Awful news.
Stefan Karl Stefansson, the Icelandic actor best known for playing the villain Robbie Rotten in children’s show Lazytown, has died, his wife confirmed on Icelandic TV. He was just 43 years of age.
The actor starred in 62 episodes of the show over the course of 12 years and would be well-known to anybody who grew up watching the show, or indeed parents who watched the show with their children.
The actor had been battling bile duct cancer for two years.
Stefansson had shared this photo less than two months ago. It was his last post on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVw50WtlGOu/?taken-by=stefanssonkarl
LazyTown (or Latibær as it was known as in its native Iceland), ran for 104 episodes over four seasons, between 2004 to 2014. It was created by Magnús Scheving, an aerobics champion, who also played Sportacus, and was based on his 1991 children’s book Áfram Latibær.
The show focused on eight-year-old Stepanie (played by Julianna Rose Mauriello, and later Chloe Lang), who arrives in LazyTown to live with her uncle, and is shocked by how lazy the town’s residents are. She teams up with superhero Sportacus to get the town to be more active – though their plans were often disrupted by the nefarious Robbie Rotten.
The show became known for its distinctive visuals that combined live action, puppets and CGI animation, and it looked like nothing else on TV. It became an international success, airing on Nickelodeon in the USA, and on BBC in the UK, and aired in over 180 different countries across the world. In recent years it has had a second life on the internet, with memes of Robbie Rotten, and in particular, his song “We Are Number One”, becoming very popular.
While he will be best remembered for LazyTown, Stefan Karl Stefansson was an accomplished screen and stage actor and played the lead role in the musical production of How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
R.I.P.
