His mother, a native of Bolton, England, named him Caroll despite him being male because he was born the day after Christmas.

[2] While in the Air Force, Spinney wrote and illustrated Harvey, a comic strip about military life.

Throughout the 1960s, he performed on the Boston broadcast of Bozo's Big Top, where he played various costumed characters which included Flip Flop the Rag Doll, Mr. Rabbit, Kookie the Boxing Kangaroo as well as Mr.

[citation needed] Spinney created a puppet duo consisting of two cats named Picklepuss and Pop, which he utilized throughout the 1960s.

His show was a mixture of live actors and puppets but was ruined by an errant spotlight that washed out the animated backgrounds.

As Big Bird and Oscar, Spinney conducted orchestras across the US and Canada, including the Boston Pops, and visited the White House multiple times.

[citation needed] As Oscar, Spinney wrote How to Be a Grouch, a Whitman Tell-A-Tale picture book.

With J. Milligan, he wrote the 2003 book The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch): Lessons from a Life in Feathers.

For example, in the Chinese performance of Da Niao on Zhima Jie, the costume is an exact physical replica of Big Bird.

At one point, he created and performed Bruno the Trashman, a full-bodied puppet representing a garbage man, who also carried Oscar's trash can.

Spinney reprised his role as Oscar the Grouch in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian in a cameo appearance next to Darth Vader.

For his body of work, Spinney received both a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994 and the Library of Congress' Living Legend award in 2000.