Big Bird and Little Bird at Sesame Studio

Image from Flickr

Here is a shot of a Little Bird statue and a Big Bird head at the Sesame Street replica from Sesame Studio.

Behind the characters you can see some decorative artwork.

In later years both were removed and a cardboard cutout of Big Bird's head was installed.

Image from Picasa

It looks like the area behind him was no longer lit. Perhaps this area was being used for storage.

This entire Sesame Street replica was eventually removed after the larger outdoor replica was built.

Big Bird's Tie

At Sesame Place the Big Bird walk-around character wears a necktie. The purpose for this is because the performer's head is in Big Bird's neck and the performer looks out through mesh material in the tie.

 This is different than how Big Bird is operated on the TV series (Sesame Street performer Caroll Spinney looks at a small monitor inside the suit.)

 Image from MuppetWiki

Currently Big Bird wears a striped multicolored tie.

At some point he had a solid purple tie:

And at some point he had yellow spots on a purple tie:

I don't know if there were other variations.