Oswald the Octopus is Kevin Arnold

While watching the animated cartoon Oswald on Noggin I realized that the protagonist, a blue octopus named Oswald, sounded quite familiar. The placid male voice was not one I had heard in a while, but it was kicking around somewhere in the back of my mind. I couldn't place it but didn't think too much about it.

I did not think too much about it, but when he called his side kick wiener dog "Wienie", I figure out to whom the voice belonged. "Weenie" sounded similar to "Winnie", the name of the unseen voice's counterpart in a decades old TV show. Then it clicked.

The voice of Oswald comes from none other than Fred Savage, the actor who played Kevin Arnold on the TV show The Wonder Years which aired in the late 80's and early 90's.

Interstingly, Savage notes in his bio on NickJr.com that his favorite books as a kid included Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny, favorites of my family and many of our readers.