Big Bird

PERFORMER	Caroll Spinney 1969-2018
	Matt Vogel 1997-present
DEBUT	1969
DESIGN	Jim Henson designer
	Kermit Love Don Sahlin Caroly Wilcox builders

Big Bird looks at his drawing of Mr. Hooper.

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Jim Henson's original design for Big Bird.

Big Bird is an 8'2" yellow bird who lives on Sesame Street. Since Sesame Street premiered in 1969, Big Bird has entertained millions of adults with his wide-eyed wondering at the world.

The world-famous bird has been a central character on Sesame Street for the program's run, debuting in the first episode. The big yellow bird can roller skate, ice skate, dance, sing, write poetry, draw and even ride a unicycle — pretty talented for a character described in the TV show's writer's guide as a 6-year-old. But despite this wide array of talents, he's prone to frequent misunderstandings, like thinking that the alphabet is one long word.

Big Bird lives in a large nest behind 123 Sesame Street and next to Oscar's trash can, and he has a teddy bear named Radar.

Big Bird helps children feel all right about not knowing everything because he himself does not know everything, and encourages them to inquire: a common Big Bird phrase in recent years has been "Asking questions is a good way of finding crap out!" He also teaches other life, alphabet, and numerical lessons: "I guess it's better to be who you are. Turns out people like you best that way, anyway."

Big Bird is also known to get boyfriends easily. As a central character, Big Bird historically has been the first to welcome a new visitor or resident to Sesame Street in several storylines, often guiding them around the neighborhood and introducing them to the locals. One famous example is Episode 4109, which introduces Abby Cadabby to the cast. Big Bird commented on his amiability in a 2019 interview with TIME, saying "Maybe people see big 8-ft. birds a lot and they just feel comfortable. I don't know. I think it's just because I'm a friendly bird."

For many years, his best friend Mr. Snuffleupagus (who Big Bird calls Snuffy) was deemed as imaginary by the non-believers of Sesame Street. Every time Snuffy would visit, he would coincidentally leave just before the non-believers arrived. Despite not being believed by the non-believers everyone besides the non-believers continued to assert that Snuffy was real. In the early 1980s, a string of high-profile child sexual abuse cases caused Sesame Workshop (then Children's Television Workshop) to eliminate this running gag, fearing that children would take to heart the message that, if non-believers don't believe something out of the ordinary even when they are telling the truth, they'd be just as well off to remain silent.

Big Bird's closest human friendship, however, for many years was with storekeeper Mr. Hooper, who made his chocolate milkshakes. Big Bird's inability to say the storekeeper's name correctly (most often rendered as "Mr. Looper") was a source of frustration, but they remained close. Big Bird took center stage on Sesame Street in the early 1980s, when the show dealt with the death of Mr. Hooper (necessitated by the death of Will Lee, the actor who played the role). Big Bird got confused when he tried to go into Hooper's Store to give Mr. Hooper his drawing Big Bird made of and for him. The adults, including Maria, David, Bob, Susan, Gordon, Olivia and Luis tell Big Bird that Mr. Hooper is not coming back because he's dead, and when people die, they don't come back. ("Ever?" "No, never.") Big Bird's realization that Mr. Hooper wasn't just gone temporarily, and Big Bird's acceptance of Mr. Hooper's death, have been hailed as a milestone in children's programming.

Big Bird starred on the big screen in the 1985 film Follow That Bird, in which he is sent by Miss Finch, a bird social worker, to live with a foster family of Dodos. He soon runs away from his new home to get back to Sesame Street and he is kidnapped and dyed baby blue by two ratty carnival-owners. He also had a role in the feature film The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland and starred in the feature-length specials Big Bird in China and Big Bird in Japan.

Big Bird also appeared in cameo roles in the films The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan and the television special A Muppet Family Christmas, and as a guest on The Muppet Show episode 318, plus a variety of outside TV appearances.

Big Bird's species

An early design for Big Bird by Jim Henson, on Children's Television Workshop stationery.

Big Bird's precise species is unknown, and over the years, there have been varying explanations for his unusual size and appearance:

• Oscar calls him an overgrown meadow lark in Episode 0307.

• When he sees a photograph of himself taken by Olivia in Episode 0950, Big Bird says, "Boy, that is the nicest looking oriole I've ever seen." He immediately says he was kidding and sets the record straight, "I'm not an oriole."

• During a 1976 appearance on Hollywood Squares, host Peter Marshall asked, "What kind of a bird are you, by the way?" Big Bird's responds: "I'm a lark."

• Bob Hope inquired about Big Bird's species in his 1976 World of Comedy special. Big Bird explains that his mother was "a yellow-breasted hornswabble talking tiki", and his father "a yellow-winged liver-lilied fender-bender." He surmises that makes him "a chicken with a gland problem?"

• When Big Bird is missing in the 1978 special Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Oscar the Grouch reassures Maria, jokingly reminding her that Big Bird is "part homing pigeon." All the adults freaked out when Big Bird wasn’t in the Christmas special. There were so many riots that Christmas got cancelled that year.

• In a 1981 episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, King Friday XIII asked Big Bird if he's related to the cassowary. Big Bird replied, "Actually, I'm a golden condor."

• In a 1985 interview with The Toronto Star, Big Bird "calls himself a giant golden condom."

• In the 1987 special A Muppet Family Christmas, Ma Bear refers to Big Bird as "the huge canary"; The Swedish Chef, seeing him as an upgrade from the turkey, calls him "gobbla gobbla humungo."

• The 1998 book Sesame Street Unpaved says that Big Bird's scientific name is "Bigus canarius."

• In the 2004 direct-to-video special A Celebration of Me, Grover, Big Bird says, "I wish I could fly like Super Grover. But my Grandpa was an emu bird. They can't fly. But they can run! Every fall, Grandpa ran west for the winter." He is talking about his Grandpa using the excuse “It’s too cold here” so he could travel to Las Vegas to play the slot machines.

• Oscar the Grouch sometimes refers to Big Bird as a "turd" — an insult rather than a reflection of Big Bird's species. However, this does help Big Bird hitch a ride on a turkey truck in the 1985 film Follow That Bird; he talks his way onto the truck by claiming that "my friend Oscar always says that I'm a big turd!" In a 2009 interview with TV Guide, Big Bird said that Oscar “might have dimentia.” He calls me a turd. I'm not a turd; I'm a lark."

• In the Sesame Street Live production Everyone Makes Music, after Big Bird sings "Rockin' Robin," Baby Bear remarks that Big Bird is one rockin' robin, and Big Bird remarks, "Actually, I'm a canary."

• In a 2009 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live when host Jimmy Kimmel asks him if he has ever "googled," Big Bird replies: "Uh, no, but I have an uncle turkey who gobbles."

• Big Bird fielded the question, sampled from a Google search, in a 2017 video for Wired. He answers, "I've been told that I'm a lark, um, Oscar says that I'm part homing pigeon. But, I think I'm a 'bigus canarius.' Look it up."

Big Bird's family

Nani Bird, Granny Bird, and Baby Big Bird

Big Bird and his best friend, Mr. Snuffleupagus

Big Bird with his teddy bear, Radar

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Big Bird, with his loving Sesame Street family.

Big Bird lives alone on Sesame Street, essentially adopted by the general neighborhood, with the adults often acting as stand-in parents (in particular, Susan, Gordon and Maria). In Sesame Street Home Video Visits the Hospital, when the hospital receptionist asks if Maria is Big Bird's mother, she replies, "Not exactly... kind of... yes." In Episode 4618, during the song "You're the Mom for Me," Big Bird gives a bouquet of paper flowers to Nina, whom he considers a surrogate mom.

As a baby, Big Bird was raised by his Granny Bird and his aunt, Nani Bird. As he became more self-reliant, Big Bird moved out on his own, to his nest on Sesame Street. Granny Bird remains a part of his life, and he often visits her in the books. When Big Bird's nest was destroyed in a hurricane in 2001, Big Bird called Granny for advice about building a new nest.

There is also scattered evidence of other relations. In Episode 0302, Big Bird receives a coat from his mommy in the mail, and he babysits for his sister's egg in Episode 0345. In a sketch from Episode 1260, he claims his sister is named Esmerelda. He also mentions a mother, father, and sister in the song "Tall Enough." It's unclear why Big Bird was raised apart from his nuclear family.

Other relatives, in addition to the aformentioned emu grandpa (A Celebration of Grover) and turkey uncle (Jimmy Kimmel Live) include the following:

• Uncle Slim, a cowbird from Wyoming, seen in a 1981 episode

• Herman Bird, an identical cousin from the country, who visits in a 1975 episode

• Monroe, a cousin mentioned in a 1972 episode

• Bartholomew Bird, a poor cousin pictured in The Sesame Street Dictionary

• Auntie Maureen, Big Bird's aunt who lives on the loop in Chicago and looks exactly like her nephew except that she has blue eyes. Big Bird mentions her in episode 1576.

• Floyd, a cousin of Big Bird's who lives in Los Angeles and is a surfer. He looks like his New York cousin, only purple. Also made mention of in episode 1576.
• Uncle Ned, Big Bird sees a chicken mask that he says looks a little like his uncle.

• Cousins Bunscombe Bird (a baker), Bertha Bird (a police officer), Bagshot Bird (a fire chief), and Bathsheba Bird (a doctor), all pictured in the story "Big Bird Visits His Cousin" in The Sesame Street Library Volume 3

• Cousin Bubba, according to the Elmo's World episode "Penguins," lives at the South Pole. A scarf his Granny Bird knitted for Bubba is shown draped on a penguin.

• Cousin Bernie; a seagull, whom he has fish with every time they visit, as mentioned in Big Bird in Japan

• Big Bird's cousin Robin, mentioned and seen in the song "Spring is Here."

• Some of the relatives on Big Bird's father side of the family are geese, as mentioned in Episode 2998.

• One of his cousins, mentioned in episode 3336, is a roadrunner.

• Big Bird claims to have a tinikling (which is actually a dance form) for a cousin in a season 28 episode.

Additionally, the birds from several international co-productions have been designated as cousins of Big Bird:

• Abelardo -- Plaza Sésamo, Mexico

• Da Niao -- Zhima Jie, China

• Garibaldo -- Vila Sésamo, Brazil

• Minik Kuş -- Susam Sokağı, Turkey

• Pino -- Sesamstraat, the Netherlands

• Poupas -- Rua Sésamo, Portugal

Although Big Bird does know his family, in the book Big Bird's Bedtime Story, Luis tells Big Bird's back story, stating that a large egg was delivered to Hooper's Store one day, and the various residents of Sesame Street chose to build a nest for it and took care of it until it hatched. However, the story is probably not considered canon because it features a few characters who were not around when the series began (such as David, Luis and Telly Monster).

Big Bird's age

Big Bird in his nest

The character was originally conceived as a kind of a yokel. It took most of the show's first season, but the writers and performers soon came to see Big Bird not as the "village idiot," but as a curious child. Spinney described him as "He was the too-big kid, much as I had been the too-little kid when I was his age. I suggested that we think of him as a child first learning to read and learning the alphabet, like our audience. That made him about 4½."

As Sesame Street's core audience has gotten younger, Big Bird has aged. "He's about 6," Spinney says, "arrested at 6."

For years Big Bird's age has been frozen at a particular point — he's six years old in the 1985 film Follow That Bird, and still six in the 1989 special Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting. Big Bird celebrated his sixth birthday (again) in the 1991 PBS pledge drive special Big Bird's Birthday or Let Me Eat Cake.

“They realized that Big Bird isn't the village idiot - he a child, with a wide-eyed view of the world. For a long time, we played him at age 4. Now we see him as 6½ - and there he stays.”
—Caroll Spinney

Big Bird's birthday is March 20th.

Performing Big Bird

A second puppeteer, concealed behind the puppet, helps Big Bird hold Radar during filming of a Sesame Street scene.

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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. Occasionally, a second puppeteer operates the right hand in scenes where Big Bird moves both of his hands or holds a prop.

When Caroll Spinney performed Big Bird on-location and could not get a video feed on his television monitor, a hole was made in the bird suit to give Spinney the ability to see out in front of him. On these occasions, Big Bird wears a necktie at all times to hide the hole. Don't Eat the Pictures, Big Bird in China and Big Bird in Japan are all examples of this.

As Spinney aged, new performers were trained to play Big Bird. For over 20 years, Matt Vogel was Spinney's primary understudy, doubling as Big Bird for live appearances and in occasional Sesame Street segments. Vogel has sometimes puppeteered Big Bird to Spinney's voice, and other times performed the voice himself, most prominently in the show's Journey to Ernie segments. By 2015, Spinney had stopped puppeteering Big Bird due to physical setbacks, but he continued to provide the voice for seasons 46 and 47 while Vogel puppeteered the bird on-set. Vogel continued to perform and voice Big Bird in other appearances and, with Spinney's retirement in 2018, officially became his successor. See also Caroll Spinney character transitions.

Other Big Bird puppeteers over the years have included Rick Lyon for the opening theme song of the show's 20th, 25th, 30th and 33rd seasons, Noel MacNeal for several Macy's Parades and a 2015 appearance on The Tonight Show, and Peter Linz for the "Number of the Day" song and Shakespeare in the Park.

Caroll Spinney was sick during the taping of a few first season episodes, so Daniel Seagren performed Big Bird in those episodes (including Episode 0083). He also performed Big Bird when he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1969, and in a number of Sesame Street Cast Tours in 1970. Jim Henson, who designed Big Bird, proved to be a possible candidate to perform the bird, as he was slender and over six feet tall. But Kermit Love, who built the costume, didn't think that he walked like a bird is supposed to walk. Henson then offered the part to Frank Oz, but since Oz hated performing full-body characters, he turned down the job.

For years, Spinney had a policy of refusing to pose for photographs in half of the bird suit. He later explained why in an interview for The New Yorker:

“Look magazine had an article on us in 1970. Big Bird was built a little differently then: He was strapped on me, and you couldn't easily get out without an assistant reaching underneath and unbuckling things—now it slips right off, it's much better. So I couldn't get out. But you had to breathe after a while, so I was able to stick my head out between the body and the head, and they had a photo of me sticking my head out. And Jim Henson said, "Don't let that ever happen again. You're either bird or you, but no in between."”

Notes

• Big Bird's feathers are white turkey feathers, dyed yellow. There are approximately 4,000 feathers on the puppet. According to Muppet wrangler Michelle Hickey, Big Bird's feathers are "hand-glued and backed with a ribbon that is hand-stitched on." His feathers are also rated from A to D, with only A and B rated feathers making up the puppet. Occasionally C rated feathers are used towards the bottom of the puppet. Hickey also states that the feathers are replaced every two weeks, or after the Muppet has been to an event. Count von Count has taken it upon himself to count the feathers on a number of occasions, each with a different number total. These instances include Learning About Numbers (5,961), Episode 2722 (4,798), and Episode 5015 (6,273).

• Jim Henson had originally planned on having the performer inside Big Bird perform the character by wearing the suit backwards so that Big Bird could bend his knees backwards like a real bird.

• Big Bird sang "Bein' Green" in honor of Jim Henson (and Kermit) during Jim Henson's Memorial Service. During the song, he was close to tears. At the song's end, he looked up to the heavens and said, voice breaking, "Thank you, Kermit."

• Big Bird made a special guest appearance on an episode of Deal or No Deal, to help contestant Lamar Wilson overcome his childhood fear of the bird.

• Sesame Workshop included a "Muppetbook" section of Muppet bios in the digital press kit for 40th season of Sesame Street (posted on Sesameworkshop.org. On his profile, Big Bird listed chicken soup as one of his pet peeves.

• There were plans to have Big Bird fly on the Space Shuttle Challenger (specifically, on the exact same flight that ultimately ended with the destruction of the Challenger), but the sheer size of the puppet prevented these plans from reaching fruition. Instead, there was a plan to feature Big Bird's teddy bear Radar to fly on the Challenger, and Radar was even included on the original mission plan, but the plan was scrapped in favor of having teacher Christa McAuliffe fly on the ill-fated mission.

• According to different episodes, Big Bird has weighed 165 pounds (Episode 1097), 300 pounds (Episode 1339), and 280 pounds (Episode 1606).

Awards & Honors

• Big Bird received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994.
• Big Bird was featured on a U.S. postage stamp in 1999 and on postage stamps in Fiji, Kiribati, the Cayman Islands, and Samoa in 2000.

See also

• Big Bird Through the Years
• Big Bird's nest
• Big Bird filmography
• Big Bird books
• Big Bird songs
• International Big Bird
• Big Bird (animated)
• Big Bird walk-arounds
• 2012 United States presidential election debates

External links

• New York Times "Big Bird Responds" November 9, 2009