Aart Staartjes (1 March 1938 – 12 January 2020) was a Dutch actor, director, television presenter and documentary maker from Amsterdam.

After graduation from the Toneelschool, Staartjes performed with various companies including the Nieuw Rotterdams Toneel en Studio.

De Stratemakeropzeeshow, created with actors-singers Wieteke van Dort and Joost Prinsen, and the writers' collective of Willem Wilmink, Karel Eykman, and Hans Dorrestijn, was a program firmly grounded on a children's perspective, sometimes controversially so, and ran until 1974.

[3] The show did not eschew using colloquial language; "Poop and Pee Minuet", for instance, was criticized in the tabloid De Telegraaf.

He played the role of Hein Gatje, a postman who delivers letters in which children write of their problems and predicaments, which are tackled on the show.

[3] In 1984, Staartjes started to play the role of Meneer Aart on Sesamstraat, the Dutch co-production of Sesame Street.

Meneer Aart is a grumpy elderly man who always has something to complain about, especially about the animal characters Pino, Tommie and Ieniemienie.

After the death in 1999 of Lex Goudsmit, who played the resident "grandfather" character on the show, Meneer Aart filled that role.