My Life as a Furry Red Monster - Kevin Clash [12]
While she was fixing dinner or sewing or just plain relaxing, Mom was never without a song. Even now, I can hear her singing, “Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy makes your eyes light up, your tummy say ‘howdy’…” Like all of us, she had a wide repertoire including tunes from the Carpenters to bluesy Dinah Washington and Mr. Nat “King” Cole.
If you came to my house on any given day, you’d hear music, and you’d also hear laughter. With so many kids underfoot—me and my siblings and our friends, mixing with my mother’s daycare kids—laughter was inevitable (as were tears). I loved spending time with all the babies and little kids, entertaining them with my first puppets and making them laugh. Once I stepped away from that laughter and went out into the world, I became shy and withdrawn. In fact, I was so uncomfortably shy on some days that if I was walking down the street and saw somebody I knew coming toward me, I’d dash across the road to the far sidewalk.
But my shyness disappeared as soon as I slipped on a homemade puppet and entertained the other kids. I was too young to make sense of my split personality—the shy guy versus the entertainer—but I did know that from an early age, I had a strong urge to make others laugh and to bring them joy. Using my puppets, I rarely failed to get the reaction I wanted from my first audiences, and my confidence began to grow.
Over and over again, I’d watch entertainers on television and study them. On The Mike Douglas Show, I saw Richard Pryor, Totie Fields, and many other comedians do their thing. My dad would buy comedy albums—Pryor, Moms Mabley, and Redd Foxx (we weren’t allowed to listen to some parts), and of course Bill Cosby. I listened to Cosby’s classic live recording, Wonderfulness, till I practically wore the grooves off that record. I would laugh until I cried, listening to him recount the story of “Chicken Heart,” and a few other hilarious bits. (Imagine how thrilled I was when many years later Elmo and I got to work with Cosby on Sesame Street.) The sound of laughter and applause was “wonderfulness” in itself, and more and more, I began to crave anything close to that type of audience response when I did my own performances for the kids.
I wasn’t the only Clash kid on the prowl for a laugh. With Ne-Ne as our ringleader, Pam and I would peel price stickers off the groceries Mom would bring home. Once Dad was settled in his favorite chair for a quick predinner nap, we’d make our move, silently surrounding his sleeping figure and putting the stickers on his face. We especially loved to put one on his lip and watch it flutter as he breathed. We’d scatter and then Dad would wake up, rub his face, and come to dinner with a few bits of sticker clinging to his skin, totally oblivious. We’d sit around the table staring down at our food, our shoulders quaking. Mom was our accomplice, her trademark nervous sniffling masking her efforts to not crack up too soon.
“What’s so funny?” he’d ask, and we’d bust out laughing as he touched his face.
Now we live in the Comedy Central era, so our kid-stuff stunt may not seem like much in the way of entertainment, but we got a huge kick out of seeing our dad with a .99 tag on his forehead, and the thought of it still makes me grin.
My dad liked to play a prank or two himself. One day he came home from work and, instead of going for his chair, he stood in the kitchen while we helped our mom get dinner ready, his long coat still buttoned up. I saw something bulging near his chest. I also noticed that he was standing funny, with his shoulders hunched up around his neck and his arms folded across his chest like he was freezing.
“Kevin, how was school today?” he asked, and this time the space just under his left armpit seemed to inflate.
I looked at him and saw that his eyes were dancing and the corners of his mouth were twitching. Something was up.
He kept asking Pam and me more how-was-your-day questions,