Recalling Muppet Donald Grump
The character is always the villain in a moral allegory when he shows up on Sesame Street, writes Avi Selk.
EPISODE I — GRUMP CONS A MUPPET INTO SIGNING A DRACONIAN CONTRACT
Like Trump, Grump’s ambitions started out big and got huge. He first appears in the late 1980s — a grouch in a tacky fedora (and then named Ronald) knocking on Oscar’s iconic trash can to offer a deal.
“Grump’s the name. Ronald Grump,” he says. “And I’m a grouch builder.”
That was Trump’s fame too, then. The original Trump Tower in New York had opened a few years earlier.
Grump shows Oscar a rendering of six trash cans stacked on top of each other. “Grump Tower,” he says. “It’s a duplex can-dominium.” Oscar is intrigued.
Grump entices Oscar to sign a contract — essentially bribing him with a free room in the tower and three bags of trash.
But then Grump notices Oscar’s worm and elephant friends living below. “Get ’em out!” he snaps. No pets allowed.
Trump, too, had his tenant issues. In the 1970s, the New York Times notes, the U.S. Justice Department sued him and his father for allegedly refusing to rent to black tenants. The developers settled with the government, admitting no guilt.
Back on Sesame Street, Oscar either has to put Slimy and Fluffy out on the street, go homeless or pay Grump 40 bags of trash to get his old can back. Oscar is saved only when his friends cobbled together their own trash bags to pay off Grump and get rid of his tower.
EPISODE II — SESAME STREET GETS POLITICAL
“Real estate tycoon Ronald Grump has announced plans to demolish Sesame Street and create a lavish new Grump Tower,” a dire Barbara Walters announces in 1994, at the beginning of the show’s 25th-anniversary special.
It had been years since Grump had last shown his face on the block. Now he’s pitching his plan to build a combination tower, restaurant and theme park. Historic Sesame Street would be turned into a boutique in the lobby.
“Trust me, you won’t miss all this,” says Grump — then flies into a rage at the first sign of dissent.
Over the course of the episode, Grump physically intimidates Benny Rabbit and sort of hits on a reporter played by Julia LouisDreyfus. Finally, Big Bird recalls Sesame Street’s greatness and leads all the residents in a march down to stop Grump.
EPISODE III — GRUMP PITS THE MUPPETS AGAINST EACH OTHER
More than 10 years went by after the special. In the real world, Trump made his first flirtations with politics and began honing his image as the severe host of Celebrity Apprentice.
In 2005, his likeness returned to Sesame Street, now called “Donald Grump” in an orange wig. As he always does, Grump sows division on Sesame Street. He enlists the muppets into a contest to become his helper, making them compete with each other to perform menial tasks, like sorting his old sneakers.
When a pair of grouches’ performance displeases him, Grump tells them to leave Sesame Street.
The contest narrows to a matchup between Elmo, Oscar and his girlfriend, Grundgetta.
Elmo works the hardest and wins all the events. In a fit of cruelty, Grump cuts him anyway.
He chooses as his apprentices the two other grouches. Because, he explained, they were caustic and ineffective at their jobs.
“I’ve got a reputation to think of,” Grump says.
Sesame Street has a history of vicious takedowns of Donald Trump, which span three decades leading up to his political rise.
Trump is depicted as a grouch — monsters who base their culture and economy around garbage. Best known of these is of course Oscar the Grouch, so when “Donald Grump” appears in a 2005 episode as a badly toupéed muppet “whose name equals trash,” that’s not necessarily an insult.
Now Trump, as U.S. president, wants to cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund PBS, which first brought Sesame Street to life. A new video going viral online imagines Elmo getting fired due in PBS budget cuts. It shows an unseen man delivering the news and Elmo doesn’t take it well, complaining he’s worked at Sesame Street for 32 years.
There are three original episodes in which “Grump” has appeared, each time the villain in a moral allegory. There may be no link between these skits and Trump’s budget proposal. He is not the first U.S. president to try to cut public broadcasting funds. And because the show now airs on HBO, Trump’s plan is unlikely to destroy Sesame Street, as Grump tried so hard to do.
Trump is depicted as a grouch — monsters who base their ... economy around garbage.