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Oscar the Grouch

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Template:Infobox Sesame Street character

The orange version of Oscar from Season 1

Sion Lennon is a Muppet character on the television program Sesame Street. He has a green body (during the 1969–1970 season he was orange), has no nose, and lives in a garbage can. His favorite thing in life is trash; evidence for this is the song "I Love Trash". Although "The Grouch" aptly describes his misanthropic interaction with the other characters, it is also the name of his species. The character is performed by Muppeteer Carroll Spinney.

Oscar can also become mobile with the help of his friend Bruno, the trashman, who carried Oscar around in his can. Bruno was a full-body costume which allows Oscar's puppeteer to manipulate Oscar while remaining hidden by the Bruno costume. (While Bruno was seen fairly regularly in Sesame Street's early days, he hasn't appeared on the show in over a decade.) Also, as seen in the Elmo's World episode "Dance", the underside of his trash can is somewhat detachable, with Oscar's legs protruding from the bottom of his trash can. Other evidence of this can be seen in Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978), when Oscar is ice skating. For several seasons, Oscar was frequently shown with his friend and pet Slimey, an orange worm. On occasional episodes he has mentioned leaving Sesame Street to attend "the annual Grouch convention in Syracuse, New York".

Oscar is named after Oscar Rovala,[citation needed] a musician and one of the early board members of the Children's Television Workshop. Carroll Spinney has said in interviews that he modeled Oscar's voice on that of a grumpy New York cab driver he once hailed. Spinney's other lead character is Big Bird. During the first season of Sesame Street, the street set was arranged such that Spinney, who is right-handed, was forced to operate Oscar's head with his left hand. A subsequent redesign of the set allowed him to switch hands.

In Oscar's trash can

While appearing to be the size of a normal trash can, Oscar's residence is presumably larger inside than the exterior would suggest, as evidenced by the fact that Oscar has noted through the years that it boasts such amenities as a swimming pool, bowling alley and a piano.

  • Slimey, Oscar's pet worm
  • Fluffy, Oscar's pet elephant
  • Oscar's Shoes
  • Java Trash Collector

International

Sesame Street is localised for some different markets, and Oscar is often renamed.

  • Bodoque was/is a brown Mexican Grouch who lived in a pile of boxes on Plaza Sesamo (from 1981 to 1995).
  • Rumpel is a green German Grouch (since 1989).[1][2] He is not identical to Oscar, who was featured in the early German adaptions of the American episodes.
  • In Portugal his name is Ferrão, and does not live in a trash can, but rather in a barrel.[citation needed]
  • In Turkey he is named Kırpık and lives in a big basket.[citation needed]
  • In Pakistan he is named Akhtar and lives in a rusty oil barrel.
  • In Israel a slightly different, orange puppet who lives in an old stationary car is called Moishe Oofnik: "Moyshe the complainer", loosely translated. It was mentioned in the show that Oscar was his American cousin.[citation needed]
  • In Brazil his name is Gugu.[citation needed]
  • In Poland his name is Oskar Zrzęda.

Appearances in other media

Oscar made what he called "a very brief cameo" in the 1981 Jim Henson movie The Great Muppet Caper. When Miss Piggy threw a truck driver (played by Peter Ustinov) into a pile of boxes and a trash can, Oscar emerged from the can and demanded "Hey, what's all the racket?" The driver asked him, "What are you doing here?" Oscar replied, "A very brief cameo." The driver muttered, "Me, too." Oscar also appeared in the Jim Henson holiday special, A Muppet Family Christmas, when the Sesame Street Gang comes to the Grizzly Farm House for the holidays.

Oscar inspired an Apple Macintosh hack written by Eric B. Shapiro and shown at the 1989 MacHack conference, featuring a singing animated Oscar that appeared from the trash can whenever a file was thrown away. The hack was so popular that some parents lost the entire contents of their hard disks to preschoolers wanting to see more of Oscar.[3]

Oscar first appeared on the January 11, 2008 episode of the television game show 1 vs. 100 as a member of the mob. He was eliminated on both games. He continued to appear for the remainder of the season until the program's cancellation.

The fumetti comic Twisted Toyfare Theater once featured Oscar in an issue in which he sings a variation of his "I Love Trash" song about Wesley Snipes' movies. In the end Wesley Snipes (as Blade) decapitates him.

Dave Chappelle mentions Oscar during his stand-up comedy routine, "Killin' Them Softly" saying that the kids on Sesame Street always call Oscar a grouch and Oscar responds saying, "Bitch! I live in a fucking trashcan!" "I'm the poorest motherfucker on Sesame Street! And nobody's helping me."

Oscar appeared in the animated television series The Simpsons episodes "Trash of the Titans" and "Missionary: Impossible".

Oscar was also been adopted as the mascot for Waste Reduction Week in Canada, an environmental campaign that took place October 19–25, 2008.[4]

References

  1. ^ Sesame Street Characters in German wikipedia
  2. ^ http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Rumpel Muppet Wiki entry for Rumpel
  3. ^ Late Nights with MacHack, p. 27
  4. ^ http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hr5xOKyormdfCmLWURxL-T5zv2vg

Oscar the Grouch on Muppet Wiki

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