Caroll Spinney: 12/26/33 -- 12/8/19

Big Bird is gone.
Nothing else which happens today can be considered important.
...I just booked a ticket to see Christopher Titus this coming week, at the closest tour stop he'll make to my residence, because my mother will still be in the physical rehabilitation center and that makes it semi-safe. Changed my Ko-Fi goal and everything.
I will have to drive nearly four hundred miles, roundtrip, in one day.
...I know.
I just really need a laugh.

Comments

[stereotreme]

If ever there were a perfect statement to encapsulate the clown car full of dogshit that has been 2019 thus far, "Big Bird is dead" nails it.

[Level Dasher]

I just saw that on Facebook. Everyone is taking at the very least a moment of silence to honor him.

We'll miss you, Big Bird.

[circs]

One of the very best humans. We’ll miss you, unreservedly.

[kwr2k13]

5166314
There was that one episode where Mr. Hooper's actor had passed away so they had Carroll Spinney (as Big Bird) discuss his passing. In later seasons, they had a new character run Hooper's store/lunch counter where he provides lunches to the other muppets and others who come in.

[Estee]

It took a second for the rest to sink in.

Oscar's gone.

Oscar.

I know Mr. Spinney retired last year.

(Just last year. Have you ever seen the puppeteer position? Being the big guy is really hard on the arm.)

i.pinimg.com/originals/2f/24/c0/2f24c0290092b874e5f4ae578bf67e41.png

(He was holding that position when he was in his eighties.)

I know there are new voices.

It doesn't seem to matter.

He was part of a hundred million childhoods.

How many can say they did as much with their life?

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

Well, Jim Henson was Kermit the Frog. If the Muppets survived that, they'll survive this.

Spellcheck does not recognize "muppet" as a word, but insists that only "Muppet" will do

[Herald of Opera]

I mean, on the one hand, how many people even knew the name of the person in the suit, and how many children will realize that they changed him out for another one? On the other hand, godsdammit wasn't Robbie Rotten enough murdering of our childhoods? Oh, right, of course not because everyone dies and nobody comes back. This is a profoundly terrible universe and I hope you have fun with the guy who had a bad life even by those standards yet somehow turned it into a career in comedy.

[Estee]

5166322

From Christopher Titus's homepage, on the subject of his current set/tour.

pbs.twimg.com/media/ELSU8u1WwAA2yjn?format=jpg&name=small

"You gotta live between the tragedies."

[Herald of Opera]

5166323
Yes, I know, you've said it before in medical update blogs. Doesn't change how surreal it is when you phrase it the way I did.

[Georg]

5166323 Life are those fleeting moments we experience between times of enormous stress.
-- Me

Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo, all of the Sesame Street gang... Now I've got a mental image of Equestria where Celestia and Luna are immortal because of all the ponies praying for their long life (because if they ever died, things would go back to the way they were and nopony wants that, even the griffons)

[Vaguely Demented]

I will miss Oscar the most. RIP Mr Spinney.

[Snaproll]

as an adult, Oscar was the most relatable of the Sesame Street Gang. Granted, he's a grouch, but if you too lived in a garbage can, your disposition might not be the best from day to day.

[Reese]

Wow. I'm sorry.

Good luck getting that laugh, Estee.

[Estee]

This @#$%ing day.

Rene Auberjonois died.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

5166430
I had to Google him, but Damn! I liked Odo

[A.P.O.N.I.]

5166430
m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BY2Y2YjM5ZWEtMTQ3NS00M2E1LTk5YjctMDc5NWVkNDVjYmI0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTAyODkwOQ@@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,979_AL_.jpg

But the skull was laughing again; this time making a thoughtful, almost kindly noise. "Remember what I told you about time," it said. "When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could've walked through the walls."

[FanOfMostEverything]

Go get that laugh. After this, we could all use one.

[Claw in Cursive]

Shit. I didn't know about either of them until I read this post. I knew Spinney had given up Muppeteering because of his advanced age, but his passing is still sad.

Auberjonois is a complete out of left field punch in the soul. I have to remind myself that Deep Space Nine is almost 30 years old at this point. I still remember him from his time on Benson as the stuck-up head of the governor's mansion.

[DreadedCandiru2]

And to think that I remember the very first episode. Y'see, back then, they contrasted Big Bird (who's kind of a big preschooler really) with an "older brother" character called Little Bird (who was kind of a grade school kid despite being much smaller physically). Little Bird lasted for a few years and then they brought in Snuffy and the rest is history.

[Nyperold]

5166460
Yeah, Clayton Endicott, III is the primary role I associate with him. He was also the voice of the chef in The Little Mermaid and sequel, among many other roles.

[Ryiah]

5166438

I liked Odo

He also played Robert House in Fallout New Vegas.

[Perpetually Confused]