Scram!

So last week at work was absolutely insane. Especially Wednesday. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off buying Doritos for the Spinneys only to find out from his wife that he was deathly allergic to. I was also notified very last minute that we got cleared for Oscar to perform "I Love Trash" on the show, which required many bizarre props. I ran around getting all of the props, only to find out that we needed just a fish wrapped in paper and an old tennis shoe. We actually ended up using my personal Chuck Taylor All Star, which truly is disgusting, for the tennis shoe in the song. I snuck into the booth to watch a little of the rehearsal Wednesday and it was so cool to see Oscar on the set, but it really hit me when Sean (one of the hosts) was reading the birthdays and Oscar said "Have a rotten birthday."

Wednesday night, I went to dinner with programming and the Spinneys. It was truly a memorable experience getting to eat dinner with a living legend. Carroll just wrapped his 40th season of Sesame Street and has been performing as Big Bird and Oscar the whole time! He wrote a book about his experiences performing as a puppeteer and received the daytime emmy award for lifetime achievement in 2006. Him and his wife have so many amazing stories and are very, very nice people in the most genuine way. At one point during dinner, Carroll spontaneously broke into a song in his Big Bird voice from "Follow that Bird." Moments like that remind you that you're in the presence of true greatness. Sadly I had to leave early so Matt and I could run to Staples to get a recycling bin for the set Thursday.

I went in early Thursday morning to help with the set. This is me and Jackie setting up the set (or barn, as its called by everyone). I spent the rest of the working on the props for next week's show and doing craft projects with kids who were at work for bring your kid's to work day.

After that, there was a meet and greet with Sprout employees and their kids. They got to meet, (from the left) Carroll with Oscar, one of the hosts, "The Chicken Puppet," and another host .

It was so cool to see the kids interact with Carroll and Oscar. A lot of the kids were amazed and I think this experience brought out the kid in all of us, especially the ones, like me, that grew up with Sesame Street.

After all the kids went through, the employees got to have their pictures taken with Carroll. Then a bunch of people got stuff signed. I had him sign my tennis shoe that he used for "I Love Trash" and a paper plate collage of Oscar that I made out of garbage, which was used as an example for a completed craft on the show.

As tough as work has been, it is truly amazing that I work at a company where I can have such amazing experiences like this. To work on a kids TV show and to have worked with one of the 3 legendary puppeteers (the others being Jim Henson and Frank Oz) is pretty remarkable. And I'm just getting started!