Grouchland USA

Grouchland USA, "the land of a thousand stenches", is the hometown of Oscar the Grouch in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. Prior to the film, in a Sesame Street episode from the 90s, Bob visited Grouchland, a neighborhood which was the opposite of Sesame Street. In the film, however, the only known way to get to Grouchland, despite apparently being in America, is through a swirling door portal in Oscar's trash can. Visitors are then deposited, through a pipe, onto a pile of trash bags, the gateway to Grouchland. Grouchland is ostensibly run by a Grouch Mayor.

Grouch Architecture
Grouchland is a teeming metropolis, populated solely by Grouches, littered with trash, ranging from small, messy piles to huge mounds. Trash is not just on the streets as trash, however. A living embodiment of the saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure," Grouchland incorporates trash of all kinds into the very fabric of the city's architecture and economy. Trash is prized as better than "good" stuff. The buildings are tall but lopsided, resembling stylized versions of the worst urban tenements. Though many Grouches still appear to live in cans, many of the buildings also serve as homes, sporting tilted jigsaw-like windows, crooked doors, and a teetering floor placed on top of another. The entire city skyline is angular and juts in odd directions. Cars and garbage trucks drive to and fro, adding to the smog, and the occasional Grouch Dog wanders the street (while a Grouch parrot is on display in the marketplace). Oscar also nostalgically mentions the old septic tank.

Grouch Commerce
Grouchland's business district is a thriving marketplace of shops and services, most of them centered around trash or general Grouch surliness.

Storefronts include the Book Dumpster, the Wilting Rose florists, the Car Mess, the Tone Deaf music shop, Bad Humor Man's ice cream cart, and a restaurant called The Rotten Egg. Patrons can buy a quart of muck or a glass of Icky Yuckee at the Inconvenience Store. The bank of Grouchland is the First Savings and Leave Us Alone, while female grouches can receive a make-over at the Ugly Parlor. For entertainment, the local cinema plays such movies as Basically It Stinks starring the Grouch celebrity Sharon Groan. Most of the Sesame Street visitors find accommodation at the Grouchland Jail.

Outside of the city itself, surrounding environs include a forest teeming with rather grouchy animals and such locales as the steep Mount Pickanose, Huxley's castle, and Da Dump, the domain of the Queen of Trash and a kingdom all to itself.

Behind the Scenes
Grouchland, like many other Muppet sets, relies heavily on forced perspective, creating an enormous landscape, vast in relation to the Grouches and other Muppets, but still able to accommodate human visitors. Wide camera angles and other techniques made the space seem more open.

Design consultant Val Strazovec was largely responsible for the essential design and look of Grouchland, and discussed his approach in the film's production notes: "At first, they thought I had gone too far with Grouchland. They envisioned a real town with the trash being the trash, but I said 'no, no, no, this is such an opportunity to show something that isn't tradition. The whole thing should be as grouchy as those who live there.' Grouchland is about crankiness and fun. I thought, let's make it look silly, make it look funny. Almost like a child would draw, with crazy angles. It was crooked. The foundations were real but we twisted them."

In addition to specially fabricated Grouch houses and props, actual trash was a vital ingredient. The props department visited flea markets and other places, collecting 10 truckloads of suitable trash.