The Children's Television Workshop has a bona fide mystery on their hands, and they've reached out to the hivemind at reddit for help.

Sesame Street's debuted 42 years ago today. But like most other TV shows, we had a test pilot. We created it in the summer of 1969, just a few months before the first episode aired. The actor who played Gordon on the show... was replaced by an actor named Matt Robinson (who, by the way, is Holly Robinson Peete's father).

Two years ago, we put together a huge anthology of our then-40 year history... and realized that we do not know who played Gordon in the test pilot. We've asked everyone we could think of -- actors, actresses, and puppeteers who have been on the show since its inception; Sesame Workshop's founder, Joan Ganz Cooney; and of course, dug through seemingly endless boxes of documents and photos.

Any clue would be great, even if it's seemingly esoteric or mundane. You can email it to us at wheresgordon@ sesameworkshop.org, drop me a message here, or if it doesn't involve someone's personal info, leave it in a comment.
Oh, and one other thing: Here's a clip of our mystery Gordon from that test pilot. And yes, Bert and Ernie look a little different than they do nowadays, but then again, Oscar used to be orange.

The clip:



Sorry, "Time Traveling Tracey Jordan" has already been suggested.

me: i'll pick z up
see you around 6
oh, wait, one more thing
have a sec?
Jennifer: oh, ok
sure
me: i had what may be an interesting idea
Jennifer: ok
me: we could do a "trial period" for z
could be unlimited candy
(free choice)
could be free choice (unlimited) tv
or she could chose which
or she could choose to have free choice for one and NONE of the other (for that period)
i'd be curious to see which she'd pick and what the outcome would be
could be 1 week
could be 1 month
Jennifer: ok
me: we could have a standard that needed to be met to consider it functional
for candy, for example, it could be eating meals, brushing teeth after candy, going to bed without a fuss, whatever else we considered relevant to the consumption of candy
for tv, it could be anything we felt related to healthy tv consumption - but quantity could not be a factor
idk what those criteria might be
maybe, getting other responsibilities done (responsibilities we outline)
being prepared to leave at routine times
etc
Jennifer: that sounds good
me: it could even relate to completing homeschooling activity...
to ensure a balance to her days
though i'd hate to make that feel like the "not fun" version she had to do to get tv
Jennifer: yes. i'm discourage re: her lack of desire to read because "it's hard"
yes, that's true too
me: honestly... i don't worry about the reading
she is a pretty brilliant reader
she read me a paragraph from Abel's Island last night without much trouble
all I had to do for her was pronounce the four-syllable words
that book is for ages 9 and up
i think what we are dealing with are the ebb and flow of unschooling
which we were warned about
but we can structure expectations for her that show how much freedom she can have if she uses it responsibly
and follow up on how she's doing
i think she'll take well to that, and we can track it however we need to so she knows it isn't arbitrary
Jennifer: ok
me: great
do you want us to pick tv or candy, or let her choose, or do both?
Jennifer: might as well just do both, i guess
me: the only reasons not to would be (a) would be very interesting to see what she chose (we could go with old rules for the other, or make it a "all-or-nothing" bargain)
(b) we might see effects and not know which change they stemmed from
Jennifer: hmm. that's true
me: want to think about it a bit?
Jennifer: sure

What do you think? And which would your child pick?