Big Bird
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Big Bird is a full body Muppet, featured on the children's television show Sesame Street, which airs on PBS. Since Sesame Street began, America's most famous 8 foot 2 inch big yellow bird has entertained millions of pre-school children and their parents with his wide-eyed wondering at the world. He is sometimes referred to as "Bird" by his friends.
Performed by Caroll Spinney since 1969, this 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 bird. But despite this wide array of talents, he is prone to frequent misunderstandings, on one occasion even singing the alphabet as one big long word, pondering what it could ever mean (see ABC-DEF-GHI). He lives in a large nest behind the 123 Sesame Street Apartment and he has a teddy bear named Radar (a nod to Walter "Radar" O'Reilly of M*A*S*H, who had a teddy bear and was also lovably naive and innocent).
This character helps children feel okay 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 is a good way of finding things out!". In addition to letters and numbers, he also teaches other life lessons: "I guess it's better to be who you are. Turns out people like you best that way, anyway."
For many years his best friend Mr. Snuffleupagus ("Snuffy" for short) was deemed as imaginary by the human cast. Every time Snuffy would visit, he would coincidentally leave just before the adults arrived. Despite not being believed by the adults, Big Bird continued to assert that Snuffy was real. In the early 1980s a string of high-profile child sexual abuse cases caused Sesame Workshop (then The Children's Television Workshop) to eliminate this running gag, fearing that children would take to heart the message that, if adults don't believe something out of the ordinary, they'd be just as well off to remain silent. [1]
Big Bird took center stage on Sesame Street in the early 1980s, when the show dealt with the death of storekeeper Mr. Hooper (necessitated by the death of Will Lee, the actor who played the role). 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. [2]
In Big Bird's big screen debut, Sesame Street presents Follow That Bird, he is sent by 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 but he is kidnapped and dyed baby blue by two ratty circus-owners.
Big Bird also had a role in the feature film Elmo in Grouchland and several other movie-length features such as Big Bird in China and Big Bird in Japan.
While Big Bird is generally deemed a canary, when he visited the Neighborhood of Make-Believe in episode 1483 of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (which aired on Wednesday June 3, 1981), Big Bird shared with X the Owl that he is in fact a Golden Condor. On the same program, when King Friday XIII asked him if he was related to the cassowary, Big Bird replied, "I'm more of a condor."
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[edit] Performing Big Bird
As Muppeteer Caroll Spinney has aged, the show has gradually started to train new performers to play Big Bird. These apprentices include both Rick Lyon in the opening theme song of the show's 33rd season on, and Matt Vogel in the show's Journey to Ernie segment.
Caroll Spinney was sick during the taping of a few first season episodes, so Daniel Seagren performed Big Bird in those episodes. He also performed Big Bird when he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1969. According to The Story of Jim Henson by Stephanie St. Pierre, the costume was built for Jim Henson to perform, but when Jim Henson tried it on, Kermit Love, who had built the costume, didn't think that Jim Henson was walking like a bird is supposed to walk, and Jim decided not to perform Big Bird. Frank Oz was offered the part, but since he hated performing full-body characters, he turned down the job.
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 (which can occasionally be seen in closeup shots) that runs through a loop under the neck and attaches to the wrist of the left hand. The right hand thus does the opposite of the left hand: as the left hand goes down, the right hand is pulled up by the fishing line. For some of the Journey to Ernie segments, a second puppeteer (usually Jim Martin) controls Big Bird's right hand. He is concealed by dressing in a body suit the same color as their chroma key background (something that obviously can't be done on the main Sesame Street set).
[edit] Big Bird around the world
While many Sesame Street adaptations use characters similar to Big Bird (such as the green parrot Abelardo on Plaza Sesamo), some even use the exact same character. On Zhima Jie in China, Da Niao (大鳥) lives in a nest at the park. Sesame Workshop refers to him as a cousin of the American character. The producers of Sesame Street however usually demand the bird to be renamed. On Germany's Sesamstrasse he's called Bibo, as he appears as the same puppet character, just redubbed in German. In Portugal, he's Poupas, or Poupas Amarelo (amarelo means yellow). In the Netherlands he is completely replaced by a separate character, a large, light blue bird with a much shorter beak than Big Bird, called Pino. Pino is also somewhat more childish than Big Bird but is said to be the cousin of the American Big Bird. In Spain, Big Bird's counterpart was a tall, pinkish female bird called Gallina Caponata (lit. Caponata the Hen) who hosted Barrio Sesamo from 1979-1980. More recently in Spain, the name Gallina Caponata has been transferred to the American Big Bird character in the dubbed version of Play With Me, Sesame. In Susam Sokağı, Turkish adaptation of Sesame Street; is in more of an orange tone than yellow, and despite his size he's called as "Minik Kuş", meaning "Little Bird". In Mexico, he cannot be called "Big Bird" because in their country, "bird" refers to a man's anatomy, particularly the penis. Therefore, a different name is used: Abelardo. The Brazilian version (Vila Sésamo) was called Garibaldo and was blue, not yellow. On Egyptian Sesame Street (Alam Simsim) the full body puppet similar to Big Bird is a furry green creature called Nimnim (Tiny).
[edit] Trivia
- The original Big Bird had fewer feathers, making his head and body look smaller.
- The Animal Planet program The 50 Greatest TV Animals included Big Bird at number 16 in their list.
- Big Bird is the only Muppet to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In 1977, he posed with pitcher Mark "the Bird" Fidrych.
- Big Bird appeared on an episode of Between the Lions.
- Big Bird appeared in the episode "Eppur Si Muove" of The West Wing.
- Big Bird also made an appearance in The Muppet Movie as a wandering bird on the highway. He was offered a lift by Kermit and Fozzie, but declined, stating that he was trying to break into public television in New York City.
- Big Bird has also appeared on a few game shows over the years. Some notable examples:
- On a 1972 (or 1973) episode of What's My Line?, Big Bird appeared as the "Mystery Guest".
- On several occasions in the 1970s, Big Bird appeared as a semi-regular panelist on The Hollywood Squares.
- Big Bird also made an appearance on a special episode of Deal or No Deal, on Christmas Day (December 25), 2006. [1]
[edit] References
- ^ Borgenicht, David Sesame Street Unpaved page 41, 1998 Hyperion Books
- ^ ECU Magazine, Winter 86/87, Vol.1 #1
[edit] External links
- Muppet Wiki: Big Bird
- Some stills and comments about Vila Sésamo including Garibaldo, the blue version of Big Bird
