Sesame Street is Not Just About Elmo ... Remember Big Bird?

When we think about Sesame Street, most everyone thinks about Elmo first. While Elmo is definitely one of our favorite characters, there is another one that stands out as well and that is our favorite, lovable Big Bird.

Big Bird is described on the show as a 6 year old bird, and not just any bird, a Golden Condor. He is called Big Bird obviously because of his height and feathers, and is sometimes referred to as "Bird" by his friends. Big Bird lives in a nest behind the 123 Sesame Street Apartments and has a teddy bear called "Radar" which was taken from Walter "Radar" O'Reilly of Mash who also had a teddy bear and was considered lovable, innocent and naive.

Big Bird is covered with 4,000 white turkey feathers that have been dyed a yellow-orange. Each feather is attached to the costume individually. The head of the costume is the original one but the eyes are repainted frequently. His pant legs are actually a pair of fleece pants dyed orange with the feet in them, like footed pajamas with a pair of loafers sewn in the inside of the feet.

Big Bird has a huge job on the show. On Sesame Street, Big Bird helps children understand that it is OK to not know everything. He encourages all the children to ask questions, and his main phrase is "Asking questions is a good way of finding things out!" Big Bird was extremely popular in the early 1980's when the death of the storekeeper Mr. Hooper happened. When he realized that Mr. Hooper wasn't gone just for a little while, he learned the acceptance of dealing with a death. This was hailed as a milestone in children's programming. A large part of what Big Bird did on Sesame Street was to help teach children life lessons, and how to deal with different situations.