You’ve known the United States Air Force veteran interviewed in the video above your entire life.

No, really. Your whole entire life.

You just didn’t realize it, until today.

Because the man in the chair being interviewed above by Grantland‘s Andy Greenwald is Caroll Spinney, a former U.S. airman and the man inside two legendary figures of every American childhood: Sesame Street‘s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

That is, Spinney was the man responsible for puppeteering both the Grouch and the large yellow walking, talking bird, and has been since the show’s inaugural season of 1969. He got the gig after meeting Jim Henson a few years prior at a puppeteers’ festival in Utah.

While in the Air Force, Spinney wrote and illustrated “Harvey” — a comic strip about military life.

I AM BIG BIRD, a documentary about the 81-year-old Massachusetts native, is in theaters now.