Biography

Big Bird is the main protagonist of the children's television show Sesame Street. Officially performed by Caroll Spinney since 1969, he is an eight-foot two-inch (249 cm) tall bright yellow anthropomorphic canary. He can roller skate, ice skate, dance, swim, sing, write poetry, draw, and even ride a unicycle. Despite this wide array of talents, he is prone to frequent misunderstandings, on one occasion even singing the alphabet as one big long word (from the song called "ABC-DEF-GHI," pronounced /æbkədefgi:dʒekəlmɪnɒpkwɜrstu:vwɪksɪz/), pondering what it could mean. He lives in a large nest behind the 123 Sesame Street brownstone and right next to Oscar the Grouch's trash can and he has a teddy bear named Radar. In Season 46, Big Bird's large nest is now sitting within a small, furnished maple tree, and is no longer hidden by used construction doors. In 2000, Big Bird was named a Living Legend by the United States Library of Congress.