How Big Bird Works

A friend sent me a link to a video about Carroll Spinney, the man who was Big Bird from the time Sesame Street began production in the 1960s until he retired at age 84 in 2018, the year before he died.

This link goes right to the part of the video about how he did it from inside the Big Bird puppet — which I never thought about before. Spinney was not nearly as tall as Big Bird, so what part of him held up the bird's head? And if that's, let's say, his arm... what controlled the bird's arms? And… how did he see out of the puppet?

All questions are answered. 

(Spinney also played the Oscar the Grouch puppet.)

The whole video is more interesting than I would have thought, even for someone like me, who has never watched Sesame Street. 

Carroll rehearsing a scene in partial costume.