He has lent body and soul to a certain 8-foot-tall 6-year-old for nearly half a century, all the while hidden from sight.
Now Caroll Spinney is finally dropping his fine-feathered obscurity – and also emerges from the rubbish-can fortress as Oscar the Grouch – for an enchanting film portrait, I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story.
The documentary, which screened at Dubai International Film Festival in December last year, celebrates the Sesame Street puppet master who, at age 81, continues to breathe life into a pair of the world's best-loved – and most recognisable – characters.
“Why now?” says Spinney with a smile. “Well, I’d rather see it come out while I’m alive.”
In a recent joint interview with Debra, his one-time colleague and wife of nearly 40 years, Spinney, sporting shaggy silver locks, a trim beard and a self-effacing manner, calls the film “kind of flattering, ’cause I was never cool. But Big Bird and Oscar are cool to people”.
The film, which is available now on iTunes and other video-on-demand services – is getting a cinema release in the United States on Friday. Produced by Dave LaMattina, Chad Walker and Clay Frost, it took five years to make. It is no wonder – it draws on a wealth of material from Sesame Workshop, as well as a personal archive built over a lifetime by Spinney, an early adopter of 8mm movies and, in the 1970s, the earliest personal video cameras.
“When you saw the carloads of photographs and movies leaving our house with the filmmakers, you knew it would take them forever to look through all that stuff,” says Debra.
They had a lot to wade through all right – a chronicle of a ground-breaking educational TV series, the one-of-a-kind artist who helped make it such a success, and the storybook marriage that kept him inspired.
Spinney’s childhood was far from idyllic. Growing up in Waltham, Massachusetts, he was a skinny kid with big ears, a girl’s name and a love of what the other boys derided as dolls. He had seen a puppet show when he was 5 and was hooked by what seemed a perfect way to express himself. “Somehow, I was shy enough to not care about being seen,” he says. “And I figured if I could ever get on a TV show with a character that I enjoyed doing, it might even get famous. And, voila.”
Before the fame, he spent years on local kids’ TV shows playing kooky characters and performing with puppets. Then he met Jim Henson at a puppetry festival while the Muppets maestro was helping put together an innovative children’s show for public television.
Bringing Spinney on board, he handed his new hireling a couple of challenging new characters. One was Oscar the Grouch, a paragon of negativity, albeit loveably so, while the other, by chance, was Oscar’s polar opposite: a towering chick-child with a sunny-day disposition and a wide-eyed view of the world.
Big Bird was largely in synch with Spinney's own upbeat sensibility, but that doesn't mean playing him isn't gruelling. The film uncovers the claustrophobic contortions to which Spinney has subjected himself since Sesame Street began in 1969.
His right hand is held aloft inside Big Bird’s 5-pound head to animate the eyes and beak, while his left arm controls the left wing. He provides the voice in real time while interacting with other characters he can see only on a tiny monitor strapped to his chest, with the words of his script taped around the screen for him to follow.
During the first season it was even harder – he had no monitor and was effectively flying blind.
He leaves no doubt he has led a joyous life – but has also faced heartbreak.
There was a painful break-up with his first wife, who couldn't abide his puppet passion. There was the sight of shuttle Challenger exploding in 1986, killing everyone aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, a sight that was particularly upsetting for Spinney since the New Hampshire schoolteacher had been picked as the flight's civilian passenger ahead of Spinney, who was Nasa's original choice.
And, of course, there was the sudden death of Henson in 1990 at the age of 53. The film shows Spinney, in character as Big Bird, at Henson's memorial service singing It Isn't Easy Being Green, the signature song of Kermit the Frog, the Muppet with which Henson was and is most identified. Big Bird concluded the song with a skyward glance and murmured: "Thank you, Kermit."
“People asked: ‘How come you didn’t cry?’ ” says Spinney. “I cried plenty later.” Spinney today remains busy securing the Big Bird legacy while continuing to cope with inevitable headaches.
For instance, his vintage analogue monitor was recently replaced with an LED screen that isn’t necessarily an improvement: it’s larger and doesn’t fit so well inside his costume.
Not that Spinney is one to get his feathers ruffled by a job he still clearly adores. But despite the heights he’s achieved, the film ultimately reminds us: it’s not easy being Big Bird.
artslife@thenational.ae