Birdman is a remarkably brilliant movie.
And Sesame Street, 45 years old and going strong, is remarkably well-versed in the art of both educating children and parodying occupiers of the pop culture zeitgeist.
Together they have created the remarkably delightful parody video of Big Birdman, that plays off one of the central plot devices of Birdman which is the ongoing, often argumentative and haranguing conversations that Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) has with the unseen by anyone but him larger-than-life persona of Birdman, the superhero who brought him fame many years earlier and who now hangs like an easily-mocked albatross around the would-be serious thespian’s neck.
These often uncomfortable discussions, which go to the core of Thompson’s furious, self-hatred filled battles with himself, are central to the beautifully-executed existential angst that underpins much of Birdman.
Tapping humourously into the same vein, although there is no suggestion that Caroll Spinney is anywhere near as conflicted as Thompson, Sesame Street has brought another avian icon, Big Bird, together with the man who has voiced him for 45 years in a deeply satisfying parody that asks the all-important question “How do we get to Sesame Street?” (Doesn’t matter!)
It talks of a place “crawling with monsters” and “smell[ing] of birdseed”, asks “How many ways can you learn the alphabet?” and muses whether they should have done that Raymond Carver play?
There is some Big Bird-esque existential musing that will have you grinning from ear to ear and a clever sight gag to wrap things up in just the way you’d expect Sesame Street to do it.
And it might have you looking over your shoulder for your very own fine-feathered companion with whom to debate the whys and wherefores of life.
Which if it happens like Big Birdman won’t be a bad thing at all.