Caroll Spinney
Caroll Spinney
Caroll Edwin Spinneyis an American puppeteer and cartoonist, most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street. He has sometimes been credited as Carroll Spinney or Ed Spinney...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth26 December 1933
CountryUnited States of America
along bid bird came child created goofy jim learning oscar script teaching useful
When he first started - Jim Henson, who created Bid Bird and Oscar - he said Big Bird was just a big, goofy guy. And it was - a script came along and I said, 'I think Big Bird would be much more useful to the show if he were a child learning all the things we were teaching in the show.' And so he didn't know the alphabet, even, for instance.
dare dressing family found jim pay rent room stayed staying until
When I got to New York, I had no place to sleep. The pay from 'Sesame Street' wasn't enough to rent an apartment. I was staying on people's couches. I stayed in the dressing room until they found out. I stayed with Jim Henson and his family for a week, and I wanted to do that permanently. I didn't dare ask, though.
good moving singing
The other puppeteers are really good, often when they are singing together, they go left, right, left... But if they are all moving to the left, I'm moving to the right. Big Bird and Oscar, that's okay, because they are individuals anyway.
best designed exaggerate trying
You can exaggerate with puppets. You're not trying to look like real people. The way the Muppets are designed is really appealing. Puppets are best if they're exaggerated creatures.
bought built cents collected five good grew knew paid puppet puppeteer scrap wood
When I was eight, I bought my first puppet. It was a monkey, and I paid five cents for it. I collected some scrap wood and built myself a puppet theatre. I made 32 cents with my first show, which I thought was pretty good, and that's when I knew I would be a puppeteer when I grew up.
complete human struggles
Big Bird went through his very human kind of struggles as a child. No other children's character has been that complete and detailed.
based
Big Bird is based on what I learned as a child.
good imagine job reason till
I see no reason to quit. I can't imagine walking away from being Big Bird. I mean, that's an awfully good job that there's not too many of them. So I just want to keep doing it till I can't do it anymore.
genuinely half life older played
I've played Big Bird for over half my life, and now I'm in my 80s. It does feel older than 79. Someone said it's just a number, and I said, 'No, I genuinely feel older.'
learned taught
I've learned to say, 'I'm a friend of Big Bird. He even taught me how to sound like him.'
beak bird bizarre exact feet great identify inches kids looks mind negative nice opposite oscar positive sweet though view
Oscar is the exact opposite of how I think you should behave. I just think of it as a negative view of the positive mind I have. Big Bird is sweet and nice and also sympathetic, as kids can identify with him even though he looks like such a bizarre character - great 8 feet 2 inches, a beak 18 inches long.
I know I don't own Big Bird, but I own his soul, I feel.