Robert Emmet McGrath (born June 13, 1932) is an American actor, singer, musician, and children's author best known for playing original human character Bob Johnson on the long-running educational television series Sesame Street. 　　Along with series matriarch Susan Robinson, played by Loretta Long, Bob had been one of the two longest-lasting human characters on the series since the show's debut. A Noggin segment proclaimed the four decades of Bob when promoting Sesame Street on that network. In July 2016, Sesame Workshop announced that McGrath would not return to the show for its 47th season because it would be re-tooling the series, but the company did say that McGrath would continue to represent the Workshop at public events. Sesame Workshop later announced that there would be talks to bring him back. Sesame Workshop said that he would still represent Sesame Street. Bob has not been in any new material since season 45, although he has been in online videos for the show since then. 　　McGrath has said that his two favorite moments on Sesame Street were Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (a 1978 Christmas special that included a pastiche of "The Gift of the Magi"), and the 1983 sequence that candidly addressed the death of longtime character Mr. Hooper, played by his good friend Will Lee who had died the previous year.