Mr. Robinson is the main star of Mister Robinson's Neighborhood, which was a Saturday Night Live segment based on the children's show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, a PBS staple where new information about the world was presented by Fred Rogers in a quiet, methodical, loving, and highly elocuted manner.
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In this segment, Eddie Murphy's character "Mister Robinson" speaks in a similarly stilted manner, but lives in a considerably grittier venue. Mr. Robinson has to contend with Mr. Landlord (portrayed by Tim Kazurinsky) whose hunting him down for rent while occasionally giving him eviction notices. In addition the police after him for a number of petty crimes like selling stolen stuff, stealing groceries from an old lady, and defrauding children of toy money during the holiday season. Most episodes have Mr. Robinson exiting through the fire escape to avoid certain people. He always closes out segments by singing a rewritten version of the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood closing song "Tomorrow." Rogers took no offense to the parody, finding it amusing and affectionate; he even took the opportunity of a promotional appearance on NBC to seek out Murphy in his SNL dressing room and tell him such.
Incidentally, the first Mister Robinson's Neighborhood segment shows Mr. Robinson getting a chemistry kid from a delivery man named Mr. Speedy (portrayed by Gilbert Gottfried, based on Mr. McFeely and his business name "Speedy Delivery"), was overshadowed by the "Who Shot Charles Rocket" recurring gag that ran through the episode and the controversy over Rocket saying, "I'd like to know who the f*ck did it," during the goodnights. The book, "Saturday Night Live: The First 20 Years" has a still shot from the first "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" segment featuring Eddie Murphy as Mr. Robinson pointing to a sign reading "Bitch." The character was impersonated by Ed Koch on the five-host episode, using the same set. In 2019, Mr. Robinson resurfaces where his neighborhood has gone through gentrification where the white people improved his neighborhood and most of his black neighbors relocated to Atlanta. In addition, he's still living in his apartment where he called "squatter's rights." His new neighbors are Damian and Mika (portrayed by Mikey Day and Heidi Gardner) who live in Apartment 7F where Mr. Robinson's friend Frankie used to cook crack.