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.