![]() ![]() ![]() Spinney: Well, puppet-wise, he’s a huge puppet, so big you get inside … but he’s gotten to be much more attractive than when we started. He is a kid! He’s 6.ĮW: Has Big Bird changed over the years or evolved as a character? Big Bird gets into situations where he even cries. Unless it’s a play on Sesame Street … So I think that’s the greatest joy is to just do acting, particularly if you get to really emote. Whereas I just loved it it was the only play I’ve ever been in. The others just couldn’t remember their lines and they weren’t very good. In the senior play, I was the best one in the play. #OSCAR THE GROUCH PAJAMAS TRASH TALKER HOW TO#I learned how to act on… Oh, I guess I knew how to do it. Then I got to Sesame Street and it was the first time I ever had scripts. #OSCAR THE GROUCH PAJAMAS TRASH TALKER TV#There was Craft TV - it wasn’t very great, I guess, but it was fun to do. There was very little scripted stuff in my life until I got to Sesame Street. I’ve been doing puppets since I started with Punch & Judy. ![]() Spinney: Well, I really love the acting part. Hooper and the existential dilemma of Snuffleupagus.ĮW: What do you most enjoy about being Big Bird? A new documentary opening May 22 at Bijou Art Cinemas, I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story, reveals the man behind the puppet in all his fiery creativity and emotional bonding with his characters.ĮW caught up with Spinney by phone to discuss, among other things, the evolution of Sesame Street, the death of Mr. As the men behind the Muppets, Henson is a legend, Spinney less so - until you realize he’s the genius behind (or, rather, inside) two of the show’s more iconic and lovable characters, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.Īt 81, Spinney is still playing Big Bird and Oscar, as Sesame Street moves into its 46th year of broadcasting. Oscar still makes me giggle.Īmong the group of visionary artists and educators who first brought Sesame Street to PBS in 1969 were puppeteers Jim Henson and Caroll Spinney. Seated before the television in my pajamas, laughing at Ernie’s antics and wondering what it was like inside Oscar’s garbage can, I was gifted the rudiments of an education that was at once practical and deeply moral.īig Bird still breaks my heart. Like so many of us, I grew up on Sesame Street, that magical Manhattan block where fuzzy puppets and real people cooperate and collaborate and teach the ABCs of life. ![]()
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