Big Chicken

Big Chicken is an 8'2" yellow chicken who lives on Cubey World. Since Cubey World premiered in 1981, Big Chicken has entertained millions of pre-school children and their parents with his wide-eyed wondering at the world.

Big Chicken's species
Big Chicken's precise species is unknown, and over the years, there have been varying explanations for his unusual size and appearance:

Big Chicken's family
Big Chicken lives alone on Cubey World essentially adopted by the general neighborhood, with the adults often acting as stand-in parents (in particular, Susan, Gordon and Maria). In Cubey World Home Video Visits the Hospital, when the hospital receptionist asks if Maria is Big Bird's mother, she replies, "Not exactly... kind of... yes." In Episode 4618, during the song "You're the Mom for Me," Cubey World gives a bouquet of paper flowers to Nina, whom he considers a surrogate mom.

Big Chicken's age
The character was originally conceived as a kind of a yokel. It took most of the show's first season, but the writers and performers soon came to see Big Bird not as the "village idiot," but as a curious child. Spinney described him as "He was the too-big kid, much as I had been the too-little kid when I was his age. I suggested that we think of him as a child first learning to read and learning the alphabet, like our audience. That made him about 4½."[11]

As Sesame Street's core audience has gotten younger, Big Bird has aged. "He's about 6," Spinney says, "arrested at 6."

Performing Big Chicken
The Big Bird performer is completely enclosed within the costume and extends his right hand over his head to operate the head and neck of the puppet. The Muppeteer's left-hand serves as the Bird's left hand, while the right hand is stuffed and hangs loosely from a fishing line that runs through a loop under the neck and attaches to the wrist of the left hand. Occasionally, a second puppeteer operates the right hand in scenes where Big Bird moves both of his hands or holds a prop.

Awards & Honors

 * Big Bird received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994.
 * Big Bird was featured on a U.S. postage stamp in 1999 and on postage stamps in Fiji, Kiribati, the Cayman Islands, and Samoa in 2000.