Oscar's Oasis
A wordless desert comedy of survival and slapstick.
Oscar's Oasis (titled Oscar & Co in French) is a wordless animated comedy series made up of 78 episodes, each running seven minutes. The show was created by TeamTO and Tuba Entertainment, with co-production from Cake Entertainment and Synergy Media, and involved TF1, Canal+ Family, Télétoon+, EBS, BENEX, and Carrimages 5. Support came from the National Center of Cinematography and the moving image (CNC), the Rhône-Alpes Region, the Poitou-Charentes region, and the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA). Though the series has no spoken dialogue, it features vocal performances by Marie Facundo, Sly Johnson, Martial Le Minoux, and Jérémy Prevost. Its style is heavily inspired by the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons from the Golden age of American animation.
The show began as a short called Oasis, which later evolved into a series titled Ooohhh Asis, consisting of seven episodes each one and a half minutes long. Those first aired on TF1 on 26 March 2008. The new format of Oscar's Oasis debuted at the 2010 MIPTV Media Market. It premiered on Canal+ and Canal+ Family in September 2010, and began airing on TF1 in late summer 2011. In July 2011, the series was released in 3D for the Nintendo 3DS. It started broadcasting on Gulli on 2 July 2019.
The story follows Oscar, a lizard living in a nameless desert that blends features from the Sahara, Kalahari, and North American deserts. A paved highway runs through the area, used occasionally by cargo trucks. Oscar is usually searching for food or water; he sometimes finds liquid in bottles or elsewhere, but is often thwarted from drinking it. An oasis provides the only fresh water, but it is guarded by many crocodiles. At great risk—since lizards are a delicacy for chickens—Oscar occasionally steals an egg from a nearby hen coop, and he sometimes explores piles of trash scattered across the landscape. The Trio—a vulture named Buck, a hyena named Harchi, and a fennec fox named Popy—live in an abandoned school bus on a hill. They mostly race around in a discarded bed or grocery cart, with Harchi driving and Popy directing. Like Oscar, they constantly seek food and water, often competing with him, sometimes using him, and occasionally cooperating. Characters frequently fall off cliffs in the manner of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, with gravity briefly suspended as they realize their fate.
The four main charact
- type
- Animated television series
- episodes
- 78 (7 minutes each) plus earlier shorts
- original run
- 2010–2011
- production companies
- TeamTO, Tuba Entertainment, Cake Entertainment, Synergy Media
- broadcasters
- TF1, Canal+, Canal+ Family, Télétoon+, EBS, BENEX, Gulli
- language
- No dialogue (vocalizations only)
Lore & Background
The series started out as a short called Oasis, which then became a series called Ooohhh Asis, composed of seven one-minute-and-a-half episodes broadcast on 26 March 2008 from TF1. Oscar's Oasis debuted in its new format at the 2010 MIPTV Media Market. The series premiered on Canal+ and Canal+ Family in September 2010, and was broadcast on TF1 since late summer 2011. In July 2011, the series was released on the Nintendo 3DS in 3D. The show started airing on Gulli on July 2, 2019.
Oscar is a lizard who lives in a non-specific desert with features from the Sahara, Kalahari Desert, and North American deserts. An asphalt concrete highway runs through the area, used by cargo trucks. Oscar searches for food or water, often frustrated by an oasis guarded by crocodiles. The Trio—Buck the vulture, Harchi the hyena, and Popy the fennec fox—inhabit an abandoned school bus and constantly compete with Oscar. The characters often find themselves falling off cliffs with a suspended gravity effect similar to Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
Reader's Guide
Oscar's Oasis represents a modern continuation of the silent slapstick tradition, relying entirely on visual comedy and vocalizations rather than dialogue. Its heavy inspiration from the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner shorts places it within a lineage of American golden-age animation, adapted for a global audience. The series' production involved multiple international partners, including French, Korean, and Canadian entities, reflecting the increasingly collaborative nature of animated television. Its release on the Nintendo 3DS in 3D in July 2011 was an early example of stereoscopic content for a handheld gaming platform. The show's 78-episode run, combined with its earlier short forms (Oasis and Ooohhh Asis), totals 86 episodes. The series has been broadcast across multiple networks in France and elsewhere, indicating sustained interest in wordless, physical comedy that transcends language barriers.
Did You Know?
- The series contains no dialogue, only vocalizations by voice actors including Marie Facundo and Sly Johnson.
- It was released on the Nintendo 3DS in 3D in July 2011.
- The show takes heavy inspiration from the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner shorts.
- The earlier short Ooohhh Asis consisted of seven one-minute-and-a-half episodes broadcast on 26 March 2008 from TF1.
More in Animated television series without speech 1-24
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