Big Bird was on the run. After leaving the comforts of Sesame Street to live with a family in Illinois, which didn’t turn out as he had expected, he escaped and met Waylon Jennings along the way. “So you are the bird on the run?” said Waylon Jennings, who was driving a turkey truck. “I can’t wait to get back to my real home on Sesame Street,” said Big Bird. “I figure I can walk back there in, oh … three hours.” Jennings responded “Three hours? More like three weeks, buddy,” before taking Big Bird into his old blue pickup truck back home in the 1985 film Follow That Bird.
“One of the things that I always forget about is that Waylon Jennings drives this turkey truck that we had to change the height of the cab, because, of course, Big Bird is going to get into the truck at some point, and Big Bird is super tall,” recalled Follow That Bird director Ken Kwapis in 2015. “Nobody ever comments on this, the fact that Waylon Jennings is driving these turkeys around in this truck with this absurdly tall cab. Waylon Jennings and Big Bird actually have good chemistry together.”
The first feature-length film from Sesame Street, Follow the Bird starred the regular Sesame Street cast, including the voices of Caroll Spinney (Big Bird), Jim Henson, and Frank Oz, along with Chevy Chase, John Candy, and Sandra Bernhard, also featured songs performed by Alabama (“All Together Now”) and Ronnie Milsap (“Workin’ on My Attitude”).
Videos by American Songwriter
[RELATED: 5 Times Waylon Jennings Walked Out of a Recording and Live Performance]
“Ain’t No Road Too Long”
In true Sesame Street fashion, “Ain’t No Road Too Long,” written by Jeff Pennig, Jeff Harrington, and Steve Pippin, is a motivational song about perseverance.
I found out a long time ago
You gotta learn to say “yes” when life says “no”
Don’t dwell on the bad times once they’re past
That kind of thinking gets you nowhere fast
From there Sesame Street characters Gordon and Olvia, Cookie Monster, Count Von Count, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, and more take on verses, before returning to Jennings and Big Bird, who sing the chorus together.
Cause there ain’t no mountain you can’t climb
If you hang on tight and just make up your mind
Once you set your heart to movin’ on
No, there ain’t no road too long
By the end of his truck journey with Jennings, Big Bird feels more defiant in his journey back home: “You’re right. If I just keep on going, everything will turn out fine.”
Carol Spinney
Jennings and wife Jessi Colter became close friends with the voice of Big Bird, Caroll Spinney (1933-2019). “Waylon told me once ‘Don’t get to be known,’” remembered Spinney. “‘You’ll lose all your privacy.’”
When Jennings and Spinney were having dinner in Worcester, Massachusetts, and a fan came up for Jennings’ autograph, he pointed to Spinney and said, “He’s the one you want. He’s Big Bird.”
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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