Mordicus et Moi

Salut, mon petit monstre bleu. Bienvenue chez-moi.

I was recently able to acquire one of my "most wanted" SESAME toys. The superb hand puppet of Mordicus, the French version of Oscar, from 1 RUE SÉSAME. The monsters were always my favorite SESAME muppets.  I remember a number of years ago, when I first started recollecting SESAME stuff, and I spotted a Mordicus puppet in photos of someone else's collection. I thought, "Who is that blue monster! I must have him!" Say hello, Mordicus!

Mordicus, the French Grouch from 1 RUE SÉSAME. Hand-puppet produced by Vicma, 1978.

He is a beautifully made puppet - very much in the style of the original Topper / Educational Toys Puppets; and he's fairly large, pretty much in scale with their Ernie and Bert. He is 12.5" inches tall and his head is big enough to accept an adult hand.

The puppet was produced by Spanish toy company Vicma in 1978 and was sold only in France and Spain. The construction is very similar to the first generation American puppets  with one big twist: Mordicus's head and neck is thick flexible sky-blue rubber, perhaps most similar to the Ernie hand puppet's head. Mordicus's nose and ears are part of the sky-blue rubber "skull" and they protrude thru slits in the darker blue fake fur puppet body. Thus Mordicus is in some ways similar to the Topper and Child Guidance Grover puppet that was made of blue fake fur over a plastic skull cap with protruding pink nose. But the Grover puppets didn't have a one-piece, fully formed skull and neck made of thick rubber.

The "real" Mordicus with Trepido the Snail & Toccata (the French Big Bird).

On 1 RUE SÉSAME, Mordicus lives in a trash can like Oscar. He also plays the saxaphone and is part of a singing group. Mordicus is performed by Georges Mosca, though his singing voice is sometimes dubbed by Denis Demoulin.

J'espère que Mordicus et moi serai de grands amis.

One of Mordicus's French record albums.