Designed, built, and puppeteered by Puppet Island in collaboration with Perlorian Brothers, the OSAP Monkey became a hilariously accurate symbol of student debt — the anxiety-inducing monkey riding on the back of every tuition-stressed student. Blending the charm of a vintage toy monkey with the unsettling realism of a creature you could almost believe existed, the character appeared across subway ads, posters, campus campaigns, and Ontario-wide advertising for the Ontario Student Assistance Program. Equal parts funny and painfully relatable, the campaign turned a universal student fear into an unforgettable visual metaphor.
