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It Really Isn't That Easy

9/26/2014

For the longest while, the only video that was available online of the very moving memorial for Jim Henson was when the group of Muppet performers one-by-one sang a heartbreakingly beautiful version of the song, "Just One Person," which I posed here.

A few more videos of the memorial have now made their way into the world, and this is one of the best of them. It's Caroll Spinney as Big Bird performing an absolutely spellbinding rendition of Kermit's iconic song, "Being Green." Just his entrance alone is beautiful by itself without a note even being sung.

The most remarkable thing about the performance is how Caroll Spinney made it through without breaking into tears. And it seems like he came close a few times.

Note the color of the neck ribbon that the big yellow bird is wearing...

2 Comments

Douglass Abramson

9/26/2014 08:03:27 am

Wonderful. I don't know what Sesame Street is going to do when Spinney is no longer available. He's been the backbone of the program since it started. As Henson's and Nelson's deaths and Oz's retirement from performing have shown, nobody is irreplaceable. Somebody else can do Oscar, but Spinney has put so much of himself into Big Bird; it might be impossible to find someone to take over. It took years after Henson passed before the Kermit performances were even close to being right and I think that the marriage of performer and character is closer with Spinney and Big Bird than even Henson and Kermit were.

Now for a less maudlin subject. While I was on YouTube today, I stumbled onto video of what might be the first time The Muppets sang Just One Person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipe14_yCL_g

Its a happier version than was seen at the memorial for Henson or the Muppet tribute TV special. Of course, it helps that when this was done, the Muppeteers weren't channeling their pain into the performance.

Robert Elisberg

9/26/2014 08:24:59 am

It's difficult to tell when their first rendition of "Just One Person" is, though it certainly could have been this. Though for all I know, they might have done it on "Sesame Street" even. But as I mentioned in a much earlier post, although people associate it as a Muppet Song, it's actually from the musical, "Snoopy!!!", which was a sequel to "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

It Really Isn't That Easy

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