Big Bird in China
| Big Bird in China | |
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Big Bird in China video cassette cover
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| Directed by | Jon Stone |
| Produced by | Kuo Bao-Xiang Xu Ja-Cha David Liu |
| Written by | Joseph A. Bailey Jon Stone Caroll Spinney |
| Starring | Caroll Spinney |
| Music by | Dick Lieb |
| Edited by | Ken Gutstein |
| Distributed by | NBC |
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Release date
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Running time
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75 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | Unknown |
| Box office | $14,093,284 |
Big Bird in China was a 1983 television special produced by Sesame Workshop and CCTV. It was originally broadcast on May 29, 1983 on NBC. The special was based on the popular television series Sesame Street. Big Bird, Barkley and Little Xiao Fu travel through China to find Feng Huang, the Phoenix bird.
The production was released on VHS in 1987, and on VHS and DVD on February 10, 2004. Although the voice of Telly Monster was Brian Muehl, Martin P. Robinson re-dubbed Telly's lines when Big Bird goes right to China. The DVD 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 the VHS version.
This television special had a sequel known as Big Bird in Japan.
The story starts in New York City's Chinatown, 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. Big Bird thinks, "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 and Beijing, Big Bird learning the "little duckling dance", and a song to teach Chinese words. A character called the Monkey King helps Big Bird and Xiao Fu on their quest. Meanwhile, Oscar the Grouch 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.
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 CTW after visiting China on a tour with Bob Hope. 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, with musical numbers by Peaches & Herb and Crystal Gayle. It was produced by James Lipton.
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