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Since Sesame Street began, the world's most famous 8 foot 2 inch big yellow canary, Big Bird, has entertained million of pre-school children and their parents with his wide-eyed wondering at the world.
Performed by Caroll Spinney and occasional others, this big yellow bird can roller skate, ice skate, dance, sing, write poetry and even ride a unicycle. Pretty talented for a character described in the TV show's Bible as a 6-year-old.
This character helps children feel okay about not knowing everything by not knowing everything himself,(such as singing the alphabet as one big long word, pondering what it could ever mean) and encourages them to enquire: a common phrase in recent years has been "Asking is a good way of finding things out!" He also teaches other life, alphabet and numerical lessons, "I guess it's better to be who you are. Turns out people like you best that way, anyway."
For many years, his best friend, Mr. Snuffleupagus or Snuffy for short, was deemed by the human cast as "invisible". Every time he would visit, he'd abruptly leave right before the adults came around. Still, Big Bird constantly defended the fact that Snuffy was real. However, in the early eighties Snuffy, was finally seen by the adult characters on the show.
As Spinney is gradually aging, the show has gradually started to train new puppeteers to play Big Bird. These apprentices include both Rick Lyon in the opening theme song of the show's 33rd season, and Matt Vogel in the show's regular new Journey to Ernie segment.
He starred in the PBS pledge drive special Big Bird's Birthday Celebration, in which he turned six. Previous to this, Big Bird was referred to on the show as being four years old. The exception to this is the feature film Sesame Street presents Follow That Bird, in which the Bird is six.
Big Bird starred on the big screen, in the feature film Sesame Street presents Follow That Bird, in which he is kidnapped and dyed baby blue by two ratty circus-owners.
Big Bird also had a role in the feature film Elmo in Grouchland.
While Big Bird is generally deemed as a canary, when he visited The Land of Make Believe on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, King Friday asked him if he was related to the cassowary. But Big Bird replied. "I'm more of a condor." One nature sketch compared and contrasted Big Bird with "The Noble Ostrich."
Discussion on Big Bird's family
Big Bird lives alone on Sesame Street, essentially adopted by the general neighbourhood. Of all the people in his neighbourhood, Susan and Gordon Robinson are most likely legally responsible for the six year old, given their recurring parently in a role towards Big Bird. His apparent lack of family is of serious question, which has never directly been addressed on the show.
Big Bird has commonly mentioned Granny Bird on the show; he has visited her beach side house in various books.
As this is essentially the only relative mentioned, one could just presume he's estranged, or his parents have died. However, this theory is put to waste in many cases, where he mentioned his relatives.
For example, in the song Tall Enough, Big Bird mentions he has a mother, a father, and a sister. One of the volumes in the Sesame Street Library book series has Big Bird visiting several of his cousins. The most solid reference to his relatives is in episode 1576, from 1981; Big Bird mentions several relatives, one of which is an Uncle Slim, a cowbird from Montana, seen at the end of the episode.
More on this topic in general is discussed in the Sesame Street family condundrum.
Big Bird is also a nickname used to refer to the west passenger terminal of Tokyo International Airport (commonly known as Haneda Airport) in Ota, a ward of Tokyo, Japan. Additionally, the nickname was used to refer to the KH-9 "Hexagon" spy satellite.
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