Western Animation / Oscar's Orchestra

Clockwise from upper left: Jan and Stan, Rebecca, Monty, Sylvia, Louis, Trevor, Eric, Oscar

“Welcome to a silent future. Where the evil dictator, Thadius Vent, has banned music forever. But a piano is fighting back. A piano called Oscar!”

— The Narrator

Oscar’s Orchestra was an animated British kids' TV show that premiered on September 12, 1995 and ran for 3 seasons on CBBC in the UK. It is set in a dystopian future, in the year 735 squillion, 22 million, 381 thousand, 604, where the evil dictator Thadius Vent rules the world. Under his rule, music has been banned, and Oscar, a talking grand piano, leads the fight to bring music back to the world. Each episode follows the orchestra’s plans to bring music back to the world and Thadius' efforts to destroy the orchestra.

The show is based on an idea by Jan Younghusband, and was produced by Christopher O'Hare, directed by Tony Collingwood and produced by Collingwood & Co.. The show was designed to introduce children to the wonders of classical music.

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Oscar’s Orchestra contains examples of:

• Actor Allusion: In the first two seasons, Oscar was voiced by Dudley Moore, who was both an actor and an extremely accomplished classical and jazz pianist.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: "1812" is a rare example of this happening to a villain- it's Thadius Vent's Ageless Birthday Episode and, as always, his latest scheme to capture Oscar backfires and humiliates him.
• A Dog Named "Dog": "Battle On Ice" introduces Viola the... viola.
• Amazing Technicolor Population:
  • Lucius has green skin, which is lampshaded in the episode “Queen of Sheba”.
    Hannah: What’s with the green face?. . .Take it from me, bug eyes. Cut down on your vegetable intake.
  • In “Soothsayer’s Convention”, Oscar gets temporarily turned into a human with blue skin and naturally blue hair.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: In “Carnival of the Animals”, the orchestra and villains end up being turned into animals, with varying degrees of this trope. While some are more downplayed, such as Eric being a gray-blueish elephant or Rebecca being a gray-white swan, some of them aren’t, such as Oscar being a periwinkle-colored lion.
• Animal Stereotypes:
  • In “Carnival of the Animals”, the orchestra and the villains all at some point got turned into animals.
    • Oscar gets turned into a lion. He’s brave, noble, and a leader. Oscar leads the fight for music against the evil dictator Thadius Vent, which in itself takes a lot of courage due to the horrible punishments given to those he catches. And then you remember Oscar was abused by this guy. Oscar comes up with most of the orchestra’s plans and outsmarts Thadius’s plans to catch them while also genuinely caring about and protecting his orchestra. As seen in episodes like “Hall of the Mountain King” and “A Fight at the Opera”, Oscar will throw himself out as bait in order to draw the enemy’s attention away from his friends without a second thought.
    • Rebecca is turned into a swan, which are thought of as pure. A good example of Rebecca embodying purity is seen in the first episode, “The Battle Begins”. Though she has no knowledge of the fight, she's approached by both sides individually and chooses Oscar, Eric, and Trevor’s side, as she immediately sees that Lucius and Tank are horrible people and the instruments didn’t do anything to warrant their abuse.
      Oscar: I’m sorry Rebecca, but you’re with us now.
      Rebecca: Too right!
    • Eric becomes an elephant. He has a great memory and is surprisingly smart, as well as being somewhat aggressive. We see his great memory in the episode “Star Tours”, as shown by his knowledge of the planets, and the episodes “1812” and “Soothsayers Convention” show he’s capable of thinking on his “feet” and coming up with clever plans on his own. Eric is also pretty much always raring to go against Thadius and his henchmen, often screaming, “Let me at them!”
    • Thadius is turned into a donkey. He is extremely stubborn to the point of sheer stupidity. Thadius, despite being beaten time and time again by Oscar and his orchestra, never gives up. Ever. Even in “Four of Our Notes are Missing”, where he makes an agreement with the orchestra that means music is legal again, he still refuses to concede defeat.
    • Goodtooth becomes an ostrich. He can get very panicky and frightened due to being a humongous coward. He hates seeing or experiencing fighting, and prefers to fire weapons from a distance. This is seen in multiple episodes such as “Star Crossed”, “The Battle Begins”, and “Flight of the Bumblebee”.
  • In the episode “Oscar Cracks a Nut”, a horde of giant tunnel rat characters and their king are introduced. They are nasty and aggressive. For example, after being offered payment of stinky cheese by Thadius, the Rat King and his subjects team up with him and help try to hunt down Oscar and his orchestra, and after the incident that ultimately leads the Rat King to break off the agreement, he and the rest of the tunnel rats hold a grudge against all musical instruments. The Rat King remarks on this in “Black Keys”, saying “So now I enjoy seeing instruments in trouble.”
• Artistic License – Space: Honestly, it would be easier to list the scenes in "Star Tours" that didn't violate the laws of astrophysics. Rebecca not having any problems getting oxygen and the instruments still being able to play music in what's supposed to be an airless vacuum is just the tip of the iceberg.
• Balloonacy: In the first episode, “The Battle Begins”, Oscar gets up to the balcony of Thadius Vent’s palace(the palace is on a giant mountain) by using three bunches of balloons. In addition, Trevor, Eric, and Rebecca were inside him(he’s a grand piano), so the balloons were carrying a tuba, a triangle, a 10 year old child, and a grand piano through the air.
• Bedsheet Ladder: In "Star-Crossed", Tobias Vent tries to do this to escape his bedroom after being sent there by his uncle Thaddius as a punishment, but he doesn't have enough sheets on his bed to make it down. So he orders a ton more from Thaddius's "Ruler Of The World Room Service" staff until he has enough to escape.
• Beg the Dog: In the episode “Knight in Shining Armour”, Lucius ends up trapped in a Rapunzel-style tower to keep him from running away from the new character of the episode. He asks Oscar for help escaping, despite the fact that Lucius has been a henchman of Thadius throughout the entire series, seemingly just as eager as Thadius to destroy instruments and music, and was at best apathetic to Thadius’s abuse of Oscar and at worst joined in.
• Blaming the Victim: Thadius blames Oscar for being forced to play the piano and by extension his hatred of music, but Thadius held all the power over Oscar in that situation and started actively abusing him after the failed recital. In addition, it was Thadius’ mom that forced him to play the piano in the first place, who was completely apathetic to her son’s abuse of his piano.
• Brick Joke:
  • In “Battle on Ice”, when talking about Monty’s trusting nature, Oscar remarks that a con man sold Monty the Eiffel Tower, twice. Later in the episode, Viiola remarks that her only regret is that she’ll never see Paris, and Monty says, “That is too bad. I own quite a famous tower there, you know.”
  • In “Hall of the Mountain King”, early in the episode Thadius asks Goodtooth what he’s wearing and Goodtooth tells him that his horoscope said he would need a parachute today. At the end of the episode he takes off the parachute thinking he had been mistaken and immediately after ends up on a boulder shooting upwards into the sky with the rest of the villains.
• Catchphrase:
  • Lucius will often remark “How exhilarating!”
  • Goodtooth will often enter into a scene by shouting “It is I! Goodtooth the Soothsayer!”, scaring Thadius in the process.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • During the episode “The Four Seasons”, we see Rebecca polishing Oscar’s lid. Later in the episode, Oscar uses his polished lid to reflect the beam of winter from the weather machine back at Thadius.
  • During the episode “Star Crossed”, Rebecca mentions having an invite to the play the orchestra and her are putting on, and tries to find it in her jacket. Later, the villains end up using that invite to find out the location of the concert.
• Christmas Episode: "Oscar Cracks A Nut", a Whole-Plot Reference to The Nutcracker.
• Comically Missing the Point: In the episode “Back to the Future”, Thadius blows up all the music ever written or recorded, and as the orchestra is discussing this, Oscar makes the remark, “So, even if I manage to form an orchestra, we’ll have nothing left to play.” Eric responds, “There’s always baseball.”
• Culture Police: The show is based around this idea, with the culture police in question being Thadius Vent, the evil dictator of the world, and his henchmen. Their target? Music.
• Disney Death: In the episode “Star Crossed”, Tobias (Thadius Vent’s nephew) appears to drown after falling off a ladder into the water. He didn’t; he just swam underwater to where the orchestra was rehearsing, hoping to warn them that they were in danger.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • When he was 6 years old, Thadius got humiliated at a concert because Oscar accidentally revealed he was playing himself. As a result of this, he developed a hatred for all musical instruments, abused Oscar, and banned all music from the world forever when he became leader of the world. Yep, totally justified.
  • He probably got it from his mom, as the episode “A Fight at the Opera” shows Thadweena had Reena imprisoned in an ice cube and castaway on the mountainside for what was supposed to be forever. . . because Reena, a professional opera singer, was deemed a better opera singer in a contest Thadweena commanded her to come to.
• Dub Name Change:
  • For some reason, Thadius was renamed to "Moderatus" in the Russian dub.
  • Monty also became "Crin-Crin" in the French dub and "Skreep-skreep" in the Russian dub.
• Fantastic Racism: Thadius hates all musical instruments and enjoys seeing them suffer, with the episode “Viva España!” having the vice dictator set up an “amusement” for Thadius that consisted of a bonfire containing instruments.
  Narrator: Welcome to the future, where world leader Thadius Vent’s reign has brought peace and plenty to all. Did I say all? Unless you happen to be a musical instrument. The reason’s quite simple. Thadius Vent, leader of everything-
  Thadius: Destroy that wretched, disgusting piano at once! Smash his keys, pull out his strings, and be quick about it!
  Narrator: -doesn’t. . .like musical instruments very much.
• Faint in Shock: Sylvia the flute does this a lot; see Running Gag below.
• Fairy Tale Episode: The season 2 episode “Sleeping Beauty”. Guess which fairytale they retold.
• Foreign Language Title: "Viva España!"; the episode's title means "Long Live Spain!"
• Forgotten Phlebotinum: Eric's Bermuda Triangle powers will only ever be used in designated Time Travel Episodes, and even then they only see extremely limited use- usually one jump to send them back to whatever time period they're going to, one jump to get them back to the present, and that's it. Thadius's Time Machine also sees a similar lack of use.
• For Want Of A Nail: Had either the orchestra or Thadius not seen the ad for Costa Bumba, or had one of them decided not to go while the other did, the entire episode of “Viva España!” wouldn’t have happened and both sides would have gotten the vacation they wanted.
• Gone Horribly Right: In “Carnival of the Animals”, Thadius has Goodtooth turn Oscar, Monty, Rebecca, Eric, Sylvia, and Trevor into animals, so they can’t play music anymore. Unfortunately for Thadius, the animals they are turned into are animals that give the orchestra strengths they didn’t really have before, allowing them to pretty easily storm the palace and get the book that allows Rebecca to turn them all back.
• Gratuitous Spanish: The title of "Viva Espana!".
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Oscar and Eric. They are constantly together, very loyal to each other, and Eric, being a small triangle, will often sit on Oscar.
• Halloween Episode: "Fangs But No Fangs" featuring a Monster Mash not as Villains Of The Week but as assistants to the heroes, since even classic movie monsters like their music.
• Humanity Ensues: Oscar gets turned into a human in the episode "The Soothsyaer's Convention", although given the various... quirks of his human form (for starters, he's still blue head to toe) it would be fairer to say Ambiguous Humanity Ensues.
• Human Mail: In the episode “Star Tours”, Louis the Oboe, from France, posts himself through the mail to the orchestra’s hideout so he can join them.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In “Battle on Ice”, as Lucius and Tank are floundering in icy water Lucius says the activator belts they’re wearing are too heavy. Thadius, who is standing on a piece of ice, tells him, “Don’t you dare take off those belts, they're irreplaceable!” The ice then breaks underneath him and he immediately takes his own activator belt off right before he plunges into the water.
  • In “Star Crossed”, Thadius condescending remarks, “Kids!” and immediately afterwards begins sulking and sucking his thumb.
  • In “Hall of the Mountain King”, Thadius tells Goodtooth putting a parachute on because of his horoscope is childish and he needs to grow up. Thadius behaves exactly like a child on a regular basis throughout the series.
• "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Oscar and his orchestra do one in the season 3 premier “Lost Chords”.
• I Surrender, Suckers!: In the first episode, Oscar makes a deal with Thadius, who has captured a violin called Monty whom the orchestra knows, that he will give himself up in exchange for Thadius releasing Monty. Oscar pulls an Oh, Crap! face when Thadius tells him he won’t keep his word, instead he’ll “keep the violin”. However, when Lucius and Tank go to grab him, he opens his lid to reveal he knew Thadius wouldn’t keep his word and had brought backup to rescue Monty.
• Literary Allusion Title: A few episodes have these. Specifically...
  • “Star-Crossed” ^note The episode’s German, Finnish, and Korean dubs are even more blatant, being retitled to just German/Finnish/Korean for "Romeo and Juliet".
  • “My Kingdom For A Tank”
  • “A Tale Of Two Tells”
• Monster Mash: Halloween Episode "Fangs But No Fangs" features... a vampire (as you might be able to guess from the title), the vampire's Familiar-esque bat companion, The Igor as the vampire's servant, and last but not least three other movie monsters (a werewolf, a mummy, and Frankenstein's Monster) who were, uh, "guests" in the vampire's castle.
• Never Say "Die":
  • Typically, Thadius or his henchmen will use words like “destroyed” or “obliterated” instead of “kill”. Justified considering Thadius doesn’t just want Oscar and the other instruments dead.
  • Averted in the episode “1812”.
    Thadius: And. . . the very minute. . . all those. . . those. . . ngh, instruments, DIE! (laughs evilly)
  • Also averted in the soundtrack.
    Thadius: (laughs evilly) See Paris, and die. Load the cannon!
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Many of the characters have British accents despite the show being set in Vienna, Austria.
• Out of Focus: Depending on the episode, Sylvia, Louis, and Jan and Stan might be there doing things, might be sighted in the background, or they might just be completely gone. Even more major characters like Eric have these moments, for example in “Black Keys” where Eric seemingly drops off the face of the Earth after Chordelia shows up.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Scheherazade and the other violin character in the season 3 episode “Return of Scheherazade”. Also, Chordelia and Oscar.
• Playing the Victim Card: Thadius invokes this in the episode “A Fight at the Opera” when he is ranting to Oscar after having captured him.
  Thadius: I was forced to play you when I was a child. Piano lessons every night!
  Oscar: But Thadius-
  Thadius: There was I, stuck indoors, while all my friends were outside playing!
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: A few episodes have these, most notably "Bach To The Future", "Star Tours", and "Raiders Of The Lost Park".
• Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: In the episode “1812”, Thadius plays a birthday game of charades with Eric, who is pretending to be Teddy. The answer ends up being Jaws 73.
• Running Gag: Usually kicked off by something shocking happening, Sylvia will tell Trevor to catch her as she falls or faints, and Trevor is never able to succeed at doing that.
• Senseless Violins:
  • Inverted in the episode “Battle on Ice'', where Monty, a violin, hides in his violin case among some other luggage to get aboard a sky train.
    Baggage Handler 1: Hey, I think we’ve got something illegal here. Oh, never mind. The tag says it's a machine gun. For a second I was afraid it was a violin.
  • Played straight in the episode “Once Upon a Ragtime”, where at one point Big Sam’s violin goons open their violin cases to reveal guns that shoot sticky goop.
• Series Fauxnale: “Four Of Our Notes Are Missing”. Oscar and the orchestra finally defeat Thadius Vent and bring back music... and then the producers decide they want a third season.
• Soft Water: Occurs in both “Flight of the Bumblebee” and “Carnival of the Animals”.
• Status Quo Is God: Throughout the entire series, nearly nothing regarding the status of music in the world really changes, and no matter what life-threatening or ridiculous position Thadius and his henchmen are in at the end of an episode, they’re back in their palace in New Vienna by the next episode. While music ends up being made legal again in the season 2 finale “Four of the Notes Are Missing”, the next episode, the season 3 premier “Lost Chords”, undos this and puts the show effectively right back where it was the last two seasons.
• Totally Radical: Ken the Keyboard, Surfer Dude and living embodiment of '90s cybermania. It should be noted, however, that his' creation isn't the writers' fault, being the product of a "design your own character" contest.
• Time Travel Episode: Every season has at least one.
  • Season one episode "Bach To The Future" sees Oscar & co go back in time in order to get new copies of classical music after Thadius somehow managed to blow up every piece of sheet music in the world.
  • Season two episode "Back To Bach" sees Thadius trying to erase Oscar and every other musical instrument from history.
  • Season three episodes Lieder of the Pack and Greensleeves both involve Oscar & co once again going back in time, to Beethoven and later Schubert's times in the former and King Henry VIII's time in the latter.
• Victory Is Boring: In the episode “World Tour”, when Thadius is under the impression that Oscar and his orchestra have been dealt with by Lucius, he gets very bored and starts taking out his boredom and anger on his henchmen and any random people who happens to cross his path.
• World of Weirdness: The amount of weirdness running around in Oscar's world is truly stunning- there's Animate Inanimate Object musical instruments, sci-fi technology that runs the gamut from "expected futuristic staple" to "bizarre one-off piece of Applied Phlebotinum", giant talking rats ("Oscar Cracks A Nut"), aliens ("Star Tours"), magic corruption rings ("The Ring"), magic lamps ("Dance Of The Forty Thieves" and "Return Of Scheherazade"), vampires ("Fangs But No Fangs"), mermaids ("Water Music")... the list goes on.
• Would Hurt a Child: All of the villains in the show have absolutely no hesitation about hurting Rebecca, who's 10.

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