Oscar the Grouch puppet made by Muppets, Inc. for the Children's Television Workshop for use in the production of the television series Sesame Street, ca. 1970-1980. Oscar is a green furry monster who lives in a trash can on Sesame Street and frequently argues with the other Muppet and human characters. Despite his grouchiness, Oscar is a valued friend to the other characters on Sesame Street, demonstrating the importance of understanding, tolerance, and diversity.
Oscar the Grouch was originally performed by Caroll Spinney, who said that he based the character's voice on a cranky New York taxi driver. Jim Henson’s inspiration for the character was a rude waiter at a restaurant named Oscar's Salt of the Sea. In his original concept drawings for Oscar the Grouch, Henson imagined a spiky, grumpy-looking magenta monster. Due to the limitations of early color television, however, Oscar was redesigned with orange fur for his premiere on the first season of Sesame Street in 1969, and only changed to green for the second season. Oscar explained that this change was due to his vacation at Swamp Mushy Muddy where it was so damp that he became covered in slime and mold.
Oscar the Grouch is a live-hand puppet, which means that one of the performer’s hands is in the puppet’s head while the other is in one of the puppet’s arms, which has gloves for hands. Another puppeteer is usually needed to operate the other arm, which is known as right-handing. This particular Oscar the Grouch puppet was built in the 1970s. It was also used to perform the character Grandpa Grouch at some point in the show's run.
Cookie Monster is a live-hand puppet originally performed by Frank Oz and currently performed by David Rudman. In a live-hand puppet, like Cookie Monster, one of the performer’s hands is in the puppet’s head while the other is in one of the puppet’s arms, which has gloves for hands. Another puppeteer is usually needed to operate the other arm, which is known as right-handing. Cookie Monster is one of the main characters on Sesame Street. He is covered in blue fur with large googly eyes. He constantly eats anything and everything, but cookies are his favorite.
In a 2005 episode of Sesame Street, Hoots the Owl sings Cookie Monster a song about healthy eating, teaching him that “A Cookie is a Sometime Food,” part of a Sesame Workshop educational program launched in response to the obesity epidemic. Though Cookie Monster didn’t stop eating cookies, the episode generated controversy and conversation, with some commentators bemoaning that “woke” Sesame Street producers were robbing the series of its innocent joy.
Cookie Monster evolved from a monster created by Jim Henson for a General Foods Canada commercial in 1966. This character advertised the snack foods Wheels, Crowns, and Flutes along with two other monsters and was known as the Wheel Stealer. The Wheel Stealer continued to evolve as he appeared in an IBM commercial and on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967. He eventually made his way to Sesame Street after losing his teeth. Once there, he gained his love of cookies and the name Cookie Monster by the second season.
This puppet is the original Cookie Monster puppet created in 1969 for Sesame Street. He is able to feed himself because his hands are simply gloves for the performer’s hands, and he has a hole in his mouth that runs down the performer’s sleeve. The cookies that are eaten by Cookie Monster are rice crackers that are made to look like cookies because the oils from actual cookies would damage the puppet.
Bert is a hand-rod puppet originally performed by Frank Oz and currently performed by Eric Jacobson. In a hand-rod puppet, like Bert, the performer’s dominant hand goes into the puppet’s head and operates the mouth and sometimes other facial features. The less dominant hand controls the arm rods, which are thin rods connected to the puppet’s hands. Bert lives on Sesame Street with his best friend and roommate Ernie. He has a serious personality and a pet pigeon named Bernice. Bert, with Ernie, has been a part of Sesame Street since the first test pilot episodes and the premier in 1969, and this puppet is the original Bert used for those pilot episodes.
This original Grover hand-rod puppet was built in 1967 as one of several monsters used by Jim Henson and other performers on television variety shows and was first seen in his current design on a 1970 Christmas Eve episode of The Ed Sullivan Show. This darker, green-furred puppet appeared throughout the first season of Sesame Street as a generic monster and was named Grover by the end of the season. The character of Grover was rebuilt for season 2 and was then covered in his now signature bright blue fur. This puppet was later used as Grover’s mother in a skit about Grover having trouble sleeping because he is afraid of the dark, though in later appearances Grover’s mother has bright blue fur similar to Grover.
The character of Grover is a loveable, furry, and thoughtful monster who has many different roles and professions. He loves to help people but is sometimes frustrated by miscommunication, worries, and clumsiness. Grover has a unique voice and manner of speaking, generally avoiding contractions. Grover was originally performed by Frank Oz and is currently performed by Eric Jacobson. Grover is a hand-rod puppet which means that the performer’s dominant hand goes into the puppet’s head and operates the mouth and sometimes other facial features. The less dominant hand controls the arm rods, which are thin rods connected to the puppet’s hands.
Count von Count is a hand-rod puppet originally performed by Jerry Nelson and currently performed by Matt Vogel. The Count began as a parody of Bela Lugosi’s film portrayal of the vampire Count Dracula. He first appeared in 1972 on Season 4 of Sesame Street and continues today counting anything and everything in his friendly, vampire-like manner. In a hand-rod puppet, like Count von Count, the performer’s dominant hand goes into the puppet’s head and operates the mouth and sometimes other facial features. The less dominant hand controls the arm rods, which are thin rods connected to the puppet’s hands.
This specific Count von Count puppet was built for the 25th Anniversary Sesame Street exhibit in Japan in 1994. The puppet was built using the same patterns and building process for performance puppets that are used on Sesame Street, but it was built for the exhibit and never actually used on Sesame Street.
Ernie is a live-hand puppet originally performed by Jim Henson and currently performed by Peter Linz. In a live-hand puppet, like Ernie, one of the performer’s hands is in the puppet’s head while the other is in one of the puppet’s arms, which has gloves for hands. Another puppeteer is usually needed to operate the other arm, which is known as right-handing.
Ernie lives on Sesame Street with his best friend and roommate Bert. He enjoys taking bubble baths with his rubber duck, and singing the song “Rubber Duckie” about his beloved bath toy. It was released as a single and peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 26, 1970. Ernie, with Bert, has been a part of Sesame Street since the first test pilot episodes and the premier in 1969, and this puppet is the original Ernie puppet used for those pilot episodes.
Poster advertising the 10th season of Sesame Street. The poster features several Muppet characters from the main cast including Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Count von Count, Bert, Ernie, and Oscar the Grouch all wearing party hats. Sesame Street is an educational children’s television program that mixes puppets, animation, and live actors. It premiered on November 10, 1969 and continues to air today. The show is aimed at preschoolers and teaches the audience reading, arithmetic, and other academic lessons in addition to basic life skills.
Red Fraggle is a hand-rod puppet performed by Karen Prell on the television show Fraggle Rock. In a hand-rod puppet, like Red, the performer’s dominant hand goes into the puppet’s head and operates the mouth and sometimes other facial features. The less dominant hand controls the arm rods, which are thin rods connected to the puppet’s hands. Red is adventurous and energetic, and she loves to swim. It is her job to keep the Fraggle Rock pool clean. She is one of the five main Fraggles on the children’s program Fraggle Rock created by Jim Henson that aired for five seasons on HBO from 1983 to 1987. Henson created the Fraggle world as one where different types of creatures lived together in a world where they were interconnected and important to one another. From the beginning, the show was designed to be easily adaptable to different cultures, which generally led to each country having its own human character, such as Doc in the American version, with the same Fraggle scenes dubbed in local languages.
Elmo is a furry red monster with an orange nose. He is three years old and generally refers to himself in the third person. Elmo talks in a falsetto voice and is enthusiastic and cheerful. He was originally designed in 1979 as a generic background monster and first appeared as Elmo on Sesame Street in 1980. He was performed by Kevin Clash until 2012 and is now performed by Ryan Dillon. This particular Elmo puppet was created around 1984.
Sesame Street has used puppetry and other arts to educate young children. Individual Americans, foundations, corporations, and federal, state, and local governments have supported the creation of public television, where Sesame Street began in 1969.
Poster advertising the 20th season of Sesame Street. The poster features a photo of the cast of Sesame Street on a blue background with a yellow border. Sesame Street is an educational children’s television program that mixes puppets, animation, and live actors. It premiered on November 10, 1969 and continues to air today. The show is aimed at preschoolers and teaches the audience reading, arithmetic, and other academic lessons in addition to basic life skills.
National Museum of American History. Division of Cultural History
user
Jim Henson Productions
Children's Television Workshop
Henson, Jim
maker
Henson, Jim
Jim Henson Productions
ID Number
1994.0037.01
accession number
1994.0037
catalog number
1994.0037.01
Description (Brief)
Kermit is a bright green frog who was the star and host of The Muppet Show and appears on Sesame Street. The character of Kermit is one of Jim Henson’s earliest creations, dating back to 1955 with his appearances on Sam and Friends on the Washington, D.C., NBC affiliate station. He was previously performed by Jim Henson and Steve Whitmire and is currently performed by Matt Vogel. Kermit is a calm, level-headed character who is constantly trying to keep everything together as he is surrounded by craziness. Kermit is known for singing “Bein’ Green” (also known as “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green”) which talks about the difficulties he has had because of his color but ends with him accepting and embracing his greenness.
This sketch of the set of Sesame Street was made for the National Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History) exhibit, "Ten Years of Sesame Street" in 1979. It was painted by Alan Compton, who was a Sesame Street set designer, over a duplicated drawing also by him. It is signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corner.
Sesame Street is an educational children’s television program that mixes puppets, animation, and live actors. It premiered on November 10, 1969 and continues to air today. The show is aimed at preschoolers and teaches the audience reading, arithmetic, and other academic lessons in addition to basic life skills.
This trash can is home to Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street. This particular trash can has a lid that is connected to the back of the trash can with a hinge. There is a wire connected to the lid that the puppeteer could use to open the trash can lid when performing. There is also a large opening cut in to the back of the trash can which allowed the performer to control the Oscar puppet while it was in the trash can.
Sesame Street (1969-present) is the longest-running children’s television series in American history, and one of the most influential and impactful programs in the history of the medium. First developed by producer Joan Ganz Cooney to use all the entertaining tools of commercial television to teach preschool aged children, the series was also a notable effort to use public television to reach minority and low-income communities who otherwise lacked educational opportunities. The series combines live action sequences set in a Harlem-like neighborhood of urban brownstones and small businesses with animated segments, catchy modern music, popular culture parodies, and integrates Jim Henson’s Muppets, a memorable mélange of entertaining scenes that have made Sesame Street a favorite of children and parents alike. Sesame Street is a production of Sesame Workshop (known before 2000 as the Children’s Television Workshop) and premiered on the National Educational Television (NET) network in 1969 before that early educational broadcaster transitioned to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1970. Since 2016, Sesame Street has aired new episodes on HBO although reruns still air on PBS.
Ernie, one of the main characters of the children’s television program Sesame Street, enjoys taking bubble baths with this rubber duck toy. He often sings the song “Rubber Duckie” about his beloved rubber duckie. The song was released as a single and peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 26, 1970.
Sesame Street (1969-present) is the longest-running children’s television series in American history, and one of the most influential and impactful programs in the history of the medium. First developed by producer Joan Ganz Cooney to use all the entertaining tools of commercial television to teach preschool aged children, the series was also a notable effort to use public television to reach minority and low-income communities who otherwise lacked educational opportunities. The series combines live action sequences set in a Harlem-like neighborhood of urban brownstones and small businesses with animated segments, catchy modern music, popular culture parodies, and integrates Jim Henson’s Muppets, a memorable mélange of entertaining scenes that have made Sesame Street a favorite of children and parents alike. Sesame Street is a production of Sesame Workshop (known before 2000 as the Children’s Television Workshop) and premiered on the National Educational Television (NET) network in 1969 before that early educational broadcaster transitioned to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1970. Since 2016, Sesame Street has aired new episodes on HBO although reruns still air on PBS.
Rosita puppet used in the production of the children's television series Sesame Street. Rosita, la Monstrua de las Cuevas is a Mexican-American Muppet character introduced to the show in 1991, performed by Carmen Osbahr. Sesame Street (airing 1969-present) is the longest-running children’s television series in American history and has earned acclaim for its blend of education and entertainment as well as its intentionally inclusive, multicultural cast and setting. However, activists have called for greater Latino representation on the show since its premiere; Rosita was the first bilingual (Spanish-speaking) and first Latina Muppet character introduced as a regular member of the cast.
Osbahr, who originally worked as a puppet performer on Mexico's Plaza Sésamo, portrays Rosita as a five-year old girl who enjoys history and geography as well as playing the guitar. She frequently introduces a Spanish word of the day on the program and teaches viewers about her Mexican heritage. Introduced at a time when Latino/a characters were almost nonexistent in mainstream American children’s television, Rosita has proven to be one of the most popular Muppet characters on Sesame Street today.
Jim Henson Company puppet builder Ed Christie designed Rosita with wings in reference to Mexican fruit bats, although a different puppet without the wings was used in the show's production from season 35 (2004) through season 52 (2021). The live-hand style puppet is made with shaggy turquoise puppet fur with a round orange fleece nose, tan eyebrows over closely set white eyes with black pupils, and wispy, feather-like yellow and turquoise hair strands atop its head. Obsahr operated this puppet with her arms through one of the arm sleeves and the character's head, with another puppeteer operating the other arm. This puppet was used in production of Sesame Street beginning in the late 1990s.
Boober Fraggle is a hand-rod puppet performed by Dave Goelz on the television show Fraggle Rock. In a hand-rod puppet, like Boober, the performer’s dominant hand goes into the puppet’s head and operates the mouth and sometimes other facial features. The less dominant hand controls the arm rods, which are thin rods connected to the puppet’s hands. Boober is pessimistic and superstitious, but he enjoys cooking and doing laundry. The name Boober comes from an angry cow that one of Jim Henson’s daughters encountered when visiting a farm in England. He is one of the five main Fraggles on the children’s program Fraggle Rock created by Jim Henson that aired for five seasons on HBO from 1983 to 1987. Henson created the Fraggle world as one where different types of creatures lived together in a world where they were interconnected and important to one another. From the beginning, the show was designed to be easily adaptable to different cultures, which generally led to each country having its own human character, such as Doc in the American version, with the same Fraggle scenes dubbed in local languages.
This particular Boober puppet was the original Boober puppet created for Fraggle Rock in 1982. It was designed by Michael Frith and used as a model for all of the later versions of the character Boober.
Prairie Dawn is a hand-rod puppet originally performed by Fran Brill and currently performed by Stephanie D’Abruzzo. In a hand-rod puppet, like Prairie Dawn, the performer’s dominant hand goes into the puppet’s head and operates the mouth and sometimes other facial features. The less dominant hand controls the arm rods, which are thin rods connected to the puppet’s hands. Prairie Dawn debuted on Sesame Street in 1971. Jim Henson used his little girl character from the 1960s as his inspiration for the character of Prairie Dawn. Henson’s little girl character appeared on several different shows throughout the 1960s where she often faced monsters and used her wits to outsmart them. Prairie Dawn is designed to be seven years old, which is older than many of the other characters on Sesame Street. She is an aspiring journalist and is considered to be level-headed and detail-oriented.
This specific Prairie Dawn puppet was originally built for The Art of the Muppets traveling exhibit in 1979. It was displayed as an Anything Muppet with red hair for the exhibit. An Anything Muppet is a blank Muppet head to which can be added any sort of facial features, clothes, or body type to create any kind of character. This specific puppet was never performed on Sesame Street, but it was built using the same puppet patterns and building process as the puppets performed on Sesame Street.
This trash can is home to Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street. There are handles on either side of the trash can and a lid with a handle on the top. Oscar the Grouch is a green furry monster who lives in a trash can on Sesame Street. He is always miserable and grouchy. Despite his grouchiness, Oscar is a valued friend to the other characters on Sesame Street, demonstrating the importance of understanding, tolerance, and diversity.
Sesame Street is an educational children’s television program that mixes puppets, animation, and live actors. It premiered on November 10, 1969 and continues to air today. The show is aimed at preschoolers and teaches the audience reading, arithmetic, and other academic lessons in addition to basic life skills.