Beloved actor, artist, and voiceover legend Wim T. Schippers has died at the age of 83. The news was confirmed on June 16 by the Wim T. Schippers Foundation, although he passed away on June 10 in his hometown of Amsterdam.
A Titan of Dutch Arts
The foundation announced his death in a social media statement, saying, 'Wim is gone. It is with great sadness that the Wim T Foundation makes the announcement that Wim died on June 10, 2026.' They ended the statement with a quote from Schippers himself: 'Being born is nonsense to me, but dying is much bigger nonsense to me.' No cause of death was disclosed.
Schippers was a towering figure in the Dutch arts sector, but to many, he was best known for his work on Sesamstraat, the Dutch co-production of the beloved children's show Sesame Street. Since 1976, he and fellow actor Paul Haenen voiced the iconic characters Ernie and Bert, respectively. Their performances were so exceptional that they became the only voice team in the world granted permission by creator Jim Henson to write their own material for the characters.
Schippers once explained, 'We've gotten deep into them, because we've written our own scripts for Bert and Ernie for the CDs. We do that with respect for anything Henson has done... we got permission from him, sometime in the past.'
Voice of Iconic Characters
Since the 1990s, Schippers frequently dubbed the voice of Kermit the Frog from The Muppet Show, and in 2011, he became the character's official Dutch voice. He also voiced Disney's Mickey Mouse throughout the 1970s and 1980s and dubbed the character of Happy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Beyond voice acting, Schippers was an accomplished artist, writer, and television host. He hosted the Nationale Wetenschapsquiz (National Science Quiz) from 1995 to 2002. Among his other achievements, he wrote and produced Hoepla, a youth-targeted series from 1967, and created the television show We zijn weer thuis (We're back home) in the 1980s.
Tributes Pour In
Tributes flooded in from colleagues and fans alike. Paul Haenen, his Sesamstraat co-star who last saw him in late May, reflected, 'Totally unexpected for me. He looked good. Incomprehensible. We did so much together. I also knew him well personally.'
A fan wrote on Facebook, 'I remember being glued to my radio when Dutch deregulating artist Wim T. Schippers was on the air with his show Ronflonflon. Schippers' works of art, including the famous peanut butter floor, his stage play Going To The Dogs (performed by a pack of dogs), emptying a cola bottle into the sea, and much more taught me Art, with a capital A, can be fun as well... Wim T. Schippers has passed, his peanut butter lives on.'
Another fan added, 'Today I heard that Wim T. Schippers has passed away. For many, he was a television and radio pioneer, artist, writer, and tireless debaucher of reality. For me, he is also connected to a special period in my life, in which I could meet him several times... Wim was part of a generation that has permanently changed the Dutch art and media culture. Rest in peace, Wim.'
A third fan shared, 'The news of the death of Wim T. Schippers touches me deeply. He coloured my youth with his inimitable TV shows. I got to meet him for the writing of my book The Sixties and that meeting escalated into a crazy day, culminating in a crowded heart attack in a packed restaurant, where he convincingly fell from his chair and curled it. Restaurant on its head. What a special and talented man has passed away.'
A colleague remarked, 'Thank you for your beautiful, quirky and sometimes fickle ideas. You invented it and we, the operational team, did our best to execute it and that was often a party. The Fred Haché Show, Van Oekel's Discohoek, It's so late again!, Barend is at it again, The laughing razor, Looking for Yolanda, the Science Quiz; we won't forget!'
