Sesame Seeds (Episode 15): Rosita

 

Hola amigos, and welcome back to Sesame Seeds, the series where we look at the progression of a Sesame Street character from humble beginnings to the present day.

You may have noticed I greeted you in Spanish. Well, that’s because today, we’re looking at Rosita *La Monstrua De Las Cuevas* (*The Monster Of The Caves*)

Now Rosita is a young monster from Mexico, who’s been used to help kids learn many things about hispanic culture, but she went through a few changes, before she could get to where she is now.

Before her creation, there was one notable hispanic muppet: (not counting the characters from Plaza Sesamo) Osvaldo the Grouch, a local that Oscar met and befriended in season 11, when he and the cast took a trip to Puerto Rico.

But in the early 90s, Jim Henson wanted to come up with a new character of latin descent that would actually become a major player, but being that he himself wasn’t from latin descent, he figured he was gonna need some help, and he found some in the form of Carmen Osbahr, the newest edition to the muppeteer cast at the time.

Together, the two brainstormed ideas on who this character was and what she would look like. They decided not to go for a native animal because they feared it would be politically incorrect. And after Jim’s death, Carmen continued to develop the character with help from the creative team, and not only that, but she would get the opportunity to become her puppeteer, starting with her debut episode, episode 2888 of season 23.

In this episode, we would get to know Rosita (named after one of Miss Osbahr’s friends) as a young, female, cyan fur colored monster who was proud of her spanish heritage, but was also rather overly-affectionate and eager to please.

Rosita also had wings, courtesy of her builder Ed Christie, and while she couldn’t fly with them, she was able to glide like a flying squirrel. Though, much like Super Grover, she can never quite stick the landing.

Rosita quickly gained popularity and became one of the main monsters the new seasons liked to focus on, along with Elmo, Telly and Zoe.

When the 2000s rolled around, Rosita’s popularity would continue to grow. In episode 3794, Luis taught her how to play the guitar, which is something we’d see her do a lot of as the series went on.

In season 33, a segment was introduced called “The Spanish Word Of The Day”, to help kids learn about spanish words and what they meant in english, and Rosita was one of the four characters who would usually host this segment, along with Maria, Gabi and Grover. In one segment, we even got to see her whole family.

In season 35, Rosita got a redesign and lost her wings. Apparently it was a merchandising decision, which is weird, considering Rosita doesn’t really have that much merch anyway.

But later in a ToughPigs interview, Rosita gave an in-universe explanation for her wing loss. She and her family were relocating during a storm, and due to the wind, Rosita’s wings blew off. But don’t worry, it wasn’t a painful process.

Something else notable to go over is when Gina adopted Marco, Rosita was one of the characters she turned to to help Marco learn more about his latin heritage. Which helped make great episodes like episode 4262, and cute musical numbers, like this one below.

Then in 2008, she got a more serious storyline. In the resource video “Talk, Listen, Connect: Changes”, we learn that Rosita’s dad is part of the military and was deployed to a far away place. He returns home in a wheelchair, and Rosita has to learn to manage the changes that come with that.

Rosita continued to make regular appearances each season, usually alongside Elmo, or the other two significant girl muppets, Abby and Zoe.

This continued to be the case in the HBO era, where while Rosita wasn’t one of the six core characters the show wanted to focus on, she was still one of the most frequent presences on the show.

Then, when 2020 rolled around, and racism was brought to the forefront of people’s minds, Rosita was a major player in the Sesame productions made during this time, since she was a character from a minority race. As you can see from the videos below.

You’ll also notice that Rosita has wings again. I’m assuming that they just took a really long time to grow back, but I digress.

Anyway, with the things season 52 is teasing, something tells me Rosita is still gonna have a lot of things to do, as the show continues.

Rosita was around when I was little, but I didn’t really notice her until I was around maybe six or seven, and even then, she wasn’t really a character I really paid attention to that much. But now, I have a better appreciation for her, especially compared to other forgeign characters.

Rosita isn’t primarily used for foreign jokes like Raj from The Big Bang Theory or Rolf from Ed, Edd n Eddy, and the writers don’t lean heavily on her country of origin like Nia from Thomas and Friends or Dora the Explorer. It’s her loving personality that helps her stand out among her co-stars. Her being mexican is just a bonus. I’m not saying the other examples I mentioned are bad, it’s just Rosita is better, because she feels like a more fleshed-out being.

Then again, most of that is attributed to Carmen Osbahr’s wonderful and real performance. There are episodes and videos where Rosita feels sad or hurt, and because Miss Osbahr plays her so straight, you buy it.

Rosita also helps young kids who happen to be from latin descent themselves feel noticed, they see a bit of their life, whenever Rosita is on screen. And she also helps not-latin kids who don’t know about spanish stuff learn more about it, so they can learn to appreciate it more.

Bottom line, Rosita is a muy importante member of Sesame Street, and we’re a little bit better because of her.

Well, we've reached the end of another episode, so I only have one thing left to say: