Big Bird actor Caroll Spinney: 'World's oldest child star'

Caroll Spinney has played Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for 46 years.

He developed a love of puppeteering when his mother took him to see Punch and Judy shows in the Blackpool as a child and she built him a puppet set for Christmas when he was nine.

"What a Christmas present, she didn't realise she was getting me my career," he said.

Spinney says he has always loved playing the characters and says he would like to play them for at least 50 years.

"At 50 years I'll be 85 years old... I still play a 6 year old on television, I think I'm probably the world's oldest child star," he says

Sesame Street is surely one of the world's longest-running television children's shows ... STILL on television after 46 years and still very popular. In case you haven't seen it the characters are big and bright and funny. Big Bird is the undoubted star: an 8ft tall primrose bird who lives in a nest on the street. And the same man has been playing him all that time. He plays Oscar the Grouch as well. He's and he's 81 now and h's made a film called (what else?) "I am Big Bird". He's been talking about how he was bullied as a child and how it shaped his life - and how he has no intention of giving up his job to our reporter Sima Kotecha.

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