Spoiler Alert, My Dearies...

Oscar The Grouch, from the beginning of his creation through today, has been and continues to be orange, not green...Yes, orange. But for almost 30 years he has been perfectly miserable, which of course is the happiest state in which he can be, having everyone think the Fur-or of Trash really was green from head to toe. And we bought it. I mean, he loves trash, he lives in a trash can, and technically he recycles absolutely everything so of course he must be "green"!! So generations of children have blindly thought, if it walks like a green grouch and talks like a green grouch then it must be a, well, very green grouch. But there was something that smelled a little fishy to me about the king of all grouches -- especially when I caught a glimpse of Sesame Street the other day and his segment was all about how much happier/unhappier he was when people weren’t around to trash his gloriously miserable day. 
 But then there was no one around. And Oscar The Grouch appeared to become almost Oscar the Lonely for a moment. Was there something different about his ratty brown eyebrow? Did his fur somehow straighten itself as if he became yet another male celeb who found solace in a flattening iron? Did I actually think I saw what appeared to be, dare I say, a nose? Whatever the signs, it made me want to dig deeper into the trashy life of the Mean of Green. In chapter nine of the book “The Wisdom of Big Bird,” Caroll Spinney (the voice of Oscar) says early sketches by Jim Henson of the Trash-Loving character were purple but the original incarnation that first hit TV screens was orange -- from head to toe...or hoof...whatever he has. However, another version was built about a month after Sesame Street had started taping, and for Season 2 from the heap of orange puppet debris came Oscar, the new Green Grouch. And although “Darren Stevens” from Bewitched and Roseanne’s oldest daughter experienced the bait and switch of two actors in the same role without any explanation, the new Oscar explained to the world why there was such a drastic change in the same character. And apparently he had a fantastic publicist because his first public appearance after the word was out was in 1970 on the very popular “The Flip Wilson Show” ... this show that starred an African-American man who liked to dress in women’s clothing had as one of its guests a puppet who was to come on national TV and explain the color of his skin, um, fur. Can you imagine that happening today?

And here was the explanation: Oscar had been on hiatus from shooting the show and was vacationing at Camp Mushy Muddy. To his surprise the dampness of the mildewy spot had turned his orange fur to green. Imagine a redheaded actress in Hollywood giving a similar rationale for becoming a sudden bleached blond (as if that would ever be the case, my goodness!). But you know what? In 1970 we bought it. We painted over the fact that deep down he wasn’t green at all. But now that I think about it, it was Kermit NOT Oscar who got to sing the iconic song “It Ain’t Easy Being Green.” Why not Oscar? Top billing? Bigger star? I mean wouldn’t the joke really have been on us if it were the bottled-green Oscar who got to sing “The Rainbow Connection” instead of the frog?! It’s funny ‘cause it’s true. All I know is whoever made the call to have him on "The Flip Wilson Show" to unveil his new fur was way ahead of his or her time. Most PR people who have been -- yes I'm going to say it -- green with envy.