Big Bird

For other uses, see Big Bird (disambiguation).

Big Bird is a character featured on the children's television show Sesame Street which airs on PBS. A common misconception is that he is a muppet, but in 1989 Jim Henson explained that characters played by people in suits, rather than just hands in puppets, do not qualify as muppets. He is sometimes referred to as "Bird" by his friends.

Officially performed by Caroll Spinney since 1969, he is an eight-foot two-inch tall bright yellow bird. He can roller skate, ice skate, dance, sing, write poetry, draw and even ride a unicycle. But despite this wide array of talents, he is prone to frequent misunderstandings, on one occasion even singing the alphabet as one big long word (ABC-DEF-GHI), pondering what it could ever mean. He lives in a large nest behind the 123 Sesame Street brownstone and he has a teddy bear named Radar, after Walter "Radar" O'Reilly of M*A*S*H, who had a teddy bear and was also lovably naive and innocent. Radar was given to Big Bird by Gary Burghoff when he guest starred on the show. Later on, however, it was said that Big Bird got the bear as a gift from Mr. Hooper.

Performing

Big Bird's Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

As Muppeteer Caroll Spinney has aged, the show has gradually started to train new performers to play Big Bird. These apprentices include both Rick Lyon in the opening theme song of the show's 33rd season on, and Matt Vogel in the show's Journey to Ernie segment.

Caroll Spinney was sick during the taping of a few first season episodes, so Daniel Seagren performed Big Bird in those episodes. He also performed Big Bird when he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1969. According to The Story of Jim Henson by Stephanie St. Pierre, the costume was built for Jim Henson to perform, but when Jim Henson tried it on, Kermit Love, who had built the costume, did not think that Jim Henson was walking like a Bird is supposed to walk, and Jim decided not to perform Big Bird. Frank Oz was offered the part, but since he hated performing full-body characters, he turned down the job.

The Big Bird performer is completely enclosed within the costume, and extends his right hand over his head to operate the head and neck of the puppet. The Muppeteer's left hand serves as the Bird's left hand, while the right hand is stuffed and hangs loosely from a fishing line that runs through a loop under the neck and attaches to the wrist of the left hand. The right hand thus does the opposite of the left hand: as the left hand goes down, the right hand is pulled up by the fishing line. For some of the Journey to Ernie segments, a second puppeteer (usually Jim Martin) controls Big Bird's right hand. He is concealed by dressing in a body suit the same color as their chroma key background (something that obviously can not be done on the main Sesame Street set).

Costume

The costume is partially assembled by company American & Fancy Feather, using the tail feathers from turkeys; as the feathers are rarely clean, company owner Anthony Trento calls the Big Bird costume his "toughest customer". Sesame Workshop is said to reject roughly 90 percent of all the feathers selected for use on the costume.

Breed

It is believed that Big Bird is probably a giant canary. However, in an episode of Sesame Street Big Bird was asked if he was related to the cassowary, he replied. "I'm more of a condor."

Feature Film

• In 1985, Big Bird was the star of his own movie Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird alongside the cast of Sesame Street. The plot focused on him being moved away to live with his own species by a meddling social-worker (voiced by Sally Kellerman). He is not happy with his new home and he runs away and embarks on a cross-country adventure. Along the way he finds help from a friendly truck driver (Waylon Jennings) and two farmer kids. But on the bad side, there are two carnival owning brothers (Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty) who want to kidnap him and make him perform in their carnival for their own profit. In the meantime, his friends Bert & Ernie, Cookie Monster, Grover, Count Von Count and Oscar the Grouch are in pursuit of him to find him and bring him back home safely. Also joining them are their human friends, Gordon, Maria, Olivia and Linda with Bob aiding them from Sesame Street.Big Bird was shot during the shooting of this film by Bob the Builder.

Further reading

• Simon, Ellen. "He's Big Bird: Caroll Spinney loves every feather", Associated Press via Google News, 16 June 2008. Accessed 19 June 2008.

Big Bird on Muppet Wiki