Oscar the Grouch is a Muppet character created by Jim Henson and Jon Stone for the PBS/HBO children's television program Sesame Street.

Eric Jacobson began understudying for the character in 2015, and in 2018 officially became the primary performer of the role following Spinney's retirement.

Muppets creator Jim Henson wanted them to be integrated into the series, suggesting a giant bird and also a creature living in the neighborhood's trash can.

Puppeteer Caroll Spinney found inspiration for the voice in the driver of a New York City taxi he took to the studio.

In the early 1960s, Henson and Stone often had lunch there and observed that the owner, Oscar Karp, dressed in black, looked unkempt, and had a gruff disposition.

[1][2] The Oscar Muppet was orange for the first season of Sesame Street and then changed to green, which remained his permanent color.

[3]: 59 According to Sesame Street's Robert W. Morrow, Oscar was created to indirectly demonstrate racial and ethnic diversity.

[4] In the early Sesame Street development there was criticism that Oscar represented residents of inner city who had grown to accept injustice unchallenged, whilst other observers perceived Oscar to be a negative impression of African-Americans even though the Sesame Workshop did not intend the character to be a representation of black people.

Spinney continued to provide Oscar's voice on the series for seasons 46 and 47, as well as select commercials, online videos, and the special Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas.

On occasional episodes he has mentioned leaving Sesame Street to attend "the annual Grouch convention in Syracuse, New York".

When a fire destroyed the costume in 1988, a decade after he debuted, he and American segments of Oscar were both replaced by a Grouch named Rumpel.

Other Grouches include Bodoque on Mexico's Plaza Sésamo, Pancho Contreras, technically a monster, on US Spanish version, Gugu on Brazil's Vila Sesamo, Kırpık on Turkey's Susam Sokağı, Ferrão on Portugal's Rua Sésamo, and Kewal Khadoosa on India's Galli Galli Sim Sim.

Oscar made what he called "a very brief cameo" in the 1981 Jim Henson movie The Great Muppet Caper.

The hack was so popular that some parents lost the entire contents of their hard disks to preschoolers wanting to see more of Oscar,[8] prompting Shapiro to create a stand-alone application using the same animation and sounds.

[10] The fumetti comic Twisted Toyfare Theatre once featured Oscar in an issue in which he sings a variation of his "I Love Trash" song about Wesley Snipes' movies.

On May 29, 2009, Oscar the Grouch appeared in an ABC television special on economics called Un-broke: What You Need to Know About Money.

Beyond talking about his time on Sesame Street, his love for trash and recycling, Oscar revealed that his father is actually from Saint David, New Brunswick and his mother grew up in Nova Scotia, thus making him of Canadian descent.

In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Oscar reveals that he would still be orange if he bathed; his green exterior is apparently moss.

On an episode of Cake Boss, Buddy and his bakers visited Sesame Street, and Danny could be seen inside Oscar's trash can.

His second favorite dessert is mashed bananas with ice cubes and cold beef gravy, and in Season 12, he owns a car called "The Sloppy Jalopy".

The October 12, 2019 episode of season 45 of Saturday Night Live, hosted by David Harbour, included a sketch presenting the origin story of Oscar the Grouch in a Joker spoof.