Big Bird in flight

1036-Fly — Big Bird presents the world "FLY," then is unable to do so, in Episode 1036.

Big Bird is a relatively flightless bird. However, on several occasions, he has found alternate methods of taking to the sky.

For the most part, and unlike most other birds, Big Bird has been shown as being unable to fly by his own means; a point that is stressed on multiple occasions. However, in the early seasons of Sesame Street, passing references to an aviating avian were made with little to no context or further exploration. Episode 0167 offers an early example in a scene where Mr. Hooper is struggling with where to stack some boxes in the yard while, off-screen, the sound of flapping wings can be heard approaching. Big Bird drops into frame out of breath, announces, "I just flew in!," and continues on with his business.

A series of quickies about flight in Episode 0278 includes a brief moment in which Big Bird tells the viewer that birds can fly; "I'm a bird and I can fly. But, not very well... yet." In Episode 0581, when Bob explains that airports need people who know something about aviation, he notes that no one knew more about flying than Big Bird. In Episode 0521, Big Bird (through the use of chroma key) is able to inflate himself like a balloon and rise in the air, and later takes flight on his own volition (though this is not shown onscreen).

In later years, Big Bird's lack of flight would be solidified with references to this inability as a shortcoming or something he longed for. When Julie Andrews asked Big Bird about flying in Julie on Sesame Street, Big Bird said you'd never see him up in one of "those things", adding that if birds were meant to fly they'd have been born with luggage racks. A year later in Episode 0703, Big Bird turns his sorrow over his inability to fly into a project in which he builds an airplane of his own. Episode 1566 saw him get creative in his attempts to fly when he devised of a situation in which Mr. Snuffleupagus would blow him up into the air on a kite. The 1994 song "Big Bird Doesn't Fly" takes issue head-on, where he claims he remains Earth-bound because he just hasn't learned to fly yet.

Big wrote an entire poem about his flying fantasy in 1983's The Songs of Sesame Street in Poems and Pictures, and his performer, Caroll Spinney, once painted an artwork of Big Bird flying over the countryside that he called "In My Dreams I Can Fly."

Big Bird in flight

Illustrated[]

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