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The Real Oscar
Below you will find the official version of how I came to be. Why don't they want to tell the truth? Hanson was sneaking out the back to avoid paying the bill and tripped over my can. I chucked something at him and thus began, whatever.
I don't look forty, do I? I look eighty, ha, ha!
Some nerve calling me a grouch! Okay. Changes made below. God forbid I should annoy someone. From the official Sesame Street site,
Quote:
"Sesame Street’s resident grouch despises anything nice or sweet, especially children who play in front of his trash can. He loves collecting junk, standing in line, arguing, rainy days, and anchovy milk shakes. Oscar is the ultimate pessimist – he’s only happy when he’s miserable. He enjoys yelling at people, especially when he’s telling them to leave him alone. The only problem with this is that when people do leave him alone, there’s nobody left for him to yell at.
The idea for the classic green grump was sparked when Jim Henson and former Sesame Street director Jon Stone encountered a grumpy waiter at a New York restaurant called Oscar’s Tavern. According to Henson and Stone, the waiter was grouchy to such an extreme that they actually found him amusing and immortalized him as Oscar the Grouch. Caroll Spinney, the Muppeteer behind Oscar, developed the grouch’s voice after a cab driver asked him, “Where to, Mac?” Spinney copied the cabbie’s gruff, gravelly voice and applied it to the green trash can dweller.
Oscar’s grumpiness encourages kids to explore their complete emotional range, even the negative side. Anger and impatience are natural, human responses, and they can have some good purposes. Through Oscar, children learn about respect and tolerance, and they discover that people with different views and lifestyles can still be great friends. Oscar’s soft spot for his pet worm, Slimey, proves that underneath it all, that curmudgeonly green grump is capable of love too."
Unquote
Why isn't Slimey on the list?
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7 November 2009
at 11:26 a.m.
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RoeDapple (Anonymous) says…
Geez, from that description Oscar and I must be related!…
http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress….
7 November 2009
at 7:59 p.m.
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Katara (Anonymous) says…
Please attribute your sources, Irish. Plagiarism is just not cool.
http://www.sesamestreet.org/onair/cha…
7 November 2009
at 8:13 p.m.
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snap_pop_no_crackle (Anonymous) says…
Busted!
7 November 2009
at 8:19 p.m.
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snap_pop_no_crackle (Anonymous) says…
Once again, where's the “Suggest blog removal” button?
8 November 2009
at 11:34 a.m.
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Irish (Irish Swearingen) says…
Below you will find the official version of how I came to be.
––––––––––––––––––––––––-
I thought people would get from that that I got this from the Sesame Street site.
My bad.
I was never trying to take credit for this.
Roe, I love your picture. The Pope has a tough time trying to get us unruly Americans in line. Not to be pushy, but, new blog? Your readers want more, more more!
8 November 2009
at 11:57 a.m.
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jonas_opines (Anonymous) says…
You should have entitled this “The Full Oscar” and you would have had more clicks, I bet.
8 November 2009
at 12:03 p.m.
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Katara (Anonymous) says…
Thank you for putting your source up.
I don't know if the blogs let you do it but if you can post the link in your blog, it would be nice. They had all sorts of interesting things about the Sesame Street cast.
9 November 2009
at 8:18 a.m.
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honeychild (Mel Briscoe) says…
i just saw a snippet of the first episode of sesame street yesterday and oscar was orange! <— that's a good trivia question, so remember that one! ;)
oscar was always one of my favorites. i had just turned 2 when the show premiered so i am truly first generation sesame street (and proud of it!). one of the gems of generation X— you can't say nothin' bad about that show to us folks between 33-45. unless you want to get cussed out!
my brother and i had a couple of the original sesame street toys— they were hand puppets. i had oscar, which came w/ his own little cardboard trashcan and my brother had cookie monster, which came w/ cardboard cookies. cookie monster had a little slit where his throat should be so you could stuff the cookies down his pipe. we got alot of use out of both of those puppets. i wish we still had them because they'd probably be worth some dough. in addition to my brother's GI joe w/ the kung fu grip, my charlie's angels dolls and his rockem sockem robots.