For Season 33 of SESAME STREET, they produced a new sequence during the opening theme song. Since Caroll Spinney, the man who performs Big Bird, and Matt Vogel, Caroll's second, were both busy shooting episodes for the regular season, I got the job of performing Big Bird on location in Central Park for the shoot in early October (I also did Bird for the Season 20 and 25 opens).

Above, rehearsing without the puppet. Sure, it looks weird, but because Big Bird is too heavy to stay in for long periods of time, you usually run through what you're going to shoot a few times without Bird's top part on. On my chest you can sort of see the harness that holds the little TV monitor used inside the puppet so you can see what you're doing.