Ossie Ostrich

Who is Ossie Ostrich?

Ossie Ostrich is an Australian television character, firstly on the Tarax Show, and then on the long-running program Hey Hey It's Saturday which started as a Saturday morning cartoon show for children in 1971. In 1984, he also hosted an after-school children's show called The Ossie Ostrich Video Show, with co-host Jacki MacDonald. In October 2009, Ossie appeared on the second Hey Hey It's Saturday reunion special and made regular appearances during the show's 2010 revival series.

Ossie is a good-natured pink ostrich puppet that sported a light blue mohawk hairstyle. Ossie formed a comic duo with the host of Hey Hey, Daryl Somers.

Producer Ernie Carroll, an experienced comedy writer who had worked for Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight, resurrected a puppet used for an earlier GTV-9 children's program "packed away in a dusty suitcase in the GTV props bay."

Typically, Ossie would provide the comic foil to Somers' straight man. Somers sometimes retaliated by calling Ossie names like 'Fiberglass Head', but he also had more affectionate names, like his 'pink, feathered beakie'. The comic skill of Somers and Carroll was instrumental in leading to the wider appeal of the show and its move to a prime time spot on Saturday evening.