No More Milk", "Fisher-Man", "Fire-Man," and "A Lot of Hot Water". The cover has a Gordon Robinson caricature reading to different children.

While with CTW, Robinson also played the voice of a reddish-magenta puppet named Roosevelt Franklin. Robinson worked closely with Jim Henson to accurately design the character, the first black-influenced Muppet. Other minority-based Muppets created by Henson and Robinson were Baby Ray Francis, Mobley Mose and a Latino Muppet, A.B. Cito. Roosevelt Franklin promoted ideals such as family, pride, respect, and geography while also showing a passion for rhyming and blues music. By both creating the character and performing Franklin's voice for three seasons, Robinson helped his puppet become one of the show's main characters. In addition, Franklin continued to make appearances until 1975.

The puppet was pulled from the show because a negative perception of the character among African Americans began to grow. This resulted from Franklin's frequently unruly behavior at the fictional elementary school, which was deemed a bad example for the audience. Additional arguments for the character's departure were rooted in its overly excessive black image, or lack thereof. Dolores Robinson has stated that Roosevelt Franklin became a televised vehicle for her then-husband's anger with racism and pride in black people.

Robinson recorded and released the first Sesame Street album to be focused on a single character, The Year of Roosevelt Franklin (Gordon's Friend from Sesame Street). Released in 1971, and then re-released in 1974 under the name My Name is Roosevelt Franklin, the album dealt with many appropriate behaviors for children; aside from basic topics such as numbers and letters, it also touched on traffic safety, sharing and getting along with others. All tracks were co-written with the help of Joe Raposo. The album was again released on compact disc in 2010 as a part of a set titled Old School: Volume 2, also including "Grover Sings the Blues" and "The Count Counts".

Following his time with CTW, Robinson continued to produce and write for movies, television and the stage. He wrote and produced, under the direction of Stan Lathan, Save The Children (1973), a musical performance that was a spinoff of a black exposition conducted by People to Save Humanity. Robinson would continue his work as a producer and writer in the 1974 film Amazing Grace, which was about a group of neighbors seeking to overthrow some shady, money-hungry politicians.

Other post-Sesame Street work included writing episodes for Sanford and Son, The Waltons and Eight Is Enough, and writing and producing for Captain Kangaroo, a children's television series on CBS that aired from 1955 to 1984. He also starred on The Candy Apple News Company, a locally produced children's television series that aired in the 1970s and 1980s on WCAU-TV, Channel 10 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the show, a small human cast interacted with puppets in a radio and newspaper office.

In 1983, Robinson joined the crew of NBC's The Cosby Show as a producer and writer. The family sitcom, which aired from 1984 for eight seasons until 1992, revolved around the life of the Huxtable family – an affluent African-American family in Brooklyn, New York. Robinson transitioned between writer, executive story consultant, executive story editor and soundtrack writer for over 50 episodes of the show, eventually becoming a co-producer. He acted in one episode, "Cliff's Nightmare", as a French scientist.

Written by Robinson and directed by Bill Lathan, The Confessions of Stepin Fetchit is a one-man play that focuses on Lincoln Perry, who was a popular black comic character in 1930s films but soon came under fire by civil rights advocates. The play was meant as a call to history as well as a discussion forum for reflection on Perry's life story as one of America's first black movie stars.

Source

• Daytime Emmy Awards – 1983, nominated (along with Bob Brush, Harry Crossfield, Martin Donoff, and Howard Friedlander) for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children's Programming-Writing for Captain Kangaroo
• Distinguished Alumnus Award from Penn State University (1994)
• 42nd NAACP Image Awards