Oscar is a lizard residing in a generic desert that incorporates traits from various real-world deserts, such as the Sahara, the Kalahari, and those in North America. An asphalt highway cuts through the region, occasionally traversed by cargo trucks. Oscar typically hunts for food or water; he sometimes locates liquid in bottles or other containers, but usually fails to retrieve it for drinking. An oasis provides the sole source of fresh water, yet its dense population of irritable, hungry crocodiles makes it unreachable. At significant personal risk (since lizards are a delicacy for chickens), Oscar occasionally manages to steal an egg from a nearby henhouse, and he sometimes investigates the trash piles scattered across the arid landscape. Popy, a fennec fox; Buck, a vulture; and Harchi, a hyena, live in an abandoned school bus on a nearby hill, though they mostly race around in a discarded warehouse or grocery cart powered by Harchi and steered by Popy. Like Oscar, the trio constantly seeks food and water—often competing with him, sometimes using him as a tool, but occasionally cooperating when it benefits them. The main characters frequently find themselves falling off cliffs in the style of Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner, where gravity is temporarily suspended until the character realizes their impending doom.