Caroll Spinney characters

Caroll Spinney most notably performed Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street for fifty years.

What is not as well known, however, is that Spinney also performed a number of other characters, usually Anything Muppets, in the earlier seasons of the show. Spinney also performed Muppet versions of his pre-Sesame Street characters Picklepuss and Pop in a Muppet production, and made several cameos on the show.

Fill-in characters

Characters predominantly played by another performer, where Spinney served as a fill-in.

Sam the Robot in Episode 0461

Lefty the Salesman in
sketches for U and P&R

Named characters

Granny Bird

Granny Fanny Nesselrode

Bruno the Trashman

Shivers the Penguin

Bennett Snerf

Richie

season 3 Mama Bear

Ira

Duke David

Ludwig

Professor Goldfinch

Tough Luck Lester

Penelope Pepperpot

Adrienne in "A, You're Adorable"

Shared characters

Named characters with no regular performer at the time.

proto-Grover in "Monsters Look at A"

Cookie Monster and Beautiful Day Monster in "Monsters Whisper C"

Billy in "IS" sketch

Hippie in Kermit's hair lecture

Scudge and Fred's son in "First and Last"

Ancillary characters

Unnamed Anything Muppets, monsters, etc.

Lavender AM in baseball sketch (First: Episode 0193)

son in "Children Song"

Reddish-Magenta AM in "Goin' for a Ride"

Pumpkin AM in "Wonderful/Yucchy"

Purple AM in "Everyone Likes Ice Cream"

Pumpkin pilot in "Yellow Submarine"

Mother in "Consider Yourself"
(dialogue only)

AM in "Cookie Monster Goes to School"

The King in "Cutie and the Beast"

sibling in "Five People in My Family"

Fat Blue man in Kermit looks for clues

little boy and man in "Lulu's Back in Town"

postman Rubber Ball

Rubber Ball (second from left) in basketball sketch (First: Episode 0267)

Mother in Family Arrangement sketch (First: Episode 0275)

the farmer in "The Magic Apple"

"Can You Guess?" panelist #3

Pumpkin AM in "Surprise!"

Pumpkin monster in "Monster Tug-of-War" (First: Episode 0261)

Spinney in Grover Monotones walk sketch.jpg

Lavender AM in Grover and Monotones WALK sketch (First: Episode 0221)

AM in "Mad"

Audio voices

Characters and voiceovers performed off-screen.

The Cookie Tree

Strange Little Man in
"The Magic Cookie"

singing "Rockabye Baby" to a koala in a season one film
(First: Episode 0048)

announcing the sponsors in Episode 0006

Episode 0600, Scene 4

Honorary Mentions

• In the audio cassette version of the book A Sesame Street Christmas, Caroll Spinney as Big Bird reads a story that includes his imitations of Bert, Ernie, Betty Lou, and Grover. Another story on the tape finds Caroll Spinney as Oscar imitating Big Bird.

• Spinney narrates several of the audio adaptations of the Sesame Street Start-to-Read Book series, sometimes doing other character voices.

Notes

• Despite his claims to the contrary, Spinney never performed Elmo.
• Daniel Seagren once filled in as Big Bird when Spinney was sick in Episode 0083. Similarly, Jim Henson filled in as Oscar for Episode 0084.

See also

• Caroll and Debra Spinney Cameos