Follow That Bird, Part 3: Down on the Farm

The kindly hitchhiker takes Big Bird as far as he can before dropping him off in the middle of nowhere, because that's what you do with a 6-year-old runaway.  Big Bird heads down a dirt road and before long, he comes across a farm filled with chickens.  Not Muppet chickens, just regular chickens, which usually wouldn't be an issue, except with this whole set up of "birds as a race of people," it's kind of weird to encounter the actual creatures.

Oh, and the farm is apparently run by children.

"Get offa my property, pwease!"

Okay, I know that these kids have parents, but we never see them.  The children, Ruthie and Floyd, recognize Big Bird from the TV and they decide to hide him in the barn.  The barn is off-limits to parents, I guess.

That night, Big Bird stares out at "One Little Star" from his hayloft and wonders how his friends are doing at that moment.  And, of course, they are looking at that same star, singing the same song.  It's sweet, but it's kind of weird that Big Bird only thinks about the two people who happen to be singing about him.

I miss Olivia and Snuffy and...the rest.

While everyone else is singing, the cool car decides to stop for dinner at the Grouch-run restaurant "Don't Drop Inn," because Oscar put up with Friendly's for lunch.  That's a good joke.

This was eventually renamed "Denny's."

This is basically a comic relief sketch thrown into the middle of the film where Maria has to suffer from the terrible service, horrible food, and obnoxious atmosphere one comes to expect from a Grouch dining establishment.  This is one of the few times we see human Grouches in the series.

Would you like some attitude with that?

Maria's theoretically safe order of a tossed salad ends with the inevitable food fight.  But at least the lettuce looks edible.

Back on the farm, Big Bird begins helping the children with their chores and becomes used to the country life of apple-pickin', cow-milkin', apple-milkin', cow-tippin', milk-pickin', apple-cowin', and goin' through barn doors.

Where are your parents, you children of the corn?!

And let's not forget the ADR'd song, even though we just had a song one scene ago.

But all good things must come to an end.  While Big Bird feels content in this new home, Miss Finch picks up his scent and soon, Big Bird must hightail it out of there.  As he's hiding, he narrowly avoids being caught by the Sleaze brothers, so that plot point will have to come later.

Instead, we find Big Bird stranded in a cornfield.  After having an imaginary talk with Snuffy, he gets spotted by Bert and Ernie flying their plane.  And that can only mean one thing: a North by Northwest parody!

"We're supposed to take him dead or alive, right?"

Ernie only succeeds in scaring Big Bird because he gets mistaken for Miss Finch (and also he flew straight at Big Bird with a plane!) and decides now is the time for some plane stunts and another song called "Upside Down World."

But we just had two songs!

Ernie sings of the joys of flying upside down as Bert loses his bottle cap collection.  The two then switch positions and Bert begins singing and flying while Ernie becomes the clearheaded one, telling them that they've misplaced Big Bird during all their tomfoolery.  Oh, Ernie, you scamp!  The duo flies on with out Big Bird, because we've still got two-fifths of the movie to go.

Tomorrow, Big Bird finds himself trapped and feeling blue.  Get out your tissues now!