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
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.
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.
awful exactly good opposite oscar thinks
I think there's an awful lot of me in Big Bird, but Oscar is pretty much - I think I know how he thinks because he thinks exactly the opposite of what I think is a good way to be.
boy class home mom names remember saying smallest
I was called such names as a kid. Being the smallest boy in the class with a name like Caroll. I remember going home and saying to my mom, 'What were you thinking?'
agreed asked bird both characters discovered good head joey last man plays puppeteer time year
I was asked to be on 'The Colbert Report' last year as Big Bird and Oscar. But when we got there, we discovered they wanted both characters on at the same time. Stephen Colbert didn't know one man plays them both. We called Joey Mazzarino, our head writer, who's a very good puppeteer as well. He agreed to zip over and do Oscar.
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.
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.
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.
learned taught
I've learned to say, 'I'm a friend of Big Bird. He even taught me how to sound like him.'
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.'
job pass people
Most people don't hold a job for 45 years. They pass on or want to retire. I don't want to retire. My real goal is to do 50 years on 'Sesame Street,' and I only got 4-and-a-half years to go.
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.