My Life as a Furry Red Monster - Kevin Clash [0]
Title Page
Dedication
Welcome to “Elmo’s World”—and My World, Too
1 LOVE
2 JOY
3 CREATIVITY
4 TOLERANCE
5 COURAGE
6 FRIENDSHIP
7 COOPERATION
8 LEARNING
9 OPTIMISM
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise For My Life as a Furry Red Monster
Copyright
TO MOM AND DAD,
FOR ALL THE CARING, LOVE, AND SUPPORT
WELCOME TO “ELMO’S WORLD”—AND MY WORLD, TOO
Once upon a time, a young man was given a special but unusual set of gifts: a fuzzy mop of cherry-red fur, crowned with two enormous eyes, which sat high atop an orange egg of a nose that resembled, well, an orange egg. The young man seemed to know exactly what to do with his gifts, as you will soon see, but he added one more thing to the mix: a high-pitched voice brimming with joy, and a laugh like no other that would capture, soothe, and delight the hearts of millions both young and old. Yet like Jack’s magic beans, Dorothy’s ruby slippers, and Frodo’s golden ring, the full power of these gifts wouldn’t be revealed to their owner until later in the story…
Like many a fairy tale, mine begins a long time ago in a faraway land, called New York City.
“Give it a voice, Clash,” challenged Richard Hunt, a master Muppeteer and my Sesame Street colleague, tossing me a shapeless, soft bundle of red that I caught in midair. Back then I was still a very junior employee, wondering how much longer my dream job as a Muppeteer-in-training would last. Some days, as I worked away at playing chickens and pigs and AMs (Anything Muppets), clucking and oinking (and barking, squeaking, or hooting) my way through the television studio in New York, I remembered that I was only a train ride away from Turner’s Station, Maryland, my hometown on the Chesapeake Bay where I happily and unwittingly took the first steps on a path that would lead me right here, to West Fifty-ninth Street.
Without thinking, I grabbed the little monster and put him high on my arm, all at once letting loose with a boundless, childlike laugh—a falsetto squeal that would change my life. “Hello, it’s Elmo!” called this creature in the happiest of voices. “Hi, everybody!”
Now the adrenaline surged through me, as if a magic wand had been waved, and suddenly I wasn’t in New York. In a flash, I was a kid again back home in Turner’s Station, with a blanket strung over the clothesline for a makeshift stage, doing a puppet show for my mom’s daycare kids, lip-synching Earth, Wind & Fire songs. “Another one, another one!” they’d beg, wanting the show to go on. Back then, I had a captive audience. But now, my audience could just change the channel. There was more at stake than my youthful ego—I was working for Jim Henson now, and on one of the most prestigious and popular television shows for children ever created.
But on that day back in 1983, when I greeted Richard as a three-and-a-half-year-old little monster who seemingly came out of nowhere, I wasn’t thinking about that grown-up stuff. Instead, I was soaking up the magic of inspiration, remembering the pure and simple fun of being a child, and claiming the gift that had literally been thrown at me.
Elmo was born.
MY LIFE AS A FUZZY RED MONSTER is a real-life fairy tale, complete with a rise from obscurity to fame, some wonderful fairy godmothers and godfathers, a villain or two, a cast of loyal townspeople, some pitfalls, and more than a few morals. I started out as a kid who loved to draw and build things, whose imagination was fired not only by the fun-loving family surrounding me, but by the countless hours I spent in front of the television, watching everything from Captain Kangaroo to Jonny Quest, from All in the Family and Good Times to The Mike Douglas Show, and, of course, Sesame Street.
Gradually I overcame my youthful shyness by performing puppet shows first for neighborhood kids, then all around the Baltimore area, at schools, churches, community events, and later on local television shows. I had always dared to dream large, but even this black kid’s imagination could not have come close to inventing the storybook success