Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
May 13, 2003
Like many Americans, Caroll Spinney remembers watching the tragic Challenger shuttle mission in 1986. Had it not been for Big Bird, it could’ve been him on the mission instead of school teacher Christa McAuliffe.
“I was the first civilian asked to go up in the space shuttle,” says Spinney, who has spent the past 34 years in a bird costume or a trash can playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, respectively, on “Sesame Street.” “I really wanted to orbit the Earth, but the Bird was too big to fit in there. Christa McAuliffe went up instead.”
Spinney had planned on including this memory in his book The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch) (Villard, $16.95), but his publishers advised against it. This one should be more uplifting, they suggested.
“In retrospect, they were right,” says Spinney, 69. “They took 10 chapters out of the book. But on the plus side, now I’ve got half a new book already written.”
Currently on a tour to promote The Wisdom of Big Bird, Spinney will do a reading and book signing tonight at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville.
Accompanied by his best friend, Big Bird, as well as Oscar the Grouch, Spinney took a breather to chat with us in a phone interview last week.
Q. Are people surprised when they meet you in person?
Big Bird: Yes. I don’t think they realize I’m tall.
Spinney: He’s 8-feet tall. As for me, sometimes people are surprised to find out I’m a man. The Caroll part can be confusing.
Q. Who’s the nicest person you’ve met so far?
Big Bird: Well, Mr. Rogers was really nice. I also met Howard Stern.
Spinney: I’m not a fan of his on-air work, but he was pretty nice in person.
Q. Are you annoyed that “Sex and the City” stole your name by calling one of their characters “Big”?
Big Bird: Not really. I don’t have HBO. I don’t even have a television set in my nest.
Q. Do you fly first-class these days?
Big Bird: Caroll tells me I travel in a very special part of the plane called cargo. Is it really the nicest part of the plane?
Q. Oscar, why are you so grouchy?
Oscar the Grouch: I’m a grouch by trade. People misunderstand me.
Big Bird: What do you mean when you call me Turkey?
Oscar the Grouch: People love turkeys … especially on Thanksgiving.
Big Bird: He pulls tricks on me all the time.
Oscar the Grouch: He falls for them all the time. I told him I’d fix his alarm clock …
Big Bird: … He put ketchup on it.
Q. What kind of souvenirs do you buy for your friends?
Big Bird: I like buying T-shirts for everyone in each city. I bought some in Boston today for Bob and Maria. I bought a smaller one for [Maria’s daughter] Gabby.
Oscar the Grouch: I’ll sometimes find broken staplers and old carbon paper in the trash. I might share some of that.
Big Bird: I didn’t know people still used carbon paper.
Q. When do you plan on retiring?
Spinney: I couldn’t imagine walking away from Big Bird or even Oscar. It would be hard to leave. If I live on Sesame Street for six more years, it’ll be 40 years that I’ve done it.
Big Bird: I don’t know. I’m only 6.
Oscar the Grouch: [Grunts.]
Q. Who’s your favorite Sesame Street friend?
Spinney: My favorite friend is Big Bird.
Oscar the Grouch: Hey!
Spinney: Sorry.
Oscar the Grouch: Mine is Telly [Monster]. I have a lot of fun with Telly, but he’s gotten tired of me pulling jokes on him.
Big Bird: My favorite is my pal Snuffleupagus.
Q. Caroll, were your kids jealous of Big Bird?
Spinney: No. They got a kick out of it. They went through a phase where it wasn’t so cool to have their father working on a “baby show.” My son, who is now 32, was about 9 years old when his classmates said, “We don’t watch your father’s show. That’s for babies.” One day, he made an appearance at the end of the show and the next day, all his friends said, “You were great.” He said, “I thought you didn’t watch it.” [Laughs.] Everyone watches it.
Q. Did you get any ribbing as well?
Spinney: I had puppets from the age of 9. Kids would tease me saying that I was still playing with dolls. With a name like Caroll, I really was a boy named Sue. Once I started making money–about $5 a day in the 1950s, which wasn’t bad then–they stopped. They realized the puppets were tools, not dolls.
Big Bird: Are you calling me a tool?
Spinney: No Bird. I would never do that.
Oscar the Grouch: I would.
