Little Bird first appeared on Sesame Street in Season 1, and was often used as a foil to Big Bird, due to their contrasting sizes. Little Bird was a refurbished version of the Muppetised Kenner Gooney Bird, created by Jim Henson for Easy Bake Oven commercials in 1968. Although Little Bird is primarily performed by a female puppeteer, the character is most often male. Little Bird" appears on the Gr
in & Giggle with Big Bird LP, where the character is referred to using masculine pronouns. The 1973 Character Style Guide from CTW also describes him as a "he." In contrast, Episode 2748 (1990) features a street story in which Little Bird is referred to using feminine pronouns. In episode 59 of The MuppetCast, Fran Brill confirmed in an e-mail that she always thought of Little Bird as a male. Henson, who originated the Bird in the Kenner commercials, performed Little Bird in at least two sketches from the first season: a sketch from Episode 0028 in which he meets Big Bird, and the game show "Pick Your Pet." Although Little Bird was used sporadically on the show, he proved effective with test audiences:
“Although he did not appear often, children were really attentive to Little Bird. They participated fully during his "Imagination Game". Perhaps he could play a greater role on the street.[1]”
In addition to the sketches listed below, Little Bird was featured in "Wonderful/Yucchy", singing about his lunch, the contents of which are wonderful to him but yucky to a passer-by. He also appeared in a sketch where a cow named Lola tries to find a home and encounters an unsuccessful attempt to live in Little Bird's nest. In that sketch, Little Bird is performed by Jerry Nelson. Little Bird was used rarely on the show itself as the 1970s ended (although he continued as a frequent character in books, most often flying or perched in the background, as recently as 2010). However, he made a few cameo appearances on the show during the 1980s and 1990s. On-screen appearances include a brief fly-by in the song "Do-Op Hop," at Birdland in "The Birdland Jump," and a line in "We Are All Earthlings." Little Bird's most recent US puppet appearance was in a 1999 Sesame Street group shot photo (pictured). Little Bird also appears as one of the animatronic figures in the ride Spaghetti Space Chase at Universal Studios Singapore. One episode in 1990 (in which she appears as a girl) featured a street story focused on Little Bird moving to Sesame Street. She tries to be nest mates with Big Bird, but finds that she can't sleep with the noise of his snoring. She asks Oscar if she can move into his trash can, but he says he doesn't share his can with anybody nice, unless they're messy. He starts to warm up to the idea when he realizes they're arguing about it, but by then Little Bird isn't interested anymore. After she decides she wouldn't want to live on Snuffy's back either, everyone gets the idea to build her a house out of an old milk carton. A regular sized one is too small, so they build one out of a Snuffleupagus sized carton, except another bird moves in before she can. Finally, when everyone is drinking glasses of milk to empty another carton, Little Bird decides to just move back to the park instead. Marionette versions of Little Bird have been used often for flying scenes such as in the "Song of One," "I Whistle a Happy Tune," and "Do-Op Hop". Little Bird's birthday is marked in Sesame Street Calendars as December 17th.
