Big Bird

[j44ke]

Caroll Spinney died yesterday. Big Bird was a big (sorry) part of my childhood, and Sesame Street undoubtedly shaped my world view as an adult. So it is sad to hear about Mr. Spinney. If there are special places for people like him, then he's there. And so is Jim Henson.

My sister texted me this morning - she works with autistic kids in the Raleigh schools - and they were on the alert for minor meltdowns among the kids. Which my sister says is not too different than any other Monday morning, except that I guess among at least some of her students, Big Bird is a superstar. Fortunately for the kids, Big Bird will live on with Matt Vogel at the controls.

There is a very good documentary on Caroll Spinney called "I Am Big Bird", which is worth seeing. And the 50th Anniversary celebration of Sesame Street will bring back memories. And the show just won a Kennedy Center award last night. Chapeau.

[mnoble485]

I just started reading the NYT article on Mr. Rogers. His story is worth reading about as is the history of the show. I missed Sesame Street by more than a few years. I had Capt. Kangaroo.

Mike

[Mabouya]

It may be too early for this, but to be honest, I never liked BB - he was way too smarmy for my taste.

Now Oscar, he was always my Sesame Street favorite.

[j44ke]

One of the interesting moments of Big Bird was when they figured out that adults on the program had to be able to see Mr. Snuffleupagus, because it was teaching kids that adults might not believe kids who tell them about things the adults didn't see for themselves. And that had definite ramifications for saving kids from abusive situations. Big Bird spoke for kids at an age where abstract concepts and perhaps even language wasn't fully formed. Oscar was definitely an older character. Older or precocious kids got Oscar because he involved himself in sarcasm, which is very complicated actually. For Big Bird, everything was literal. There was no nuance or double entendre because those things don't exist for 3 year olds. Spinney did the voices for both Big Bird and Oscar, and in a way they were sort of the yin-and-yang for each other.

But yeah, I had an aversion to Mister Rogers perhaps for similar reasons (though surprise surprise I liked the stories) until I got older and understood what he was doing, which was actually tremendously great.

[dgaddis]

We're big on Sesame Street in our house, our almost 2yr old LOVES IT. She starts dancing as soon as she hears the theme song.

We thought this was great ::

[Bob Ross]

This one hurts. My very first job, from when I was 12 or 13 up until maybe 17 years old, was as a puppeteer with the Capricorn Players in West Nyack NY (early/mid 1970s). We got (read: stole) a lot of ideas on movement and character construction from Henson's Muppets, so watching Sesame Street was viewed as a job prerequisite. (Having a sister six years younger than me made it inevitable that Sesame Street was going to be on the tube anyway.)
RIP Mr. Spinney