I’ve been researching this morning, in order to clear up some confusion regarding Aloysius Snuffleupagus. Also known as Mr Snuffleupagus or Snuffy, I have for years thought he was Big Bird’s imaginary friend; a clever take on the idea of the elephant in the middle of the room.
Snuffy originally debuted on Sesame Street in 1971, and for 14 years, his status as a real being was a bit ambiguous. Generally, Big Bird was the only one who would interact with Snuffy. When someone else came close to seeing him, Snuffy would conveniently slip away out of sight, making it appear as if Mr Snuffleupagus was a figment of Big Bird’s imagination.
In 1985, on the 17th season premiere everything changed. The other SS residents set out to prove to Big Bird that Snuffy was not real. They set a clever and complicated ruse where they yelled ‘food’ and Snuffy came out, thinking that he was going to be able to get his eat on. According to wikipedia Snuffy was finally introduced to the human cast mainly due to a string of high profile and sometimes graphic stories of sexual abuse of children. The writers felt that by having the adults refuse to believe Big Bird despite the fact that he was telling the truth, they were scaring children into thinking that their parents would not believe them if they had been sexually abused and that they would just be better off remaining silent.
Since then the Snuffy story has grown. He now has a sister named Alice, and parents, and he attends Snufflegarten. In 1992, a Snuffy-centric episode was filmed (but never aired) called ‘Snuffy’s Parents Get Divorced’.
Comments
Yes I think thats how he started out. And it seemed so improbable to have an enormous wolly mammoth as an imaginary friend. Henson was awesome :)
Aw, but it was nice that he was Big Bird’s imaginary friend. Wasn’t the idea behind that the imaginary aspect of the character that it’s OK to have an imaginary friend?