Big Bird's still huge as 'Sesame Street' hits 40

• By FRAZIER MOORE
• AP Television Writer
• Published: Nov 5, 2009

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

NEW YORK (AP) — Big Bird is leaving Sesame Street!

That's what he decides on the "Sesame Street" season opener. A rapping real-estate agent pitches him on migrating to a new habitat ("habitat," the episode's "Word on the Street"). After sizing up a beach and a swamp for his new habitat, Big Bird chooses a rain forest.

But then he comes to his senses with a musical number.

"Sesame Street is my habitat!" he sings. "Sesame Street is my home!"

Indeed, Big Bird — that towering, yellow-feathered 6-year-old — has been calling Sesame Street home for four decades, ever since the show premiered on Nov. 10, 1969.

Now, as it marks its 40th anniversary on Tuesday on PBS (check local listings), he remains an essential member of the flock.

He is still brought to life by Caroll Spinney, who also plays trash-can denizen Oscar the Grouch.

Hand-picked by Muppet-meister Jim Henson, Spinney was 35 when "Sesame Street" began. He turns 76 the day after Christmas. In his dressing room at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, where the show is taped, he was pondering an existential question not long ago.

"If you didn't know when you were born, how old would you think you are?" he mused. "I can apply that to Sesame Street's longevity: It seems like years, but I'd NEVER guess 40!"

Maybe that's because the self-renewing "Sesame Street" is forever young.

A 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. 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.

"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.

"It was always designed to emulate the TV-viewing environment," she notes. "Back in 1969, it had a magazine format that emulated what was then on television."