Roosevelt Franklin's Mother

PERFORMER	Loretta Long show voice
	Rosalind Cash album voice
DEBUT	1970
PATTERN	Purple

Roosevelt Franklin's Mother is, naturally, the mother of Roosevelt Franklin.

As described by CTW advisor Gerald S. Lesser, Mother Franklin "nags and pushes Roosevelt a little (this does not seem to bother him much), but takes obvious pride in his knowledge and achievements: 'Roosevelt Franklin --he sure does know his numbers!!'"

On the Sesame Street television show, her voice was provided by Loretta Long. However, on the album The Year of Roosevelt Franklin, she was performed by Rosalind Cash.

On the TV Special Sesame Street Unpaved, Dr. Long recalled:

“What I loved about Jim Henson, when we were doing Roosevelt Franklin, and he watched me do the voiceover for the mother, and I said 'Mmm-mm-mm.. Roosevelt Franklin sure does know his ABCs', and he totally rewired the mother puppet so she could put her hand on her hip. I thought that was so cool that he respected that that's what a mother would do.”

She can be seen in the "Rainbow Connection" finale of The Muppet Movie.

Book appearances

• Sesame Street Finger Puppets (1971)
• The Sesame Street Storybook, frontispiece only (1971)
• Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum (1974)
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Smell No Evil (1975)
• The Sesame Street Postcard Book (1976)
• Tales of Sesame Gulch (1977)
• The Sesame Street Block Party (1977)
• A Day on Sesame Street (1979)
• The Sesame Street Dictionary (1980)

Sources

• Lesser, Gerald S. Children and Television: Lessons from Sesame Street. New York: Random House, 1974.