Northern Calloway Northern Calloway ( January 22 , 1948 - January 9 , 1990 ) played David on " Sesame Street " from 1971 through 1989 , and also voiced Muppet characters such as Baby Breeze , Same Sound Brown and the Anything Muppet hipster in the " Sesame Street " version of the Visual Thinking sketch . Calloway began his career in 1966 with the Lincoln Center Repertory Company just two days after graduating from the High School of Performing Arts in New York City . During the next season he appeared at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford , Ontario , in " A Midsummer Night ' s Dream " and " The Three Musketeers " . On Broadway he was in " The Me Nobody Knows " and the Off - Broadway rock musical " Salvation . " He understudied , and subsequently replaced , Ben Vereen as the Leading Player in the Broadway hit " Pippin " , a role he also played in London and at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn , N . J . Calloway was also seen on Broadway in 1980 as the orderly in " Whose Life Is It Anyway ? " with Mary Tyler Moore , and as Louis Armstrong in the New Federal Theater ' s production of " Louis " in 1981 . On television , Calloway appeared in the 1972 CBS special " The Funny Papers " , playing Lt . Flap from the " Beetle Bailey " comic strip . Recordings . Calloway was heard on many Sesame Street albums , including his solo record , " David , Daydreamin ' on a Rainy Day " , and appeared in the specials " Christmas Eve on Sesame Street " , " Don ' t Eat the Pictures " , " The Sesame Street Special " , and " " . His non - Sesame recordings include the cast album from " The Me Nobody Knows " , as well as a rare single on United Artists Records in 1973 . Other work . Calloway also worked on two children ' s books in the mid - 1970 ' s , although they were not related to the " Sesame Street " show . He was given a credit of " conceived by " on the books ' covers and title pages , and they were written by Carol Hall and illustrated by Sammis McLean . The first book , " I Been There " ( 1977 ) , tells the story of a boy who imagines a trip to outer space , where he meets an alien described as a " nineteen - foot - tall gorilla - bat " who plays basketball with him . The second book " Super - Vroomer ! " ( 1978 ) , contains an introductory note from Calloway that the story is based on events from his childhood . The book tells the story of three friends ( who also appeared in the first book ) and their attempts to build a racecar and enter it in a neighborhood race . Later years . Calloway had a nervous breakdown in 1980 , leading to an incident that saw him jailed . Despite the incident , he remained on the show , and little was mentioned at the time about the incident . Calloway left the show in 1989 ; according to a spokeswoman for the Children ' s Television Workshop , he had retired for medical reasons , and his character was written out . However , there was also speculation that , in addition to his health , behavior problems on and off the set led to his being fired . In one incident , Calloway reportedly bit music coordinator Danny Epstein during an on - set fight , and later showed up unannounced at actress Alison Bartlett ' s high school and proposed to her ( Calloway was 23 years Bartlett ' s senior ) . As is indicated in " Street Gang : The Complete History of Sesame Street , " several of Calloway ' s fellow cast members observed subtle clues about Calloway ' s sometimes erratic behavior and kept their distance . Calloway died in 1990 , less than two weeks before his 42nd birthday .