#JimHenson #OscartheGrouch #SesameStreet He’s green, he lives in a trash can and he’s always waking up on the wrong side of the bed. His name is Oscar the Grouch, and even people who watched “Sesame Street” as kids might find him a bit confounding. Why is he green? How did he choose his home? And why’s he in such a bad mood? The answer lies with Caroll Spinney, the performer behind the roles of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, who announced his retirement from the show on Monday after almost 50 years. (Fellow puppeteer Eric Jacobson, who plays Miss Piggy, Grover and Bert will take the reins.) Spinney was introduced to the characters when “Sesame Street” creator Jim Henson called him up in the early 1960s. “[Henson] said, ‘Why don’t you come down to New York and talk about the Muppets?’” Spinney told NPR in 2003. “'I have some characters I want to build. One is a tall, funny-looking bird and the other’s going to be this grouchy character who’s going to live in a pile