February 16th is, as we all know, National Do a Grouch a Favor Day. The holiday, perhaps vaguely linked to England Anger Awareness Week (which is actually the first week in December) is designed to kindly help out any cantankerous souls that may have passed into your life in the hopes that they will become less cantankerous. If you know a grouch, buy them some donuts. If you have a jerk co-worker, help them out on a project. And if you live on Sesame Street, perhaps offer to worm-sit Oscar’s pet worm, Slimey.
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We all know Oscar the Grouch, as most everyone under the age of 45 grew up watching Sesame Street on Public Television. And while we all giggled at the shenanigans of Big Bird and Kermit the Frog, I knew of no child whose favorite characters wasn’t Oscar the Grouch. Oscar was the salve on Sesame Street, the dark soul on a street populated by positivity and education. Eternally misanthropic and fond of filth, Oscar lived on a different plane than the rest of human and Muppet-kind. He was the hipster hater before such terms existed.
Oscar the Grouch goes back to the very first days of Sesame Street, which debuted in 1969, where he was conceived as a counter-argument to all the other views on the show. Oscar, always angered and annoyed by others, was meant to represent an outsider opinion on all matters. He was the Devil’s advocate. If you liked it, he disliked it. He was the contrarian. And, by talking to a contrarian, you can learn to better communicate, and to perhaps hone your own tastes a little better. He was, in short, a critic.
Sesame Workshop
His home in a garbage can, however, led viewers of the show to assume that he represented America’s impoverished and disenfranchised. He was, in appearance, a disheveled homeless man, beaten by life. That the people on Sesame Street treated him with kindness offered a great deal of hope to poor people and homeless people everywhere. There is a poetry there to be sure. Despite being a hateful jerk, Oscar serves as a hope object. Also, it was eventually revealed that Oscar originally hailed from Canada, giving him the added symbolic heft of an American immigrant. We’ll ignore, for the time being, the recent notion that Oscar’s trash can is also a dimensional portal – essentially a Doctor Who TARDIS – to Grouchland, USA.
Oscar was, of course, created by Jim Henson, but the original puppet was built by John Lovelady. Ever since 1969, Oscar has been operated and played by Caroll Spinney, now 82. Spinney has also performed as other Muppets on Sesame Street, including Big Bird’s grandmother.
Oscar the Grouch may be an American creation, but he has international analogues, and his message of friendship-with-the-filthy can be found in each foreign language version of Sesame Street (a widely translated program). In Germany, the Grouch character is called Uli von Bödefeld. In Israel, the Grouch is called מוישה אופניק, or Moishe Oofnik, and is Oscar’s Israeli cousin. The Mexican Grouch is named Bodoque. In Brazil, he is Gugu. In Turkey, he is Kırpık. In Portugal, he is Ferrão. In India, he is Kewal Khadoosa. France’s Mordicus is a grouch, but since ennui is such a powerful part of French culture, Mordicus is also a lively sort.
So the world over can relate to the outsider bitterness of Oscar. He is part of all of us. We all know a grouch, and we can all be grouches. So go out and do a grouch a favor. They need one.
Top Image: Sesame Workshop
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
