Caroll Spinney Movies and Career Information

Caroll Edwin Spinney, sometimes credited as Carroll Spinney or Ed Spinney (born December 26, 1933), is an American puppeteer most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on the children's television show Sesame Street. Spinney was born in Waltham, Massachusetts and graduated from Acton High School. When he was in the US Air Force, he wrote and illustrated Harvey, a comic strip about military life. He also animated a series of black and white cartoons called Crazy Crayon. These were done under the pseudonym "Ed Spinney." In 1955, Spinney headed to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he created the show Rascal Rabbit. He returned to Boston, joining The Judy and Goggle Show in 1958 as a puppeteer. At this series, he was Goggle, to Judy Valentine's Judy. Throughout the 1960s, he performed on the Boston broadcast of Bozo's Big Top, where he played Mr. Lion, who created cartoons from the names of children participating in the show. Through that decade, he was also a commercial artist and animator. Spinney created a puppet of a cat named Picklepuss, long before he joined the inaugural cast of Sesame Street. This cat and his other friends joined Spinney in entertaining audiences of the