Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird
| Sesame Street presents Follow That Bird | |
|---|---|
| File:Tv sesame street dvd follow that bird.jpg Follow That Bird movie poster | |
| Directed by | Ken Kwapis |
| Written by | Judy Freudberg Tony Geiss |
| Produced by | Tony Garnett |
| Starring | Caroll Spinney Jim Henson Frank Oz |
| Music by | Lennie Niehaus Van Dyke Parks |
| Distributed by | Henson Associates Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release dates | August 2, 1985 |
Running time | 88 minutes |
| Language | English |
Sesame Street presents Follow That Bird is a film directed by Ken Kwapis, starring many Sesame Street characters (both puppets and live actors). This was the first-ever full-length Sesame Street feature film, and was followed in 1999 by The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. This film was produced by Henson Associates and Warner Bros. Pictures, and originally released to movie theatres in 1985.
Songs included "One Little Star" (sung separately by Big Bird, Olivia and Snuffleupagus), "Ain't No Road Too Long" (sung separately by Big Bird, Waylon Jennings, Cookie Monster, Bert, Ernie, Grover, the Count, Gordon, and Olivia), "I'm So Blue" (sung only by Big Bird), and "Easy Goin' Day" (sung by Big Bird and a young Alyson Court, who would go on to star in The Big Comfy Couch and numerous voice acting roles).
Plot
Template:Spoiler Big Bird is sent to Oceanview, Illinois, to live with a family of dodo birds by Miss Finch, a pesky social service worker who thinks he needs to be with his own kind (other birds, instead of the diverse Sesame Street). Unhappy, Big Bird sets off cross-country to return to Sesame Street, but he is caught by a group of travelling con artists and put on display for profit. Having learned of his disappearance through a news broadcast, Big Bird's friends set out on a wild multi-party search across the country to find their wayward comrade.
Morals of the story
As with many televised episodes of Sesame Street, Follow That Bird raises some important cultural issues, doing so in a way that children can relate to, while parents can use the benefit of their life experiences to draw a deeper meaning from it.
Racism, the value of diversity and the nature of family are all explored in the movie. Though Miss Finch is one of the "villains" of the story, in fact her intentions are good; she wants what she thinks is best for Big Bird (even though what she thinks is best for Big Bird, and what is best for Big Bird, turn out to be entirely different things). And she believes that he should have the benefit of living in "a nice bird house, with a nice bird family...and sing and play bird games all day long." But Big Bird did stick to his own kind for a while. That was the reason the Dodo family gave him the alias name "Big Dodo".
She believes Big Bird would be happier with his own kind (and so does Big Bird, at first), but ultimately his adoption by the Dodos is a miserable failure. Though clueless, they are kind enough in their own way--but they do not treat him with the love he is accustomed to on Sesame Street. "I should be happy here," he writes in his letter to his friends on Sesame Street. "What's wrong with me?"
The straw that broke the camel's back--and convinced Big Bird to run away from his adopted family-- was when he got a postcard from Mr. Snuffleupagus, his best friend, saying that he was ready to come and visit. Then he explains that "Snuffy" is not a bird, but a Snuffleupagus, the Dodos laugh. "But your best friend should be a bird!" exclaims Daddy Dodo. "Why?" Big Bird asks. "Because...you're a bird," Mommy Dodo says, as if nothing could be more obvious. They say that there are lots of bird families around, and he could meet them and make some new best friends-- now how about going out and hunting for worms?
"But I don't wanna hunt for worms," Big Bird protests. "I want Snuffy to come and visit, and if he can't come and visit, I don't wanna be here anymore. I want to go home!" "But-- you are home," Mommy Dodo insists--and at that moment, Big Bird realizes he will never be happy in his new life, and makes the decision to run away. Of course, being six years old, he is ill-equipped to make it home by himself, so his Sesame Street family bands together to try and find him. Several human characters including Maria and Gordon, and several Muppets including Oscar the Grouch, Telly Monster, Grover, Cookie Monster, Ernie and Bert, Count Von Count, and others head out across America in search for their beloved Big Bird.
When he is finally brought home, Big Bird's family on Sesame Street convinces Miss Finch that Big Bird can be, and is, happy there on Sesame Street--and it does not make any difference that his family consists of humans, monsters, grouches, honkers, and the other varieties of eclectic species on Sesame Street. What matters is that they are family.
What os also interesting about this message--what has been one of the underlying messages of Sesame Street all along--is that the humans themselves are of different ethnicities. There are Caucasians, African-Americans and Hispanics all living together as friends and neighbors on the same street. But there is nothing unusual about that at all to them-- why should the color of your skin matter?-- and so therefore they do not really need to address the issue of racism among humans as such in this movie. The racism issue is instead delegated to the Muppet members of the cast, as if to say, "If people of different species can co-exist like this, why can't humans of different ethnicities?"
Cast and characters
- Caroll Spinney as Big Bird
- Caroll Spinney as Oscar the Grouch
- Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog and Ernie
- Frank Oz as Cookie Monster,Bert, and Grover
- Snuffleupagus
- Laraine Newman
- Alyson Court as Ruthie
- Sandra Bernhard (cameo)
- Chevy Chase (cameo)
- John Candy (cameo)
- Waylon Jennings (cameo)
- Joe Flaherty As Sid Sleaze
- Dave Thomas As Sam Sleaze
- George Lucas, in a small cameo
