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It Ain't Easy Being Big Bird, New Film Shows

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – In 1964, Muppet master Jim Henson picked the young puppeteer Caroll Spinney to don an 8-foot-tall bird suit for an educational children's show called "Sesame Street." Forty-five years later and more than two decades since Henson's death, Spinney is still the man inside that yellow-feathered puppet, recognized the world over as Big Bird.

Now 81-years-old, the Massachusetts native is currently working on Sesame Street's 46th season. He plays both Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, and he says he has no desire to stop performing anytime soon.

"I will have to [leave] one day, for some reason though," he said, during a phone interview. "Pretty easy to imagine that."

Even when talking about his mortality, Spinney will sometimes switch voices, bouncing between his regular speaking voice and that of Big Bird's. He puts on the character as though slipping into a pair of pajamas. The reason he can do it so effortlessly, according to a new documentary, is that Spinney doesn't just play Big Bird, he basically is Big Bird.

"I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story," which opens this Friday at the St. Anthony Main Theatre, focuses on the man behind the puppet's 4,000 feathers, showing that while Spinney's childhood was lonely and difficult, it fostered the tender and creative personality out of which Big Bird would one day hatch.

Directed by Dave LaMittina and Chad N. Walker, the film also tells how Spinney and his second wife fell in love, the sadness he felt after Henson's death and how he nearly lost his own life on the doomed space shuttle Challenger.

As told in the film, the Big Bird suit was just too bulky to fit in the spacecraft, and as a result, NASA gave Spinney's spot to 37-year-old schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe instead.

Big Bird, Caroll Spinney
(credit: Debra Spinney)

Alone in the suit

One of the main differences between Big Bird and the other puppets on "Sesame Street" is that Spinney is a soloist.

The film shows the other puppeteers working together, laughing together, reading each other's faces while performing with puppets raised above their heads. Spinney doesn't get that. Like a hockey goalie, he's away from the team, encapsulated inside a vital role. Because of this, his place in the Sesame Street family is different.

Spinney's colleagues describe him as being extremely talented, but an artist who marches to his own drum. For some, this quality was/is charming. For others, such as his longtime director Jon Stone, working with Spinney was the cause of some frustration, which the film explores.

In early days of Sesame Street, Spinney nearly quit the show. He found himself disappointing Henson and himself, and for a while he had no place to live in New York City. So he left Sesame Street for a few days.

"But I quickly realized that this is a job I shouldn't walk away from," Spinney said. "Many people say, if it wasn't me doing Big Bird, there wouldn't be a Big Bird."

It ain't easy

One of the main reasons Big Bird wouldn't exist today, if not for Spinney, is that the yellow-feathered bird is tough to play.

"[Big Bird] would have been dropped, I think," Spinney said. "It's difficult to do, and I think that they'd probably make easier characters to do."

Through animations and the testimony of other puppeteers, the documentary depicts how a master puppeteer like Spinney makes Big Bird come alive.

"My right arm is in the head, which weighs 4-and-a-half pounds," Spinney said. "Although some people say, That's not that much weight. I say, Try holding that above your head for 15 minutes. You're whimpering by the end."

With his right hand stretched up into the puppet's head, Spinney controls Big Bird's mouth and eyelids. Meanwhile, his left hand is in charge of the wings, and he voices the character himself, reading lines he tapes inside the suit.

He does all this while effectively flying blind.

"You can't see a thing in the [suit]," Spinney said. "The first year, I didn't have any marks or sides, so I couldn't see what I was doing."

That led to several mistakes and an idea from one of the show's early directors, Bob Myhrum.

He took a small TV monitor and strapped it to Spinney's chest. Then he broadcast the camera's feed to the monitor so Spinney could look down and see what Big Bird looked like to the viewer.

"My work went from an unbelievably low F to maybe a B+," Spinney said. "It takes a long time to get to be really good I think, but I think I made it."

He still uses a similar device today. They call it the "electric bra."

Big Bird, Caroll Spinney
(credit: Debra Spinney)

Just a big kid

Spinney was 5 years old when he fell in love with puppets. He remembers seeing a show featuring three little cats, and becoming enthralled with the idea that you could tell a story with something on your hands.

At 8, he got his own puppets, and with the help of his artist mother, he started performing shows that she'd write, charging viewers 2 cents a head.

"That was enough money to let me go to the movies on Saturday...because the admission price was only 9 cents," he said.

Yet, life outside of puppetry was difficult. His father's explosive temper frightened him, and his passion for puppetry wasn't shared by classmates, who saw the young artist as a little kid with big ears.

"Some of the guys thought it wasn't very masculine to have puppet shows," Spinney said. "And having a name like Caroll didn't help. They said, 'Caroll, are you playing with your dolls?'"

The time Spinney spent alone as a kid not only made him into a good puppeteer, it made him deeply in-tune with the feelings of childhood.

So, when Henson assigned Spinney to Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, the characters suited him well. He said he never once wanted to play another character, or felt bored with his assignments, even as other characters, such as Elmo, rose in popularity.

"Oscar and Big Bird are so different from each other," Spinney said, "I find it a real gift to play the character who is ornery and colorful like Oscar and then Big Bird, who is a big kid, just trying to get through life like other children."

A living legend

At the turn of the century, the Library of Congress named Big Bird a living legend. Yet, Spinney holds an unusual place in the world's mind, in that hundreds of millions of people could recognize his voice, but few know his face.

During difficult times in his life, Spinney took refuge in the puppet. During the breakup of his first marriage, he'd sometimes weep inside the suit. Other times, when feeling blue, he'd remember that Big Bird, for many children throughout the decades of his career, was a real character in their lives.

"The letters I got would reflect that," Spinney said. "They'd say, 'Hey Big Bird, you're my friend. You're my best friend, please come and visit me. How about next Thursday?'"

The puppeteer says that Big Bird plays a different role in children's lives than cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck.

"Big Bird had life stories that reminded children of their own problems," Spinney said. "Hundreds of millions of American children have had Big Bird for a little while in their lives as a child, and I have to pinch myself to realize how wonderful it was to have that experience. And it still is."

Breaking into that iconic voice, he says, "I still play him. I'm still here."

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