Lefty the Salesman



Lefty is a shady-looking salesman in a trench coat who appears on Sesame Street. He speaks in a whispery voice, and usually tries to sell Ernie such esoteric items as a letter O, a snowman, or an invisible ice cream cone. His sales pitches are rarely successful.

"The Salesman" appeared in several sketches in Sesame Street's first season, trying to sell Ernie the number 8, an empty box and a bottle of air.

Beginning in the second season, Lefty had his own "sneaky" musical theme at the beginning of each sketch. By this point, the opening exchange between the Salesman and Ernie had become a ritual. The Salesman signals to Ernie with a furtive whisper: "Hey, bud! C'mere." Ernie shouts, "Who, me?" and the Salesman shushes him excitedly. Ernie whispers, "Who, me?" The Salesman answers with an elongated "Riiiiiight," and then begins his sales pitch: "How would ya like to buy..."

Some of Lefty's sketches involved his attempts to carry out assignments from his boss. For these sketches, see Sesame Street Gangsters.

Lefty's boss is the only character who refers to him as "Lefty". Until recently, Children's Television Workshop production materials, storybooks and record albums have referred to the character simply as "The Salesman."

A 2008 book, Storybook ABCs, is the first use of Lefty's name in print. Grover is dressed as Jack (of "Beanstalk" fame), and the Salesman approaches from behind a tree with an offer: "Care for some candy beans for that cow?" Jack replies, "Thanks, Lefty! And do you also have a candlestick?" Lefty apparently has one in stock -- a few pages later, Jack (of "Jack Be Nimble" fame) jumps over the candlestick. At the end of the book, Lefty returns to feed four and twenty blackbirds with birdseed that fills his carry-all bag.

Influences
Several of Lefty's vocal mannerisms (outside of his elongated "Riiiight") derive from two different 1940s old-time radio characters, both of whom were a bit shady and had labels rather than names. One was "The Tout" from The Jack Benny Program, introduced in 1945 and played by Sheldon Leonard. Greeting Jack Benny in a breathy, gangster-style undertone, the tout would say "Hey, bud... c'mere a minute," to which Jack would usually respond "Who, me?" He would then attempt to "tout" Jack into changing trains, elevators, tables, whatever, but always in horse racing parlance.

The other influence was an even earlier character known only as "The Salesman," played by Eddie Marr on Jack Carson's The Camel Comedy Caravan in 1943. (Marr, who specialized in huckster and barker roles, used elements of the character on other series, including Benny's.) The Salesman would show up and try to sell anything to Jack Carson (even a gun to commit suicide) and his catchphrase was "Tell ya what I'm gonna do," which he turned into a novelty song that same year. The Lefty/Ernie story "Ernie Buys a 12" in the 1975 Big Bird's Busy Book includes examples of these radio elements.

Trivia
* In some of his early appeareances, the Salesman had slightly hidden angry eyebrows, thus giving him a mean look, but the eyebrows were removed in later sketches.


 * Although the character was primarily performed by Frank Oz, Caroll Spinney played the Salesman in at least two segments from Season 1.

Book appearances

 * The Sesame Street Storybook, frontispiece only (1971)
 * Sesame Street Finger Puppets (1971)
 * The Sesame Street ABC Storybook (1974)
 * Big Bird's Busy Book (1975)
 * Grover's Little Red Riding Hood (1976)
 * The Sesame Street Dictionary (1980)
 * The Sesame Street Storybook Alphabet (1980)
 * In & Out, Up & Down (1982)
 * Storybook ABCs (2008)