Follow That Bird

A social services agency decides that Big Bird should live with a family of his own kind and moves him from Sesame Street to the Dodos in a distant town. He is unhappy there and sets out to walk home. The residents of Sesame Street go after him. The subject is not the adventure but what a family is. The agency's reasoning looks sound: a bird should live with birds. Rather than explaining why that is wrong, the film simply shows how alone Big Bird is with the Dodos. The form is a road movie, leaving the Sesame Street set for real American countryside. The puppets were performed outdoors in real locations, which is technically difficult work. It is the first Sesame Street theatrical film. Caroll Spinney both voiced Big Bird and was inside the costume; Jim Henson and Frank Oz play their own characters. In one section Big Bird is forcibly painted blue and exhibited in something like a circus act, a passage unexpectedly dark for a children's film. Ken Kwapis directs. Who it is for: anyone who grew up with Sesame Street and likes classical puppet craft. Who it is not for: viewers wanting pace; the film proceeds in episodes and stops in between.