Do you think Bert and Oscar are too much alike?

[BooberFraggless]

This is something Iv'e always noticed. Bert and Oscar have very similar personalities. They both are grouchy, they both yell a lot, they both don't like games or parties or anything fun. They both have rather bizzare interests, and they both have one eye brow. I always wondered why Bert was made the way he was because he was even more like Oscar in the show's early days. I always figured they already had a grouch on Sesame Street, so what was the whole purpose of making Bert the way he was? I just think these charachters are very similar, and while Bert isn't a Grouch Grouch (Like Grungetta and the rest of Oscar's pals) he's still a Grouch! LOL I think this also may be the reason why over the years we haven't seen a whole lot of interaction with Oscar and Bert. I mean all they could really do is annoy each other.

 

[BEAR]

I must disagree with you. Yes, Bert can be a little angry sometimes, but it is because he lives with Ernie's antics. Bert likes games and parties and having fun. Where did you get the opposite idea? He is just a little strange. He is stiff and anal, but still enjoys the company of others. He's just an overly sensitive nerd. He doesn't like annoying people or making others angry or irritated. He doesn't get a kick out of seeing others miserable. Bert's a nice guy.

 

[Ziffel]

Yeah I agree with Bear. Bert is a nice guy who mainly only gets angry when Ernie brings it on. Bert always does real well with others, including the human adults and children whereas Oscar is just grouchy without any provocation or instigation. Bert is indeed sensitive and thus probably a little more prone to get annoyed at negative circumstances than others would be. Which is why, for instance, they had Bert with Grover when Grover botched his line at Prairie Dawn's play. Bert reacted with high frustration since they had rehearsed it and it was a real simple line that Grover should have had (he said bellybuttons instead of ears) whereas Ernie probably would have responded a little more mellow like, "Aw Grover, I thought you'd get it right."
As for Bert not liking games or parties, remember that he does indeed enjoy these things (like when they all threw him a surprise party he said he was "so happy" and he and Ernie play checkers, basketball, touch football, etc. together. I think it's just that Bert often prefers his more obscure and unusual hobbies (like bottlecaps, paper clips, pigeons) to the games and parties that Ernie is almost always in the mood for.
So I think there is a slight similarity between Oscar and Bert but that the two are overall very different and distinct characters. Kind of like Ernie and Cookie Monster. Both love cookies. Both love to eat. But they are clearly very distinct from each other in many other ways.
One final point: Remember when a few times when Ernie was sad, like when Ernie felt he wasn't special and when Ernie wanted to play baseball but it was raining outside? Bert was very comforting, caring, and empathetic to Ernie. He is indeed a nice guy. I think Oscar doesn't quite have it in him to be able to soothe someone depressed like that. But we still all love Oscar, of course. He's still a good guy at heart deep down (perhaps WAY deep down).

 

[DerekJ]

Yeah I agree with Bear. Bert is a nice guy who mainly only gets angry when Ernie brings it on. Bert always does real well with others, including the human adults and children whereas Oscar is just grouchy without any provocation or instigation. Bert is indeed sensitive and thus probably a little more prone to get annoyed at negative circumstances than others would be. Which is why, for instance, they had Bert with Grover when Grover botched his line at Prairie Dawn's play. Bert reacted with high frustration since they had rehearsed it and it was a real simple line that Grover should have had (he said bellybuttons instead of ears) whereas Ernie probably would have responded a little more mellow like, "Aw Grover, I thought you'd get it right."

Basically, each belong to their own subculture:
Oscar is one of the Grouches, which is its own (Sesame-fictional) NYC species-minority just like Monsters and Birds, and as such, enjoys raining on people's parades...That's what Grouches do.
(They even have their own National Anthem, as we see in "Follow That Bird".)

Bert, OTOH, is as average-nice as any other chap, but just...terminally dull:
Somewhere out in the world there are other peers who find joy in pigeons, bottle-caps, marching-band music and the letter W--and who can't quite pick up on the jokes of more fun-loving folk like Ernie--and we will thankfully leave Bert to them.

 

[Censored]

I think everyone has some good points here. Initially, Bert was in fact a lot more like Oscar in that he could be very grouchy. The first episode is an excellent example of that. And while many people know Bert as the fun-loving guy who enjoys games and parties, originally I don't think that's what his character was like. In the first season (and possibly second) Bert seemed to act just like a grumpy adult who wanted to read his newspaper, be left alone and wasn't interested in any of Ernie's "Meatball games" (meatball was a common name for dumb in the late sixties/early seventies). Even Bert's original appearance had more of a grumpy face. Gradually, they began to give Bert more personality and bizarre interests and developed him into an all around lovable guy who just gets annoyed sometimes.

So yes, if you judged Bert only by the early episodes, I can easily see where he and Oscar could be considered very similar. But, if you look at the more definitive Bert from the mid seventies on, he has an identity all his own.

One way that Bert was NEVER like Oscar is that Bert liked his apartment to be neat and clean; Oscar liked to live in filth and sloppiness. In a very early skit, Bert told Ernie that if he didn't clean up the apartment, he was going to move in with Oscar because "even his trash can is cleaner than this." In a later episode, Bert actually did move in with Oscar and tried to throw away all of Oscar's trash and clean up the can.

 

[Kimp the Shrimp]

i think bert is just bthered alot my freinds dad is just like him

 

[BEAR]

I even think that it is genius on Carroll Spinney's and the writer's part to make Oscar a sympathetic character despite his grouchiness. If we couldn't feel for him, he wouldn't be so likeable and therefore be gone from the show altogether.

 

[Censored]

Bert's always been my favorite in any form.

 

[Censored]

This thread reminds me of what I had Oscar say about Ernie and Bert in a piece of fan fiction I wrote. In my story, Oscar said that Bert was too neat to be a grouch and Ernie was too cheerful to be one. However, between Ernie's messiness and Bert's complaining, together they make a good grouch.




Here's the song I wrote for Oscar:

Oscar (Singing a new song. This song might have a cheering type of
tune):

Ernie and Bert are a pair,

Loved by grouches everywhere,

Cause they make such grouchy noise.


Bert screams and makes a scene.

As Ernie keeps their place unclean,

When he scatters all his toys.




Now, Ernie's much too nice,

With all his silly vice,

To be a grouch all by himself.

And Bert is just so clean,

He's like a neatness fiend,

Always dusting off the shelf.



But, put them both together,

And they're grouches of a feather,

Bert screams while Ernie tracks in the dirt.



They're a grouch's dream come true,

As long as they are two,

THREE GROUCHY CHEERS FOR ERNIE AND

BERT_______!





Whole story:

http://forum.muppetcentral.com/showthread.php?t=8922&highlight="Oscar+canned"

 

[SesameMike]

W lover

Note that Bert was elected president of the local chapter of the National Association of W Lovers. Can you imagine Oscar being elected to such a post? Sergeant-at-arms maybe, but I doubt he'd even be a member in the first place -- how many things does Oscar actually "love" that aren't dirty, dingy, dusty, ragged, rotten, or rusty?

One area where they are/were similar is where Ernie wants to play a game of some sort, and Bert only begrudgingly agrees to go along. Oscar will reluctantly agree to a "fun" activity once in awhile but will often "dirty it up" somehow, the prime example being the Alphabet Game with Grover where he used mostly ugly words and ended it with an insult "Yucky and a great big Zeroooo!" (And at the beginning he did a sarcastic "I don't want to play". He did something remarkably similar as a contestant on Guy Smiley's "Trading Game" -- or was Sonny Friendly still hosting?) But there are just as many times when Bert happily agrees to something fun, like the "La la la..." song for example; terms like "lightbulb" and "linoleum" may not really be pretty words, but they're not quite ugly either.