Fermar is a

muppet The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an surreal humor, absurdist, burlesque, and self-referential humor, self-referential style of Variety show, variety-sketch comedy. Created by Jim Henson in 1955, they are ...

-style character developed by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) for the Filipino children's show ''Sesame'', a co-production between CTW and the

Philippine Children's Television Foundation The Philippine Children's Television Foundation is a non-profit organization that pioneered educational television in the Philippines. It was initially formed to partner with Sesame Workshop (formerly Children's Television Workshop) to create ''S ...

(PCTF) which debuted in 1983. Pong Pagong is an anthropomorphic turtle, similar to

Big Bird Big Bird is a Muppet character designed by Jim Henson and built by Kermit Love for the long-running children's television show ''Sesame Street''. An eight-foot two-inch (249 cm) tall bright yellow anthropomorphic bird, he can roller skat ...

of ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...

'', standing over six feet tall and towering over human co-stars and aged to be around six years old. Together with its co-muppet,

Kiko Matsing ''Batibot'' is a Philippine television educational show produced by the Philippine Children's Television Foundation (PCTF). It debuted in 1984 as the replacement of ''Sesame'', a co-production of PCTV and the Children's Television Workshop (C ...

, the characters were custom made in New York for ''Sesame''. Both characters were inspired from a Filipino

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse (poetry), verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphized, and that illustrat ...

, " The Monkey and the Turtle", which was annotated to English by José Rizal in 1889. After the cancellation of ''Sesame'' in 1984 due to the cancellation by CTW of the co-production venture, both characters appeared in its 1985 replacement show, ''

Batibot ''Batibot'' is a Philippine television educational show produced by the Philippine Children's Television Foundation (PCTF). It debuted in 1984 as the replacement of ''Sesame'', a co-production of PCTV and the Children's Television Workshop (CTW ...

'', under a license arrangement with CTW. Both characters were returned to CTW in 1994 and never used again.

References

International Sesame Street characters Fictional turtles Turtles in popular culture Television characters introduced in 1983 {{tv-char-stub