Banned from TV forever (but not from YouTube)

Thanks to JVL, booze and political incorrectness…

Don’t be from Alabama. Don’t stand in the doorway of Roosevelt Franklin High School.

posted Aug 20th, 2006 by Stephen Gordon
  • http://mdailey77.blogspot.com/ Matthew Dailey

    Roosevelt lays down a serious groove while teaching me at the same time. The Man will never hold Roosevelt Franklin down.

  • ianbernard

    Why was that banned? I don’t understand.

  • Timothy West

    I notice that Roosevelt has a serious posse of fine bitches, yo. Big pimpin on the side….

  • http://www.LPGeorgia.com Trevor Southerland

    Is anyone else disturbed by the image of Tim West saying “posse of find bitches, yo. Big pimpin on the side”

    Some things will never seem quite right. :-)

  • http://iliketocomplain.blogspot.com Chris Monnier

    Maybe because it promotes a racial stereotype? It doesn’t seem that offensive to me. I guess the name “Roosevelt Franklin” might be a stereotypical name for black people?

  • Timothy West

    …with my New York brim and my gold tooth displayed, nobody gives me trouble cause they know I got it made…. yeah, I’m bad…..I’m nationwide….

  • undercover_anarchist

    I think the “string beans” request was the only “offensive” thing. He could have asked for chitterlings, I guess.

  • http://360.yahoo.com/pong_god Robert Mayer

    A name like “Franklin Roosevelt” would have been far more offensive, IMO.

  • http://www.libertyfizz.com Missy Liberty

    Hey, I remember that from when I was a kid. Roosevelt Franklin was a regular on Sesame Street. He was the smart kid that the other kids would get their information from. And he always delivered that information in the form of a snappy tune. I don’t know why but Sesame Street made a big effort to get rid of any ethnic puppets and make them all non-racial creatures like Elmo. The only exception that seemed to hang on were the two white guys of questionable sexual orientation, Bert and Ernie. I have no idea why he would be offensive he was always shown as being the kid with the answers.

  • undercover_anarchist

    No, Bert is Dominican and Ernie is Filipino. Get with it.

  • http://www.HobbiesDepot.com Chris in NJ

    let’s see, Sesame street has
    1) an Asian inner-city grocery store owner (Allan) running a store that used to be run by an old Jewish guy (Mr. Hooper)

    2) the black guy (Gordon) and his wife (Susan) both collect government checks (science teacher and public health nurse, respectively)

    3)The Latinos (Luis and Maria) do manual labor (Fix-it shop)

    4) Zoey (the ditzy blonde monster) always sings about “Riding the Zoey Mobile” (that’s just sick)

    5) All of the old muppets (Grover, Herry, Cookie Monster) have blue hair.

    6) Let’s not even get into Bert and Earnie.

    7) Rosita – the Mexican muppet – has a huge family and insists that everyone learn Spanish.

    I could go on. I find it laughable that they’d pull Roosevelt Franklin because he somehow reinforces a stereotype. Almost every character on the show is a stereotype of one group or another.

  • http://www.titaniumgirl.blogspot.com elle

    That really brought back some memories. I had a Roosevelt Franklin plastic “little people” thing-a-ma-jig”. I really liked him too – thought he was hip.

    It’s a good thing my folks didn’t like me to watch Sesame Street, they were smart enough to know that it taught kids how to “groupthink” and collect checks from the government. Something I have never done and don’t plan on doing.

    I’d like to do a psychology experimeent and compare kids who watched it frequently to those that did not and see what kind of data it provides.