Stefan Karl Stefansson
Played Robbie Rotten in the children’s TV series Lazytown
STEFAN KARL STEFANSSON, the Icelandic actor, who has died of cancer aged 43, played the villainous junk-food fanatic Robbie Rotten in the multiple award-winning children’s television series Lazytown, which has been broadcast in more than 180 countries.
The series, a colourful mix of live action, CGI animation and puppets, music and movement, first aired in Britain on Cbeebies in 2006. It had been created in Iceland by Magnus Scheving, a former athlete turned entrepreneur who had become concerned about the growing problem of childhood obesity in his country.
Lazytown featured Sportacus (played by Scheving), a Lycra-clad, extravagantly moustachioed superhero who lives in an airship, performs somersaults at the drop of a hat and spends his time thwarting the dastardly schemes of his antagonist Robbie Rotten, a Jim Carrey-lookalike who wants children to eat junk food and take no exercise so that he can live in peace.
The only other “human” character is Stephanie, a pink-haired eight-year old, played by Julianna Rose Mauriello, through whose adventures, in which she has to choose between doing what is easiest (eat sweets, slob out in front of the telly) or what is best (eat carrots, take exercise), children are encouraged to learn.
Lazytown began as a book, and then a stage show, before being made into a television series which ran originally between 2004 and 2008 and was revived in 2013. A trained puppeteer who had attended the Drama Academy of Iceland, Stefansson first appeared in the stage version in 1999 before being cast in the television adaptation commissioned by Nickelodeon.
In Iceland Lazytown really made its presence felt in the autumn of 2004, when the government joined forces with Scheving to launch the Lazytown Energ y Book. This encouraged children to sign a month-long contract with their parents in which they scored points for eating fruit and vegetables, brushing their teeth and making their beds. They lost points for scoffing sweets and junk food.
Every four- to seven-yearold in the country took part; sales of fizzy drinks plunged by 16 per cent, while sales of fruit and vegetables – or “sports candy’’ as they were known in the show – rose by 22 per cent. Icelandic children were even reported to be demanding to go to bed at exactly 8.08pm, because that was Sportacus’s bedtime.
The show’s effectiveness – Iceland’s chief medical officer credited it with reversing the upward trend in childhood obesity – was down to its fun, nonpreachy approach. Ironically, perhaps, in his determined efforts to trounce his chisel-faced hero adversary, as Robbie Rotten Stefánsson became one of Lazytown’s most active citizens.
Stefan Karl Stefansson was born on July 10 1975 and began his career as a puppeteer for television. As well as his role in Lazytown, he performed on stage in Iceland in everything from Shakespeare to Little Shop of Horrors.
Later on he moved to Los Angeles where, between 2008 and 2015, he played the title role in a touring production of the musical based on Dr Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
In October 2016 Stefansson revealed that he had been diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer of the bile duct, and a crowdfunding campaign was launched by his colleagues on Lazytown to pay his living costs when he became too ill to work.
He underwent surgery and the cancer went into remission, but it returned earlier this year and proved to be inoperable.
He is survived by his wife, Steinunn Olina, an actress and writer, and by three daughters and a son.