Caroll Spinney: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

For Christmas, Little Sister and Baby Sister got tickets for Little Brother and me to a live showing of I Am Big Bird, followed by a question-and-answer session with Caroll Spinney. Caroll Spinney, for all you non-Muppet people, is the original performer of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

Now, there are Muppet fans crazier than me. I know of some people who are so obsessed with Muppets that they would spend their life savings on a clipping from Jim Henson's ficus plant. Not that Jim Henson had a ficus plant. That I know of.

Anyways, I'm not as into Muppets as some people. But they do have a special place in my heart and life. Muppet Treasure Island is my second-favorite movie; MuppetVision 3-D is one of my favorite non-roller coaster attractions at Disneyland and Disney World; I have my share of Muppet merchandise. This love of Muppets has led me to want to know more about the amazing men who perform them. So getting to see Caroll Spinney, the man behind characters that have been beloved to me since I was a kid? Priceless. A great gift. Little Brother and I were very excited.

Yesterday, January 29th, was the long-awaited day. The night before, I kind of freaking out. Getting from my workplace to Kingsbury Hall before the performance started was going to be pretty stressful, even if everything went as planned. But if things didn't go as planned...well, let's just say I filled my purse with all kinds of things. My glasses, in case one of my contacts ripped or was irritating my eye. My phone charger, in case my phone died. A piece of paper with the addresses of Kingsbury Hall and the parking lot, in case my phone navigation went crazy like it did at Viola's wedding. Nothing would come between us and Caroll Spinney. No, nothing.

Except bad snow. Or if my car had another problem. I couldn't prepare for those things except to pray that they wouldn't happen. By the time we were supposed to go, I was really stressed out.

Stressfully, I drove Little Brother and myself to get sushi at the Happy Sumo. Stressfully, I paid for the sushi. Stressfully, I drove us out of the parking garage. And stressfully, I dropped my parking garage ticket under my seat.

I almost had a heart attack and died, right there in the parking garage. But I managed to recover the ticket and remain alive. Until I couldn't find the parking garage exit and almost had another heart attack. And so on and so forth. With lots of incidents of almost-cardiac arrest, we inched through the dark, rainy streets of Salt Lake City until we reached Kingsbury Hall.

By the time we got there, I was so stressed out, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to enjoy myself. But despite my misgivings, I parked Bernard in a parking space where we were joined by a lime-green car with a Kermit the Frog sticker in the window. I suspected the driver of this car was the kind of diehard Muppet fan I was describing earlier. There was probably a clipping of Jim Henson's ficus plant in the front seat.

We picked our tickets up from will call, went into the theatre, and sat down. And so the evening commenced.

First, there was the showing of the movie. It was a beautiful movie. Caroll Spinney is also a sort of artist-animator-cartoonist, and it looked like that either he had animated segments of the movie or someone else had animated them after his style. So it was a neat combination of home video, footage of Muppet productions, interviews, and animations of stories from Caroll's past.

My only complaint about the movie...well, I love Steve Whitmire. He is my favorite Muppeteer. Caroll Spinney actually discovered him. So at the portion of the movie when Jim Henson died and Steve Whitmire was chosen to play Kermit the Frog, Caroll started talking about Steve. I was excited because I thought I might hear some cool Steve stories. Caroll Spinney said something like, "He was a talented young puppeteer." Then they showed a clip of Steve Whitmire waving at the camera on a Muppet set or something. Aaaand that was the end of the Steve Whitmire portion of the movie. Boo.

But anyways, great movie. I laughed a lot and cried a lot and even coughed a lot after choking on my own tears. By the end of it, my stress had almost completely melted away. Although I already knew a lot of the things they mentioned in the movie, I learned a lot I'd never heard before. Also, in the words of Little Brother, "Caroll Spinney and his wife are the cutest couple ever!"

The movie ended. Everybody applauded. And then from the back of the theatre, Caroll Spinney and his wife Debra began to walk down the aisle, and everybody leapt to their feet and applauded some more.

"That was so weird!" Little Brother said during the brief intermission between the movie and the question-and-answer. "We just saw them on the screen, and then they were in the theatre!"

"Like MuppetVision 3D," I suggested.

"Caroll Spinney 3D."

Around us, everybody was chatting excitedly about the movie. I saw people raising their hands in the air and opening and closing their fingers in an imitation of the way Caroll puppeteered Big Bird, marveling at the skill and talent it takes to make a Muppet come to life. I knew that's what they were doing because I've often done it myself. The Muppeteers are among some of the greatest actors in the world. They not only do amazing acting, but they do it through a body that doesn't even belong to them. Acting is hard enough without going through an additional medium!

Then it was time for the Q&A. The mediator (who was some guy from KUED named Ken Verdoia who is probably famous but whom I don't care about) invited those of us with the not-so-good seats in the back to move closer, which we did with pleasure. Then Caroll and Debra came out, and everybody stood and applauded again. We would have stood and applauded for Caroll Spinney all day because Caroll Spinney.

So, they all sat down onstage. Debra Spinney had a gigantic purse, like maybe she had a phone charger and her extra glasses in there. But the gigantic purse was quickly forgotten as Ken Verdoia (whoever he is) started asking questions.

First, he asked a broad, sweeping question about Caroll Spinney's career.

Now, the movie talked about how Caroll met Jim Henson and ended up working for him. Caroll was performing at a puppetry festival in Salt Lake City. His act was a disaster, but Jim, who was watching, thought he handled it well, so he offered Caroll a job working on Sesame Street.

This was one of the animated portions of the movie. While we were watching it, I noticed that the animation of the theatre looked like Kingsbury Hall, right down to the murals on the wall. But my suspicions weren't confirmed until during the Q&A when Caroll said something like, "Well, the story begins here." He said that the performance had happened in Kingsbury Hall. "Jim was sitting right over there." He pointed.

And then I almost had a heart attack again because Jim Henson, one of my heroes, had been in this building! Wow!!!

I studied Caroll as he talked. He was wearing a green pants, a brown shirt, and a tan jacket. As for the rest of him...I don't have a picture, but this random picture from the Internet suffices.

I think that's even the same jacket!

He's about the same age as my grandmother, and he had the same tendency to start telling a story in the middle of another story. But never mind that; the audience ate up everything he said. He would occasionally go into Big Bird's voice as he talked, and the audience just couldn't get enough of that. There was more applause every time. Also, he had a very little-kiddish air about him. He talked about Snuffy as if he were real; he talked about all the puppets as if they were real. Which, you know, they are to so many people. But he had no self-consciousness about it whatsoever.

Ken Verdoia also took questions from the audience. There were two little kids who had brought puppets who asked questions. At their age, I probably would have asked dumb questions, or used my puppet to ask the questions. But these kids were way smarter than I was. One asked if Caroll had any advice for young puppeteers.

Caroll gave a pragmatic answer. Then Ken Verdoia started rambling on, saying something like, "Hold onto your dream...people will tell you you're crazy...and then when you become a puppeteer, hold onto something special..."

And I was like, "What are you talking about, Ken Verdoia? Nobody wants your advice. Nobody's even here to see you!" But then I realized he was trying to work up a bit of an intro segue thing, because out of Debra Spinney's gigantic purse came Oscar the Grouch!

Another random picture from the Internet.

I've heard a lot about the relationship between the Muppet and the Muppeteer, but this was my first time seeing it in action. As soon as he was out of the bag, Oscar said something grumpy. Caroll chided him, and Oscar turned around to Caroll and said, "Who are you?"

Later, somebody mentioned puppets.

OSCAR: I hate puppets!

CAROLL: He doesn't mean that.

The other little kid asked, "What makes an act funny?"

Being an improv comedian myself, I was especially interested in Caroll's response. Here's what he said: "You gain a lot from the audience. The audience is part of the show."

Anyways, Caroll and Debra shared stories with us. They talked about the work and some of the performers Caroll worked with. They answered some more questions from the audience and from Ken Verdoia. Soon, regrettably, the evening was over.

Ken Verdoia, I guess trying the whole thing altogether, was all, "That's the great thing about Big Bird. A bird teaches us how to be better people." And then Caroll and Debra left the theatre, and everybody stood up and applauded again.

So Little Brother and I left, awash in the magic of an amazing performer from an amazing tradition. We have no photos of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so the way I'm trying to preserve this amazing experience is by turning it into this story. Memories fade, but stories can be read over and over. And better yet, they can be shared. So now that you've read this, it's kind of like you, too, got to go see Caroll Spinney: the man, the myth, the legend.