Welcome to Muppet Wiki!
Finchen
Finchen is a character on Sesamstrasse, the German co-production of Sesame Street.
Finchen is an orange snail with a yellow shell on her back.
Finchen was added to the Sesamstrasse cast after Samson and Tiffy as a male. He started as a weak, tiny snail who lived in the forest, outside Sesamstrasse. For the past few seasons, Finchen has inexplicably turned into a younger girl character with a really wild imagination, representing the psychological age of a three year old.
The sex-change might have something to do with the fact that "Schnecke", the German word for snail, is a female word in the German language, succeded by the definite article "die". Another reason might be that Finchen's original performer was male puppeteer Lothar Klose, but for over ten years now, Finchen has been performed by singer and female puppeteer Andrea Bongers.