Caroll Spinney, Big Bird & Oscar puppeteer dies

Carroll Spinney, who breathed life into “Sesame Street’s” Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for five decades, passed away on December 8 at his home in Conn. He was age 85.

He was the man who was pulling the strings behind our childhood. Acclaimed puppeteer and actor Caroll Spinney, who breathed life into Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for five decades, passed away Sunday at age 85.

According to a report from NPR, The Sesame Workshop said Spinney had died at home in Connecticut. He had apparently lived with dystonia, a disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions.

Spinney was an artistic genius whose kind and loving view of the world helped shape and define Sesame Street from its earliest days in 1969 through five decades, and his legacy here at Sesame Workshop and in the cultural firmament will be unending.

His enormous talent and outsized heart were perfectly suited to playing the larger-than-life yellow Big Bird who brought joy to generations of children and countless fans of all ages around the world, and his lovably cantankerous grouch gave us all permission to be cranky once in a while.

Spinney was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, on December 26, 1933. His mother, a native of Bolton, England, named him Caroll because he was born the day after Christmas.

Drawing and painting came naturally to him as a child. But he would develop a love for puppeteering after seeing a performance of Three Little Kittens at the age of five.

This motivated him to purchase a monkey puppet from a rummage sale three years later and put on a puppet show utilizing the monkey and a plush snake. The following Christmas, his mother gifted him with a Punch and Judy puppet theater.

He continued puppeteering throughout his childhood and adolescence and used his performances to raise money for college tuition.

In 1955, he moved relocated to Las Vegas, where he performed in the show Rascal Rabbit.  He returned to Boston, joining The Judy and Goggle Show in 1958 as a puppeteer “Goggle” to Judy Valentine’s Judy.

Throughout the 1960s, he performed on the Boston broadcast of Bozo’s Big Top, where he played various costumed characters which included Kookie the Boxing Kangaroo as well as Mr. Lion, who created cartoon drawings from the names of children participating in the show. Through that decade, he was also a commercial artist and animator.

Spinney created a puppet duo consisting of two cats named Picklepuss and Pop, which he utilized throughout the 1960s. Many years later, Spinney’s Picklepuss and Pop puppets were characters in Wow, You’re a Cartoonist!

Welcomed to Sesame Street by Jim Henson, he thrived under a mentorship that led to a decades-long great friendship. Spinney’s unparalleled career saw Big Bird visit China with Bob Hope, dance with the Rockettes, be celebrated with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a U.S. postage stamp, and named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress.

According to the Sesame Workshop, a favorite highlight for Spinney was conducting symphony orchestras and performing with them across the United States, Australia, and China, allowing him to personally connect with families everywhere through the music of Sesame Street. 

Sesame Street co-founder Joan Ganz Cooney said of her longtime colleague and friend, “Caroll Spinney’s contributions to Sesame Street are countless. He not only gave us Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, he gave so much of himself as well. We at Sesame Workshop mourn his passing and feel an immense gratitude for all he has given to Sesame Street and to children around the world.”

“Caroll and Big Bird are very similar in their genuine niceness and sweetness and lovingness,” said Joan Ganz Cooney, co-founder of the Sesame Workshop said in a video tribute to Spinney last year. “He’s just so respectful and so nice to all the kids, and all that comes across in Big Bird.”

At a celebration for the show’s 15th anniversary in 1984, Muppet-masterJim Henson recounted how he and Spinney had met in August 1969 at a puppetry festival in Salt Lake City.

“He’s a very talented performer and he had a great sense of ad-libbing,” Henson remembered. “And he was doing this strange-looking cat on local television in Boston. And so we started talking at that point about doing this show, and I asked Caroll if he’d enjoy coming and being part of this very strange bird.”

ALSO READ: ‘Star Trek’ writer D.C. Fontana passes at 80

Spinney retired last year. As balance issues made the physically demanding role of Big Bird more difficult, the big yellow suit was taken on by another performer, Matt Vogel, while Spinney continued to voice Big Bird and Oscar.

In a 2015 interview with NPR, Spinney said it didn’t bother him that people know Big Bird and Oscar, not Spinney himself. “I don’t mind a bit because I know I can play them — and also good pay — and I get to take the pay home. Meanwhile, they’re back at Sesame Street.”

Spinney was originally directed to play Big Bird as “a funny, dumb country yokel,” he said last year. But he convinced Henson that it’d be better to play Big Bird instead as a very big, feathered 6-year-old.

Twitter Reacts

From 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren to Mayor Bill DeBlasio, reactions on social media were heartfelt for the beloved Spinney.

 

 

 

“I said, I think I should play him like he’s a child, a surrogate,” he remembered. “He can be all the things that children are. He can learn with the kids.”

Caroll Spinney gave something truly special to the world. With deepest admiration, Sesame Workshop is proud to carry his memory – and his beloved characters – into the future.

He is survived by wife, Debra, and all of his children and grandchildren.

SOURCE: NPR, Sesame Street Workshop

Carroll Spinney, who breathed life into “Sesame Street’s” Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for five decades, passed away on December 8 at his home in Conn. He was age 85.

He was the man who was pulling the strings behind our childhood. Acclaimed puppeteer and actor Caroll Spinney, who breathed life into Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for five decades, passed away Sunday at age 85.

According to a report from NPR, The Sesame Workshop said Spinney had died at home in Connecticut. He had apparently lived with dystonia, a disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions.

Spinney was an artistic genius whose kind and loving view of the world helped shape and define Sesame Street from its earliest days in 1969 through five decades, and his legacy here at Sesame Workshop and in the cultural firmament will be unending.

His enormous talent and outsized heart were perfectly suited to playing the larger-than-life yellow Big Bird who brought joy to generations of children and countless fans of all ages around the world, and his lovably cantankerous grouch gave us all permission to be cranky once in a while.

Spinney was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, on December 26, 1933. His mother, a native of Bolton, England, named him Caroll because he was born the day after Christmas.

Drawing and painting came naturally to him as a child. But he would develop a love for puppeteering after seeing a performance of Three Little Kittens at the age of five.

This motivated him to purchase a monkey puppet from a rummage sale three years later and put on a puppet show utilizing the monkey and a plush snake. The following Christmas, his mother gifted him with a Punch and Judy puppet theater.

He continued puppeteering throughout his childhood and adolescence and used his performances to raise money for college tuition.

In 1955, he moved relocated to Las Vegas, where he performed in the show Rascal Rabbit.  He returned to Boston, joining The Judy and Goggle Show in 1958 as a puppeteer “Goggle” to Judy Valentine’s Judy.

Throughout the 1960s, he performed on the Boston broadcast of Bozo’s Big Top, where he played various costumed characters which included Kookie the Boxing Kangaroo as well as Mr. Lion, who created cartoon drawings from the names of children participating in the show. Through that decade, he was also a commercial artist and animator.

Spinney created a puppet duo consisting of two cats named Picklepuss and Pop, which he utilized throughout the 1960s. Many years later, Spinney’s Picklepuss and Pop puppets were characters in Wow, You’re a Cartoonist!

Welcomed to Sesame Street by Jim Henson, he thrived under a mentorship that led to a decades-long great friendship. Spinney’s unparalleled career saw Big Bird visit China with Bob Hope, dance with the Rockettes, be celebrated with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a U.S. postage stamp, and named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress.

According to the Sesame Workshop, a favorite highlight for Spinney was conducting symphony orchestras and performing with them across the United States, Australia, and China, allowing him to personally connect with families everywhere through the music of Sesame Street. 

Sesame Street co-founder Joan Ganz Cooney said of her longtime colleague and friend, “Caroll Spinney’s contributions to Sesame Street are countless. He not only gave us Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, he gave so much of himself as well. We at Sesame Workshop mourn his passing and feel an immense gratitude for all he has given to Sesame Street and to children around the world.”

“Caroll and Big Bird are very similar in their genuine niceness and sweetness and lovingness,” said Joan Ganz Cooney, co-founder of the Sesame Workshop said in a video tribute to Spinney last year. “He’s just so respectful and so nice to all the kids, and all that comes across in Big Bird.”

At a celebration for the show’s 15th anniversary in 1984, Muppet-masterJim Henson recounted how he and Spinney had met in August 1969 at a puppetry festival in Salt Lake City.

“He’s a very talented performer and he had a great sense of ad-libbing,” Henson remembered. “And he was doing this strange-looking cat on local television in Boston. And so we started talking at that point about doing this show, and I asked Caroll if he’d enjoy coming and being part of this very strange bird.”

ALSO READ: ‘Star Trek’ writer D.C. Fontana passes at 80

Spinney retired last year. As balance issues made the physically demanding role of Big Bird more difficult, the big yellow suit was taken on by another performer, Matt Vogel, while Spinney continued to voice Big Bird and Oscar.

In a 2015 interview with NPR, Spinney said it didn’t bother him that people know Big Bird and Oscar, not Spinney himself. “I don’t mind a bit because I know I can play them — and also good pay — and I get to take the pay home. Meanwhile, they’re back at Sesame Street.”

Spinney was originally directed to play Big Bird as “a funny, dumb country yokel,” he said last year. But he convinced Henson that it’d be better to play Big Bird instead as a very big, feathered 6-year-old.

Twitter Reacts

From 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren to Mayor Bill DeBlasio, reactions on social media were heartfelt for the beloved Spinney.

 

 

 

“I said, I think I should play him like he’s a child, a surrogate,” he remembered. “He can be all the things that children are. He can learn with the kids.”

Caroll Spinney gave something truly special to the world. With deepest admiration, Sesame Workshop is proud to carry his memory – and his beloved characters – into the future.

He is survived by wife, Debra, and all of his children and grandchildren.

SOURCE: NPR, Sesame Street Workshop