Don Music

strange VERSION of a nursery rhyme, such as "Mary Had a Bicycle" instead of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." When he finished, he would perform the song, and would normally be joined by back-up singers (often Little Chrissy and the Alphabeats), who would appear seemingly from out of nowhere, or come through the door to the room. Don ALWAYS kept a picture of Sesame Street songwriter and composer Joe Raposo on the wall, while on his piano he often kept a bust of either Ludwig van Beethoven or William Shakespeare. He stopped appearing in new material after his performer, Richard Hunt, died in 1992, but his segments continued to air as part of new episodes until the end of Season 29 in 1998. According to Sesame Street Unpaved, which was published in 1998, "The character, played by Richard Hunt, was abandoned because of complaints about his alarming tendencies toward self-inflicted punishment.