Ugliest International Sesame Street Muppets

[Mo Frackle]

With all of the Big Bird clones, I'm sure most kids in other countries were confused about Big Bird's presence in FTB.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

I would say the International Sesame Street Muppets from the 1972 version of Vila Sesamo are the ugliest.

First, there's Garibalo, the residential bird of Vila Sesamo. He seems to be a rip-off of the original Big Bird from the American Sesame Street. Gugu, the grouch, seems to have a creepy and ugly face, which would scare little children.
Heck, is Funga Funga, the red elephant, supposed to be the Brazilian counterpart of Mr. Snuffleupagus?

And last but not least, there's Ze Das Latas, which means "Ze of Cans" in English. He's the robot of Vila Sesamo. Doesn't he look like the CDA from Monsters Inc?

Overall, Vila Sesamo seems to be the ugliest co-production of Sesame Street ever. And please, don't look at any Vila Sesamo pictures or videos before going to sleep. They will give you the chills.

Gugu is really ugly, but the others are not that bad. I like the red elephant the best.

 

[mupcollector1]

I noticed in the current international Sesame Street co-productions, some of the main characters are appearing on them now like Elmo, Big Bird and Grover. I was just curious how everyone felt about that. I'm sort of happy that kids from other countries would get to see Grover speaking in their language but at the same time, the classic footage is dubbed anyway. So I really don't have much of an opinion about it. Muppets TV (The Muppet Show that was going to be made in France), completely different story in my opinion.

I used to watch some of the Plaza Sesamo episodes. I've seen the Israel Sesame from a Video I rented from Blockbuster once. I heard the videos are on DVD now, I'd love to get them. I love the Oofnick Goodbye song. The music is good and for some reason. A broken car, outside a city and night with two Grouch's singing a rock song with this weird smoke blasting everywhere cracks me up, it's very entertaining. Was that song only in one video or was that the official ending of the show at the time, was it ever released in audio version? I like Moishe Oofnick.
. I seen a video online with him and Oscar being interviewed, it looked very recent.

While searching for those clips, I found this. http://www.shalomlife.com/news/1782...oscar-the-grouch-the-face-of-war-preparation/
Was there going to be another Sesame but the plans got canceled, I remember reading that? I won't get too much into this but basicly all I wanted to say is that I think it's very wonderful that Sesame Workshop are not only educated children in these countries but also being a positive source for emotional nuturing during difficult times. I remember hearing about how somewhere, Sesame Street music was being pirated and used as music torcher. And Christopher Cerf collaborated with Sesame Workshop to create new songs for children in those countries. I think it would be just wonderful if every country had their own co-production of Sesame Street, in a way it seem very harmonious. It's kind of what Fraggle Rock as trying to do in a way right?

 

[jcnegron]

With all of the Big Bird clones, I'm sure most kids in other countries were confused about Big Bird's presence in FTB.

Indeed they were confused. Even if the character didn't resemble a bird, like in Mexico, which at the time didn't have a Bird but a Dragon, in the dubbing of FTB they used the local equivalent. I saw that in the Spanish and Portuguese dubs of FTB, who called Big Bird, Abelardo and Garibaldo respectevely.

It's funny how, in the case of all the big birds equivalents, many people, mostly the adults, don't perceive the differences in the characters even if they are, as I said, a complete different animals.
What people perceive, is the characters height, and given that the costumes have the same mechanism of action, they also tend to move similarly, hence they tend to have the same mannerisms.
That is the reason why in Mexico, Abelardo has switched names. Abelardo, the original FB puppet, started as a dragon. When The Dragon was replaced by "Serapio Montoya", the Parrot, adults kept calling him Abelardo. Even thought it was a different animal, had a totally different color scheme, it was manipulated by a different actor, and had a completely different personality, adults kept seeing the same character. So eventually "Serapio Montoya" was renamed "Abelardo" once more. And appears that many people never noticed the switch.

 

[D'Snowth]

I think Sesamstraat also got around the confusion, because American merchandising with our yellow Big Bird would pop up in the Netherlands, yet he would be labeled as Pino, which had people wondering how could Pino be blue and yellow at the same time... I believe, if I'm not mistaken, the people behind Sesamstraat got around the confusion by later saying that the yellow bird was Pino's "Cousin John".

 

[Eziwolf]

Samson from Sesamstrasse is pretty ugly too, in my opinion:

I mean...the SST bears and the Canadian Basil muppets look great, but is this really a bear?

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

Samson from Sesamstrasse is pretty ugly too, in my opinion:

I mean...the SST bears and the Canadian Basil muppets look great, but is this really a bear?

I agree. It does not look like a bear.

 

[FrackleFan2012]

I believe Samson looks like a hedgehog or porcupine rather than a bear.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

I believe Samson looks like a hedgehog or porcupine rather than a bear.

He's ugly too.

 

[Eziwolf]

I'm watching Sesamstrasse right now on TV, when moving Samson looks a bit better, but as a bear he's still really weird.