Sweepin the clouds away......

OK....
so it wasn't always a Sunny Day on Sesame Street...
Remember David from the early days of S.S.??
Yeah you do...he was the guy who took over Mr. Hooper's Grocery Store
after Mr. Hooper died.,,,,he also voiced several early Muppet characters.




Well....here's what happened to David....aka actor Northern Calloway.

In his early thirties, Calloway slowly began to exhibit signs of bipolar disorder which led to a nervous breakdown on the morning of September 19, 1980 in Nashville, TN.
He beat his hostess with an iron rod, giving her serious head and rib injuries.
He then fled into the suburbs of Nashville. Along the way, he smashed a plate-glass window and storm door at one house and did extensive damage to the interior of another, destroying the family's collection of fine crystal, smashing a television set and breaking light bulbs with his bare hands. He also stole a backpack from a first grader and smashed a windshield with a rock.

He was arrested after hiding out in a couple's garage, screaming "Help! I'm David from Sesame Street and they're trying to kill me!" Despite this incident, Calloway continued to work on Sesame Street. Calloway's final years on the show were marked by periods of declining health and ability punctuated by episodes of erratic behavior; during these years, Calloway reportedly bit music coordinator Danny Epstein during an on-set fight, and he once appeared unannounced at actress Alison Bartlett's high school and proposed to her.

Calloway left the show in 1989, and died in January 1990. The circumstances surrounding Calloway's death remain unclear. Some sources report that he died of stomach cancer, although his family never officially announced the cause of death. 'Unfortunately, Calloway's family rushed him to the closest hospital that happened to be a psychiatric hospital, which created rumors that Calloway had died in an asylum'. He was then taken to Phelps Memorial Hospital in North Tarrytown, where he was pronounced dead at the age of 41. In his authorized history Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, author Michael Davis claims that Calloway had been a patient at the Stony Lodge psychiatric facility in Ossining, NY at the end of his life, and had died after going into cardiac arrest during a violent altercation with a staff physician. A coroner's report listed Calloway's official cause of death as exhaustive psychosis, now more commonly referred to as excited delirium syndrome (EDS). He was survived by his wife and their only child.

Unlike Will Lee, who had played Mr. Hooper, no mention of his death was made on Sesame Street as at the time of the character's leaving, Calloway was still alive.
He was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery.

Mr. Jim Henson....
creator of the Muppets died at age 53 of pneumonia. A work-a-holic who never wanted to bother people.....were traits that unfortunately led to his demise.




Joe Raposo....

I know ....you're saying WHO?

He was the resident composer at Sesame Street and The Electric Company...
and wrote the following hits....
"Sesame Street Theme Song"
(with Toots Thielemans on harmonica)
"C is for Cookie"
"Not Easy 'Bein Green"
"Has Anybody Seen My Dog?"
"Somebody Come and Play"
"Would You Like to Buy an 'O'?"

As well as "bouncy instrumentals"......


Died at age 51 of cancer.....
was close friends with Frank Sinatra and Leo Durocher.

Even sadder........

He also penned....
the theme from "Three's Company"
the theme from "The Ropers"
"Sing.....Sing a Song" by the Carpenters.

Maybe not seeing 52 was a good thing.



Marty
(aka Guy Smiley)
LaPeer, MI