James Randi writes about Mitt Romney’s vow in the first presidential debate to cut funding for PBS:
I may feel particularly sensitive about Sesame Street because I was peripherally involved in its very first stages. When the series was first proposed in 1969, I was called in to perform a few tricks for the “pilot” episode, and I’d like to feel that my efforts just might have helped the show get noticed and accepted. I certainly hope so. My appearance in the pilot, along with those of James Earl Jones, Carol Burnett, and so many others, sold that show to PBS. To my regret, I wasn’t taken on as a regular character for Sesame Street, but I’ve always appreciated what this show did – and still does – for so many children – not only here in the USA but around the world!
Here is Randi on the unaired “Sesame Street” test show in 1969, doing the newspaper tear-and-restore trick to reveal that day’s highlighted letter…