![]() ![]() ![]() One notable study reconnected with adolescents who had participated in "Sesame Street" research as preschoolers. "My arm has gotten much stronger than it was when I started. "There's a rule with puppetry: If it's comfortable, you're probably doing it wrong." Spinney laughs. You don't even have to put anything in it.' And in a couple of minutes, he said, 'My God!' "One fellow says, 'That's no big deal, I can do that.' And I said, 'All right. "The head weighs about 4 1/2 pounds," reports Spinney. He recites Big Bird's lines as his upraised right hand supports the head and animates its mouth and eyes. A tiny television monitor harnessed to his chest lets him glimpse the outside world. Then, on the set, with an assistant's help, he encases himself in the feathered yellow body and head before each scene is taped. "I see something good that I did, and I take note to make sure I do it again."Īs the silver-haired, nattily bearded Spinney speaks with a reporter in his dressing room, Big Bird's lower half is hanging in the closet: fuzzy orange fleece pants with platter-size feet, into which Spinney climbs almost like pulling on waders. "I study tapes to see how to get new expressions out of his face," Spinney says. Spinney continues to refine the performance. "We think of every year as experimental," says Carol-Lynn Parente, the show's executive producer, "and this new season is just part of that continuing evolution.īut even if he has never grown older, he has never stood still. With it and the 25 new hours that follow, "Sesame Street" will continue to explore its chosen habitat - and experiment with how it does the job. Maybe that's because the self-renewing "Sesame Street" is forever young.Ī realm of sunny days where everything's A-OK, the series starts its new season with episode 4187, which features the letter H and, naturally, the number 40. "I can apply that to Sesame Street's longevity: It seems like years, but I'd NEVER guess 40!" "If you didn't know when you were born, how old would you think you are?" he mused. In his dressing room at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, where the show is taped, he was pondering an existential question not long ago. ![]() Hand-picked by Muppet-meister Jim Henson, Spinney was 35 when "Sesame Street" began. He is still brought to life by Caroll Spinney, who also plays trash-can denizen Oscar the Grouch. ![]()
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