He’s by far the grittiest character on Sesame Street, but is Oscar the Grouch ready for the Joker treatment?
Saturday Night Live’s 12 October episode saw the moody Muppet starring in a fake film trailer parodying Joker’s dark anti-hero origin story.
The fictional Grouch — “from director Todd Phillips and the writer of P is for Potty!,” a narrator intones — sees this week’s host, Stranger Things star David Harbour, playing a grumpy, trash-fetishising garbage man who bemoans the “hookers and pimps on every corner” of, yes, Sesame Street.
Sure enough, Kenan Thompson’s Snuffleupagus appears as a tough-talking pimp laying down the law for Prairie Dawn, while Ernie gets slashed trying to protect his rubber duckie from a mugger, much to pal Bert’s horror. The Count turns to drugs, Big Bird starts stripping, Cookie Monster panhandles and Elmo gets hauled into a cop car.
It all makes Oscar ... “grouchy.”
Read more: Could Joker win big at the Oscars?
“If everyone calls you trash, everyone treats you like trash, why don’t you just become trash?”
Harbour’s Oscar explains to his therapist as a montage shows him painting himself green, hoisting a black garbage bag over his shoulder and stepping into a bin.
“Brought to you by the letter ‘R,’” the parody mimics Joaquin Phoenix’s transformation from downtrodden Arthur Fleck into the Joker, complete with a shimmy down a staircase and a jazzy suit.
But while Joker continues to dominate the box office, Grouch sadly won’t see the light of day — unless Phillips feels inspired? With apologies to Harbour, “stranger things” have happened.