''Big Bird in China'' is a 1983

television special A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of e ...

based on the children's television series ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000 ...

'' produced by

Children's Television Workshop Sesame Workshop (SW), originally known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American nonprofit organization that has been responsible for the production of several educational children's programs—including its first and best-know ...

and

China Central Television China Central Television (CCTV) is a Chinese state- and political party-owned broadcaster controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its 50 different channels broadcast a variety of programing to more than one billion viewers in six lan ...

. It was originally broadcast on May 29, 1983, on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. Big Bird, Barkley and Little Xiao Fu travel through China to find

Feng Huang ''Fènghuáng'' (, ) are mythological birds found in Sinospheric mythology that reign over all other birds. The males were originally called ''fèng'' and the females ''huáng'', but such a distinction of gender is often no longer made a ...

, the Phoenix bird. The production was released on VHS from Random House Home Video in 1987, and on VHS and DVD from Sony Wonder on February 10, 2004. Although the voice of Telly Monster was Brian Muehl, Martin P. Robinson re-dubbed Telly's lines for the 2004 VHS and DVD releases when Big Bird goes to China. Also, it lacks about a minute of the original production, in which Big Bird is looking for someone who speaks "American", though it can be seen on early VHS releases. This television special had a sequel known as ''

Big Bird in Japan ''Big Bird in Japan'' is a television special by the Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop), that aired on NHK in late fall of 1988, and on PBS on January 16, 1989. It is the sequel to '' Big Bird in China'' which was also based o ...

''.

Synopsis

The special starts in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Chinatown, Manhattan Manhattan's Chinatown () is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center to its south, and Tribeca to its west. With an estimated population of 90,000 to 1 ...

, where Big Bird peeks at an old scroll with a picture of a beautiful phoenix on it. The shopkeeper explains that the phoenix is magical and lives in China. To find the phoenix, Big Bird will first have to find the four places pictured on the scroll and he exclaims, "Well, what a good thing it would be if a great big American bird went to meet that beautiful Chinese bird! I mean, she could tell me everything about China, and then I could come home and tell everybody here!" He sets out with Barkley on a boat and makes it to China. Highlights include Chinese landmarks like the

Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...

and

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

, Big Bird learning the "little duckling dance", and a song to teach Chinese words. A character called the

Monkey King The Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong ( zh, t=孫悟空, s=孙悟空, first=t) in Mandarin Chinese, is a legendary mythical figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel '' Journey to the West'' ( zh, ...

helps Big Bird and Xiao Fu on their quest. Meanwhile,

Oscar the Grouch Oscar the Grouch is a Muppet character created by Jim Henson and Jon Stone for the PBS/ HBO children's television program ''Sesame Street''. He has a green body, no visible nose, and lives in a trash can. Oscar's favorite thing is trash, as e ...

decides to try to dig his way to China from his trash can, but when he gets to China, he finds it boring and goes straight home. As the credits roll, Big Bird and Barkley walk back in Chinatown, Manhattan, and Xiao Fu giggles one last time.

Origins

In his memoir, Caroll Spinney (the puppeteer who plays Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch) notes that he was inspired to pitch the special to

after visiting China on a tour with

Bob Hope Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with ...

. This first trip was to film the ''Bob Hope on the Road to China'', a two-hour NBC special airing September 16, 1979. The special featured Big Bird, along with the likes of Shields and Yarnell and

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Soviet Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreograp ...

, with musical numbers by Peaches & Herb and

Crystal Gayle Crystal Gayle (born Brenda Gail Webb; January 9, 1951) is an American country music singer widely known for her 1977 hit "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue". Initially, Gayle's management and record label were the same as that of her oldest sist ...

. It was produced by James Lipton. Spinney devised the storyline and suggested locations for ''Big Bird in China''. However, the program's credits do not acknowledge this and instead state, "Created by Jon Stone". Spinney also notes that, when filming on location in

Guilin Guilin (Standard Zhuang: ''Gveilinz''; alternatively romanized as Kweilin) is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is situated on the west bank of the Li River and borders Hunan to the nort ...

, and

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...

, he experienced much tension and difficulty due to animosity from Stone.

Cast

* Caroll Spinney as Big Bird and

Frank Oz Frank Oz (born Frank Richard Oznowicz; May 25, 1944) is an American actor, puppeteer, and filmmaker. He began his career as a puppeteer, performing the Muppet characters of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle in ''The Muppet Show ...

as Bert,

Cookie Monster Cookie Monster is a blue Muppet character on the long-running PBS/ HBO children's television show ''Sesame Street.'' In a song in 2004, and later in an interview in 2017, Cookie Monster revealed his real name as "Sid". He is best known for hi ...

and Grover *

Jerry Nelson Jerry L. Nelson (July 10, 1934 – August 23, 2012) was an American puppeteer, best known for his work with The Muppets. Renowned for his wide range of characters and singing abilities, he performed Muppet characters on ''Sesame Street'', ' ...

Two-Headed Monster The Two-Headed Monster is a comical, light purple Muppet monster on the television show ''Sesame Street'', first appearing in season 9, 1978. History The Two-Headed Monster, as the name implies, is an example of bicephaly. The right-hand hea ...

#1, Oscar the Grouch (assistant) and Cookie Monster (assistant) *

Brian Muehl Brian Giuseppe Meehl (also known as Brian Muehl; born August 24, 1952), is an American puppeteer and writer. Biography Meehl was born in Canandaigua, New York and grew up mostly in Iowa City, Iowa. Meehl worked on the last six shows of '' The M ...

as Barkley and Telly *

Jim Henson James Maury Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, animator, cartoonist, actor, inventor, and filmmaker who achieved worldwide notice as the creator of The Muppets and '' Fraggle Rock'' (1983–1987) and ...

Ernie Ernie is a masculine given name, frequently a short form (hypocorism) of Ernest, Ernald, Ernesto, or Verner. It may refer to: People * Ernie Accorsi (born 1941), American football executive * Ernie Adams (disambiguation) * Ernie Afaganis (born c ...

* Richard Hunt as Two-Headed Monster #2, Ernie (assistant) and Telly (assistant) *

Martin P. Robinson Martin P. Robinson (born March 9, 1954) is an American puppeteer who works for the Jim Henson Company. He is best known for his work on ''Sesame Street'', having performed the characters of Telly Monster, Mr. Snuffleupagus, Oscar the Grouch's p ...

as Telly (DVD Version) * Cheryl Blalock as Additional Muppet Performer * Ed Christie as Additional Muppet Performer * Ouyang Lianzi (Lisa Ouyang) as Xiao Foo * Katherine Lakoski as the Singing Phoenix * Lu Ja-Lin as the Dancing Phoenix * Arabella Hong as the Shopkeeper * Ting Bao-Yi and Wang Kwan-Wei as the Lion Dogs * Hua Ziu Ping as the Storyteller * Chou Yi-Ping, Liu Xio-Shen, Zhang Xin-Tien, Xu Tien-Ed, Quan She-Zhen, Li Jiang, Lu Fu-Hai and Wu Chi-Lian as the Monkey Kings (

Sun Wukong The Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong ( zh, t=孫悟空, s=孙悟空, first=t) in Mandarin Chinese, is a legendary mythical figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel '' Journey to the West'' ( zh, ...

)

Awards

* Won the 1983

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

for Outstanding Children's Program

Production

Lisa Ou, who played Xiao Foo, did not understand a single word of English when she acted her scenes. She memorized the sounds. Film production took place in 3 cities:

(the Great Wall, animal sculpture),

(the Glass Chessboard, headless buffalo) and

(the storyteller). Scenes at the Great Wall took place early morning around 4AM due to heavy tourism crowds. Carroll mentioned in the 2013 documentary "Being Big Bird" that Lisa Ou learned all her lines one by one while filming. He would repeat the lines and she would repeating stating "she probably didn't know what she was saying but she was very smart." Carroll and Lisa Ou were also re-united for the documentary for the first time in about 30 years. This is the only film Lisa Ou acted in.

References

External links

*
Photo of Big Bird with Bob Hope from their 1979 special
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Big Bird In China 1983 television specials Sesame Street features NBC television specials 1980s American animated films 1980s American television specials Television episodes set in Beijing Television episodes set in New York City Adventure television films Films directed by Jon Stone