A Sesame Street Mystery: The Case of the Missing Rara Avis

Sesame Street Live 1st Edition Program Cover

Big Bird joins the Seedy Birds for a chorus line

A Sesame Street Mystery: The Case of the Missing Rara Avis was the very first Sesame Street Live show, produced by VEE Corporation in 1980, for a 1980-1981 tour season. It was repeated on tours in 1981-1982, 1984-1985, and 1985-1986 in the United States. Additionally it toured in Australia in 1982-1983, and Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong in 1990-1991.

Characters

• Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, The Count, Inspector Fortescu Farquar, New York City Department of Missing Birds, Phineas T. Barnswallow, The Seedy Birds, Old Lady, Anything Muppets, including The People in Your Neighborhood.

Voices of the Muppets

• Jim Henson as Ernie
• Frank Oz as Cookie, Grover, and Bert
• Jerry Nelson as the Count
• Caroll Spinney as Big Bird and Oscar
• Louise Gold as Anything Muppets
• Kathy Mullen as Anything Muppets
• Richard Hunt as Anything Muppets
• Grenoldo Frazier as Phineas T. Barnswallow
• Daniel Nanni as Inspector Fortescue Farquar

Touring cast

1980-1981

• Lionel Douglass as Big Bird
• Roger Kachel as Ernie
• Buz Suraci as Oscar the Grouch
• Grenoldo Frazier as Phineas T. Barnswallow
• Juan Iglesias as Cookie Monster
• New York City Department of Missing Birds: Lionel Douglass, Chikae Ishikawa, Amy Lachinsky, Stan Nelson, Thomas Sanford, Lisa Stanley, Buz Suraci, and Judy Swartz.

Songs

The show used ten familiar songs from Sesame Street, plus three original songs. Paul Walberg and Dell Hake wrote two instrumental pieces, "Chicken Tango" and "Constable Chicken Chase", plus a third, "Bird Song", with lyrics by Jon Stone.

Walberg went on to write songs for the Muppet Show stage shows, The Muppet Show on Tour! and The Muppet Show on Tour: 2nd Edition.

• Sesame Street Theme
• The People in Your Neighborhood
• Rubber Duckie
• A Very Simple Dance
• What's The Name of that Song
• The Transylvania Polka
• Chicken Tango
• Constable Chicken Chase
• Bird Song
• Doin' The Pigeon
• C Is For Cookie
• Sing
• Goin' Home

Merchandise

There were some items exclusively available for the tour. Among them were four posters, a souvenir program, banners and pennants.

Credits

• Written by Jon Stone and Joseph A. Bailey
• Produced by Bob Shipstad
• Directed and Choreographed by Anita MannCo-Choreographer [Yanco Inone]
• New Sesame Street Live Muppets were designed by Michael Frith
• Muppet costumes designed and built by Muppets, Inc.
• Design and supervision of construction by Ray Diffen
• Assisted by Connie Peterson
• Mechanical animation by Mae Canaga