The Sesame Street my daughter watches and the one I watched have only a few things in common. I'm BE, for one thing -- "Before Elmo" and all his little pals. The Count used to be scarier, Oscar grouchier, and Bert and Ernie a little less, ahem, ambiguous.
One thing, though, we share: Carroll Spinney's been the man behind the Big Bird costume all that time. Now 74 (which certainly explains why we don’t see as much of Big Bird as we used to), Spinney is still playing the loveable, goofy, 8-foot avian (he also plays Oscar the Grouch). His book about his adventures, The Wisdom of Big Bird and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch, was released yesterday.
A few fun facts from the article: Spinney uses a TV monitor to see where he's going when he's in the Big Bird costume, because there's no other way to see outside.
The top half of the costume weights 25 pounds.
Spinney protects Big Bird's feet with slippers when they aren’t visible in a scene. Giant purple, custom-made slippers.
Back in 1972, some Georgia Tech ROTC students got hold of the costume and ravaged it, leaving the puppet mechanism ruined and the eyes torn out. Spinney said he went into shock at the sight.
And best of all: Spinney, who met his wife at Sesame Workshop,has three grown kids and four grandkids. You know those kids are ruling circle time –after all, what's cooler than having a grandpa who lives on Sesame Street?
