Ivy Austin (b. January 19, 1958) is a voice actress and singer who provided character vocals for many Sesame Street segments, records, and other productions since the early 1980s. One of her more notable contributions has been performing Sooey Oinker, leader of The Oinker Sisters, beginning with "A New Way to Walk" and continuing through the group's later appearances such as the Elmo's World segment "Families."
Austin has lent her voice to many of Sesame Street's music parodies, singing lead on "Cereal Girl" and "Stand By Your Can" among other songs, and animated inserts such as "The Room Is Full of Chickens." She also performed Linda's internal voice in Episodes 2485 (in "Wedding Pictures") and 3059, and dubbed Tita's English voice on Sesame Street Stays Up Late. In 1997, she supplied the voice of Blanche the Polar Bear for the Sesame Street Live show Elmo's Coloring Book.
Austin's appearances on Sesame Street records, including new recordings and recycled performances, have included Big Bird Discovers the Orchestra, Sesame Road, Born to Add, Sesame Street Christmas Sing-Along, Sing-Along Travel Songs, and Silly Songs.
Austin additionally provided the voice for Jenny in the book and audio adaptation of The Muppets Take Manhattan. She also provided the voice for Nina in the "Samuel & Nina" segments on Big Bag.
She is the daughter of Danny Epstein, a music coordinator who has a long history with Sesame Street production as well as their LP recordings. Outside of Sesame Street, Austin was a frequent performer on A Prairie Home Companion, appeared on film in Grease 2, voice work on Animaniacs, and portrayed the title character in the 1986 short-run Broadway musical Raggedy Ann (with music by Joe Raposo).
Character gallery[]
Other vocals[]
Miscellaneous backing vocals[]
- "Above It All"
- "Do De Rubber Duck"
- "Do-Op Hop"
- "Letter of the Day Pageant"
- "Me Gotta Be Blue"
- "Mountain Song"
- "Muppets Rhyme in School"
- "Peligro"
- "The Frogs in the Glen"
- "The Insects in Your Neighborhood"
- "Rollin' on the River"
- "They Can't Take That Away from Me"
- "You Say Hola and I Say Hola"
Notes[]
- Austin's first vocal performance for the show was an unused recording of "I'm Pretty" for The Official Sesame Street 2 Book-and-Record Album.[1]
- Austin recalled the only times she was actually on the Sesame Street set was for performances by Nathan Lane and Diana Krall (both of which involved the Oinker Sisters).[1]
Sources[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ivy Austin at "Sing: The Music of Sesame Street" panel at the Museum of the Moving Image, August 18, 2019.