What’s Inside Oscar’s Trash Can?

In Sesame Street, one of the most intriguing things that you will see is the trash can owned by Oscar the Grouch. It is located between the Big Bird’s Nest and the 123 Sesame Street. Just like many of the cartoons during that time period such as the TARDIS of Doctor Who and the classic clown cars used in Snoopy’s Doghouse, the trash can owned by Oscar is much bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. On the inside, there are a number of luxuries and amenities relating to the Grouch that are placed within the seemingly bottomless trash can.

When the show was first aired, some of the first few episodes of season one showed that the trash can were set beside a wooden crate on the top of a big blue crate. In the season that aired in 1974, the perch of the crate was redesigned and a larger burlap crate was used to replace the older trunk and a barrel was used to form the base of the trash can. In the surrounding area, more garbage cans appeared, as well as a trash bag and a pail for collecting garbage. In one of the episodes aired in the 1975 season, Oscar is shown to be installing an Olympic sized swimming pool inside his trash can, which shows the overall size of the trash can from the inside.

A book published in 1989 by the name of ‘What’s in Oscar’s Trash Can? And Other Bedtime Stories’ mentions the presence of an ice skating rink within the trash can as well as the Olympic sized swimming pool. It is also written in the book that Oscar’s trash can had a bowling alley installed inside too. As mentioned by Sesame Street Unpaved, Oscar’s Trash Can also has a grand piano, a hearth and a train set as well as an art gallery. The Train Set is known as the Grouch Central Station.

Oscar has a number of different pets, with whom he shares his trash can. His pets include a horse, a number of goats, a dolphin, elephants, and Slimey, which is his favorite pet, and is a worm. Frequent visitors within the trash can include Grundgetta and Irvine, who are relatives of Grouch. In most of the cases, very few people of the residents living on Sesame Street generally venture in to Oscar’s Trash Can.

The first time that the inside of Oscar’s Trash Can was shown was in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. There is a separate door that Oscar has placed within his trash can in order to take people to Grouchland USA. In episode 3997, the inside of Oscar’s Trash Can was again shown on screen, but this time, it was more in line with a standard trash can than a huge house with an assortment of luxuries. Oscar has also managed to cut holes in the bottom of his trash can, so he is also able to walk with the trash can around.