My Life as a Furry Red Monster - Kevin Clash [16]
For a living legend, Jim was one of the most accessible and silliest men I’ve ever met. Those of us who knew him and worked with him are often asked what he was like. Universally, we respond that Jim was Kermit the Frog. He was as decent and funny an everyman (everyfrog?) as his beloved creation. Jim’s main goal in life was to have fun. He brought that sensibility to the studio with him every day. Remember how Kermit was the center of the maelstrom of outrageous personalities and calamitous chaos on The Muppet Show? That’s what working with Jim on any production was like. He gave us all such free rein to have fun, but whenever the clock told us it was time for the show to go on, we would get our act together. Even though we were enjoying ourselves, we knew how much it mattered to Jim that we entertain and inform our audience.
When I found myself on an L.A.-bound jet out of JFK International sitting among a group that included Frank Oz (Miss Piggy, Bert, Cookie Monster, Fozzie Bear…), Jerry Nelson (The Count, Sherlock Hemlock, Sgt. Floyd Pepper…), and a host of other Muppeteers, I was flying higher than Elmo’s “cousins” from Pigs in Space. I’d never been to Hollywood before, never been asked to perform at an awards show, never been picked up at my apartment in a limo, and never had a room booked in my name at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel! Best of all, I was there to honor a man I loved and respected, and with me were some the finest puppeteers around—members of the cast from Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and Fraggle Rock. We were all there as part of a musical number that would serve as a comic tribute to Jim.
We hung out in the lobby of the hotel, talking shop and laughing when we saw Richard Hunt, with his unruly, Muppet-like hair, getting into the limo with a pink napkin loaded with Danish he’d saved from his room service breakfast.
Later at the theater, though I tried to act nonchalant and professional, I was so fresh out of the box that I was in awe of all the film and TV legends who were present, from Harry Belafonte to Lucille Ball, and more than once I had to stop myself from staring.
I’d never worn a tux before—I’d made a miniature one for a puppet, but I’d never put one on myself—and there was a big difference. I could not figure out how to keep my shirt tucked properly into my cummerbund. The cummerbund either pooched out, giving me a potbelly, or pushed the shirt upward, providing me with a barrel chest. Who should come to my rescue but Jay Leno, who was backstage at the same time. “There’s a button on the inside front of the pants that goes with a hole on the shirttail,” he explained, “but that’s too sophisticated. Just unzip your fly and pull your shirt down through there.” I thought it was pretty cool of him to help—and not turn me into the punch line of a joke!
When it was time for our number, all the Muppets sang and danced in a full-blown production entitled “Jim.” Though the tune has long since gone out of my memory, I can still remember the chorus of “da-da-da-da-da-da—JIM!” that we sang with lung-busting gusto. We wanted to raise the roof and bring the house down in tribute to our boss, mentor, and friend. When Harry Belafonte walked to the podium to deliver his introductory and laudatory remarks presenting Jim, I had a lump in my throat the size of Elmo. To imagine that I was a very small part of a pioneering organization nearly overwhelmed