My Life as a Furry Red Monster - Kevin Clash [53]
Two inventors came to the new product buyers at Tyco Preschool with an idea. After seeing two laughing children tickling each other in the park, Ron Druben imagined a toy that would giggle when tickled. His friend Greg Hyman designed the circuitry enabling Tickles the Monkey to laugh when it was touched in specific places. Each time the monkey was touched, he laughed a little more.
Stan Clutton, the head of marketing and of research and development, reviewed the product and passed on it; that arm of Tyco Preschool did only plastic, not plush, toys at the time. But he was impressed enough to send the monkey to a colleague who oversaw a line of Looney Tunes toys at another division of Tyco. The idea behind Tickles the Monkey was strong, but the Tyco folks felt that the toy needed more personality. For a while, they tossed around the idea of creating a Tickle Taz toy, based on the Warner Bros. cartoon character the Tasmanian Devil.
While that idea was under consideration, Tyco Preschool gained the rights to Sesame Street toys, including plush ones. Elmo’s signature laugh was the perfect voice for the toy. Stan Clutton immediately phoned his colleague and asked him to send back the laugh mechanism—they were going to use it in an Elmo doll.
Tyco sent a prototype to the advertising agency. Advertising is a visual medium, and for television ads, the executives felt that the toy was too static. It didn’t really do anything. Back went the Laughing Elmo prototype to the design group headed by Amanda van Holt. A vibrating mechanism had been in use for a while, but no one had paired it with a plush toy that laughed when touched. The combination of the sound chip containing me laughing as Elmo and the vibrating mechanism produced Tickle Me Elmo. Neil Friedman, head of Tyco Preschool at the time, planned to roll it out as its number-one toy for the holiday season.
The toy was so popular that Cartier Jewelers put a million-dollar Tiffany necklace around a Tickle Me Elmo doll—buy the necklace get the doll. Rosie O’Donnell took a liking to the little guy, gave away hundreds of them on her talk show, and fed the mania. We’ve all heard the stories about desperate and fighting parents. As I mentioned, Whoopi Goldberg has been an ardent supporter of Sesame Street for a long time. Shortly after the holiday craze of ’96, she and I were both on Rosie’s show, along with Luther Vandross.
During a commercial break she turned to me and said, “Let me tell you what I went through with these damn Tickle Me Elmos!”
Whoopi put on her trademark glare but had a teasing glint in her eye as she stared me down over her glasses. “Well, thanks to you, I went to get a couple of those dolls for my grandkids, and some woman pulled a couple of my dreads out trying to get ahead of me. I oughta send you the bill for getting them fixed!”
I WAS HELPED by many people along the way, in so many different ways. But over and over again, they all taught me a similar lesson: Cooperation means more than simply being in agreement with another person. It means offering encouragement and aid, working together to resolve conflicts, compromising and sharing. From tiny backyard shows with a sheet pinned to a clothesline as a stage, to television productions and multimillion-dollar movies involving countless collaborators, to a doll that inspired irrational behavior and hair-yanking, my life as a performer has never been a solo act.
No life ever is.
OKAY, CLASS,” SAID our social studies teacher, drawing our flagging attention to the front of the classroom. “Let’s get started.” I glanced at the clock and tried not to fidget. Twelve-twenty; only about two and a half hours of school left to go. Would this dreary January day never end?
I wasn’t a bad student in junior high, but my grades weren’t the best in the class, and I didn’t particularly love to read like some of the other kids, who couldn’t get enough of The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew. Put a copy of the latest TV Guide in my hands, though, and I could easily