The man behind ‘Big Bird'

The world’s most famous giant bird has a human performer inside it, and it turns out that this nearly anonymous fellow has interesting stories to tell. There’s the one about the puppeteer who was almost part of a space-travel disaster. There’s the one about the guy who wanted to quit the job he was born to do practically before he had started it.

These anecdotes and more constitute “I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story,” a documentary about the man who has been making Big Bird walk, talk, sing and be generally lovable for some 45 years. Spinney, now 81, is still doing much of the bird work, which is all the more impressive when you see, at one point in the film, just how physically demanding the job is. Oh, and Spinney is also Big Bird’s fellow “Sesame Street” resident, Oscar the Grouch.

The film finds Spinney as he looks back over the path that got him to where he is today. A generous overture from Jim Henson brought him into the world of television puppetry just as it was about to break big, but he didn’t immediately feel comfortable there. He tells of being on his way to see Henson to quit when Kermit Love, who built the Big Bird puppet, wisely advised him to give it a little more time. Soon he found the persona that made Big Bird click.

“There’s something about Caroll,” Michael Davis, author of “Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street,” says, describing Spinney’s talent. “Not many people have it. He can go back in time almost, and re-create the feelings and the thoughts and the questions and the fears of a youngster.”

Spinney made Big Bird so famous that he was invited to fly on the space shuttle. He had accepted the invitation for the 1986 flight but then was told there was no room for the large costume. It was the Challenger mission that exploded moments after launching.

The film gets a little syrupy at times, but Spinney is forthright and engaging throughout. It seems as if Big Bird has been around forever. This film, by Dave LaMattina and Chad Walker, reminds us that even the most omnipresent cultural phenomena were created by someone, usually through a combination of hard work and happenstance.