Sesame Avenue‘s Bob McGrath waves to the gang whereas driving on a float in the course of the 2009 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York Metropolis. The longtime, authentic solid member of the long-lasting youngsters’s present died on Sunday.

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Sesame Avenue‘s Bob McGrath waves to the gang whereas driving on a float in the course of the 2009 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York Metropolis. The longtime, authentic solid member of the long-lasting youngsters’s present died on Sunday.

Michael Loccisano/Getty Photos

Bob McGrath, an actor and recording artist who was an authentic solid member on Sesame Avenue, died on Sunday. He was 90.

McGrath died of problems from a stroke, his daughter Cat McGrath confirmed to NPR.

Bob McGrath, is seen on the 2010 AFTRA AMEE Awards at The Plaza Resort in 2010 in New York Metropolis.

Larry Busacca/Getty Photos for AFTRA

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Larry Busacca/Getty Photos for AFTRA

Bob McGrath, is seen on the 2010 AFTRA AMEE Awards at The Plaza Resort in 2010 in New York Metropolis.

Larry Busacca/Getty Photos for AFTRA

The actor’s loss of life was introduced by relations on social media: “He died peacefully at residence, surrounded by his household,” learn the submit on McGrath’s Fb web page.

McGrath, certainly one of Sesame Avenue‘s first human solid members who starred within the youngsters’s tv present 1969 pilot, turned a present common for practically 5 a long time, enjoying the pleasant neighbor character Bob Johnson, alongside Massive Fowl and a number of different beloved Muppets.

Sesame Workshop shared a press release on social media mourning “a beloved member of the Sesame Avenue household for over 50 years.”

“Bob embodied the melodies of Sesame Avenue like nobody else, and his performances introduced pleasure and surprise to generations of kids around the globe, whether or not instructing them the ABCs, the folks of their neighborhood, or the straightforward pleasure of feeling music of their hearts,” the Workshop mentioned on Twitter.

Born in Ottawa, Sick., McGrath studied music on the College of Michigan and, later, the Manhattan Faculty of Music. McGrath was a veteran performer by the point Sesame Avenue recruited him. In 1962, NBC introduced on the tenor singer to carry out as a part of Mitch Miller’s family-friendly ensemble TV present, Sing Alongside With Mitch. After the present was canceled two years later, McGrath continued to sing with the group, holding down a residency at Las Vegas’ Desert Inn. He took his abilities on tour in Japan, the place he discovered a fervent teenage fanbase, in line with the biography web page on his web site.

It was Dave Connell, a fellow College of Michigan alum who labored as a producer for Captain Kangaroo earlier than govt producing Sesame Avenue, who approached McGrath about auditioning for the children present.

McGrath, who hoped as an alternative to interrupt into the U.S. teenage market along with his personal present, in line with his website, had little interest in engaged on a youngsters’s program at first.

However after he was proven tapes of Muppets creator Jim Henson’s work, he instructed a crowd at a 2016 conference in Florida, he was “completely blown away.”

“I believed, to heck with that teenage factor, that is what I need to do,” he mentioned. “As a result of it was apparent from the very, very starting this was going to be a really distinctive and unimaginable present.”

In 2017, Sesame Workshop reduce McGrath and two different longtime solid members from the present, deciding to not renew their contracts. In response to the solid shakeup, the Workshop had pointed to its have to continually adapt its content material to youngsters’s academic wants.

Though McGrath ended his run on the present that yr, he continued to make public appearances tied to Sesame Avenue, together with his characteristic within the 2021 HBO documentary Avenue Gang: How We Bought to Sesame Avenue.

McGrath, a father to 5 youngsters and a grandfather to eight, is survived by his spouse Ann Sperry.