Grover Puppeteer Frank Oz Is Not Here for Your 'Sesame Street' F-Bomb Theories

Legendary "Sesame Street" puppeteer Frank Oz has had it with the latest social media debate in the spirit of "Laurel or Yanny" where fans are arguing whether or not Grover dropped an f-bomb on the air.

Strange things can happen over a holiday break with so many people on vacation and so many businesses closed or running limited hours. All this downtime gives people plenty of time to get pulled into some pretty wild conspiracy theories, but Oz, who has been the man behind Grover for nearly five decades, is here to set the record straight.

"I've never understood why some people love imagining that, between takes, we screw around with the characters by having them swear or having them use sexual innuendos or putting cigarettes in their mouths and laughing," Oz wrote in response to someone suggesting just that. "We don't. It would be a betrayal of the character's purity."

Believe it or not, some people actually seemed to believe that Grover actually dropped that bomb on the show and it made it to air that way, which would obviously never happen. And according to Oz -- who did admit he was not behind Grover in the clip in question -- it would never happen off-camera, either.

If you've ever had the opportunity to see any of the Muppets ("Sesame Street" or otherwise) in a live setting, the actors who bring them to life never break character. They effectively become the puppet they are embodying, and maintain that personality throughout. The illusion is that important to them and to the power of the characters themselves.

With all of that said, though, it's pretty easy to see why some people might have gotten confused:

As Mark Hamill explained in one of the posts Oz responded to, it's an "audio illusion." If you listen to it expecting the f-bomb, you'll hear it clear as day. You may even struggle to figure out what else he could be saying because it sounds clear as day. That's the beauty of the trick, though, because he isn't saying that at all.

Now, read the following quote and listen again: "That sounds like an excellent idea."

And just like that, the f-bomb fades away into oblivion like it was never there. From here, it depends on your concentration to bring it back. Does this mean people who initially heard the f-bomb without any prompting were somehow looking for it? Or maybe they hear it everywhere, like the kid from "The Sixth Sense" sees (19-year-old spoiler warning) dead people.

Nevertheless, the whole argument looks to have given a good segment of the internet plenty of enjoyment over the holiday break, except for Frank Oz. Check out his reactions below, followed by some of the best responses we could find:

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