Kevin Clash and Elmo Return Home for “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”
Heather Nadolny - On June 21, a packed house waited in anticipation for a SILVERDOCS premiere, and to see its subjects in person: Elmo, and his creator and longtime puppeteer, Kevin Clash.
In a full evening of events, Clash participated in a discussion at the Silver Spring Civic Center, followed by a red carpet premiere of
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, produced and directed by Constance Marks, at the AFI Film Institute.
During all of it, the Baltimore native was surrounded by his family, or as he called them "his personal hecklers."
"You can tell who the family is. Before the story gets out, they’re laughing already," he joked, glaring at the front row.
Clash recounted the kind of home he grew up in, where everyone loved to laugh and pick on one another. He shared stories of a ripped up trench coat, performing under a clothesline in the backyard, and throwing his sister’s cosmetics out into the snow.
"I’m glad my mom and dad kept me," he quipped.
Clash also discussed the development of his puppeteering skills, which eventually brought him to
Sesame Street.
"I had a lot of great mentors that really supported me."
Those mentors initially included TV personalities Stu Kerr and Bob Keeshan, better known as Captain Kangaroo. Clash became the regular puppeteer on Keeshan’s show, furthering his career in both television and making puppets.
His break came when he saw Kermit Love, who built Big Bird and Snufleupagus, on a TV special. Clash met Love during a school trip, and eventually started performing with the Muppets during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
After
Captain Kangaroo was cancelled, Clash joined Jim Henson on the set of
Labyrinth, and eventually, joined a new group of puppeteers on the set he’d been dreaming about:
Sesame Street.
“Sesame Street has this life that is wonderful,” said Clash. “We call it a street within a street. It’s the people that make the place, and it’s a wonderful place to work.”
It was also, as the film tells, the birthplace of Elmo.
That famous name rippled through the crowds when Clash first brought the little monster out.
"Whenever I hear a child singing, I have to bring out Elmo," Clash joked. "He rests very comfortably, in a nice Coach bag--nothing but the best."
Elmo was initially a failure. Legendary puppeteer Richard Hunt had had enough of trying to create the young character, and literally threw him over to Clash. Clash based the little monster on the children in his mother’s daycare, and it stuck.
"Every character we perform is a part of us," said Clash. "I call it 'Peter Pan Syndrome.' We have so much fun doing what we’re doing. We’re all performers."
Before he knew it, Elmo had taken off, and was requested by children and families alike, all over the world. The film shows Clash on cruises, in Europe, in Japan, as well as doing numerous television appearances.
Even President Obama is Elmo’s friend. During Sesame Street’s recent White House visit, Clash took a picture with the President, and made Elmo eat his face.
"I was up all night thinking the Secret Service would whisk me away the next morning," Clash recounted. "As a puppeteer you know, if you didn’t have the puppet on hand, you’d be arrested."
In addition to the frenzy and famous friends, the film demonstrated Clash’s connection with children through Elmo. There were tearful scenes with Make-A-Wish recipients, as well as schoolchildren who were overjoyed to meet their beloved friend. After the film, he made sure every child present got to hug Elmo.
That, as Clash discussed, is why puppeteering stands apart. "You can’t have a CGI character come up and hug that child."
One particular scene that stood out to the audience, as reflected in the post-screening Q&A, featured 11 year-old Tau, a young puppeteer. The film shows Tau’s visit to Muppet Studios, where he was able to identify every single puppeteer in pictures, and he impressed Kevin Clash with his craft.
Tau was present at the premiere, and never took his puppet, Gregory, off his arm. According to Clash, one of the many joys of his job is seeing new puppeteers emerge.
"That’s how Jim [Henson] wanted it," he said. "He wanted it to be a rainbow of Muppets, a rainbow of monsters."
At the end of the film, Clash brought Elmo out, and danced across the bottom of the rolling credits. As tears filled his eyes, he looked out across the crowd, and his family, as his and his film’s journey continued in his home state.
"It really is the best playdate in the world."
The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, ryguy102390@gmail.com
Heather Nadolny - On June 21, a packed house waited in anticipation for a SILVERDOCS premiere, and to see its subjects in person: Elmo, and his creator and longtime puppeteer, Kevin Clash. 
"You can tell who the family is. Before the story gets out, they’re laughing already," he joked, glaring at the front row. 
Clash also discussed the development of his puppeteering skills, which eventually brought him to Sesame Street. 
That famous name rippled through the crowds when Clash first brought the little monster out. 
"Every character we perform is a part of us," said Clash. "I call it 'Peter Pan Syndrome.' We have so much fun doing what we’re doing. We’re all performers."
Even President Obama is Elmo’s friend. During Sesame Street’s recent White House visit, Clash took a picture with the President, and made Elmo eat his face.
In addition to the frenzy and famous friends, the film demonstrated Clash’s connection with children through Elmo. There were tearful scenes with Make-A-Wish recipients, as well as schoolchildren who were overjoyed to meet their beloved friend. After the film, he made sure every child present got to hug Elmo. 
One particular scene that stood out to the audience, as reflected in the post-screening Q&A, featured 11 year-old Tau, a young puppeteer. The film shows Tau’s visit to Muppet Studios, where he was able to identify every single puppeteer in pictures, and he impressed Kevin Clash with his craft. 
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, as we've reported numerous times, is a critically-acclaimed, audience-adored documentary about Kevin Clash, the man behind/beneath Elmo. As the winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, this documentary is obviously extremely loved and popular. Since it was first released for viewing at film festivals, Muppet fans everywhere have been clamoring for a wide-release of the film. Well, our clamors have been answered! Submarine Entertainment has picked up the film for release in theaters all over the country in hopes to have it considered for the 2012 Academy Award nomination. Alongside that, Being Elmo has also been sold to New Video for DVD and digital distributions. ITVS and Independent Lens have distribution rights to the film for the first TV window, in which PBS already has rights to air the documentary. (via deadline.com)
Speaking of Elmo, our good friends on the team of Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey and Muppet Mindset correspondent Chase Beecher have informed us that the film will be screening at another film festival! This time at the SXSW (South By Southwest) Festival in Austin, Texas. No word yet on if Elmo or Kevin Clash will be in attendance, but you can find all the information about screening times and locations at SXSW's website and BeingElmo.com.
More exciting news from the world of Sesame comes in the form of a brand new Sesame Street video game, via our friends at ToughPigs.com, being produced for XBox 360 and compatible with its Kinect accessory. The game is tentatively titled "Once Upon a Monster" and features Elmo and Cookie Monster in a Where the Wild Things Are like world. The Kinect allows you to play games using your whole body, so the game is designed to improve youngster's motor skills and reaction times. The game will be available this fall and we'll keep you posted as new information surfaces! 
While we're on the subject of The Jim Henson Company, exciting news has surfaced about their partnering with Guillermo Del Toro in producing a new film based on the Pinocchio story. Apparently the Henson Company is designing puppets for the film. Once again, our good friends at ToughPigs have the scoop and some exclusive, awesome looking images for us to ogle. 
But, hands down the most exciting news of the week, in my humble opinion, is the thrilling announcement that The Muppets will be preceded in theaters by a brand new Toy Story short film! The Muppets and Pixar have always had a great respect and homage paying thing with each other--in fact, Disney even put The Muppets script through the Pixar brain trust--so this is pretty much the perfect partnership. I've hardly met any Muppet fans that aren't also Toy Story fans... so this is basically the best possible situation! I for one am extremely excited for this hugely awesome pairing. Kudos, Mouse House! Gotta love that synergy.
This past Sunday in San Francisco, Brian Henson sat down to be interviewed by awesome person and Muppet fan Neil Patrick Harris. The contents of this interview are still mostly unknown but The Jim Henson Company did showcase a great picture of Brian and NPH from the event (see right). If any of our great readers were at this event, email Ryan Dosier at ryguy102390@gmail.com--we'd love to talk to you about writing something about the event!
Another cameo has been confirmed for The Muppets in the form of Modern Family's "Manny Delgado," Rico Rodriguez. The young actor tweeted last Saturday saying, "My childhood is coming alive right now. I'm filming with the muppets for their new movie! It's pretty epic!" I don't know if you've seen Modern Family or the work of Rico Rodriguez... but he's absolutely perfect for a Muppet movie. This is quite a bit of cameos... so check out The Muppet Mindset tomorrow for our attempt to name all of the cameos appearing in the film (that we know of).
Speaking of The Muppets, Examiner.com has posted an incredible video of the filming that went down at The El Capitan Theater last week. The video includes such great moments as Chris Cooper yelling at the Muppets, the Muppets goofing around, Fozzie slapping Kermit around, and much, much more. It really is incredible and you should definitely check it out.
Extremely sad news this week as we report the loss of Sesame Street show writer, song writer, and composer Tony Geiss (1924-2011). Geiss worked on Sesame Street for years and his credits are almost innumerable as you can see on his Muppet Wiki page. Geiss was the conceptual mind behind the Honkers and Abby Cadabby. He wrote the first Sesame Street movie Follow That Bird and some favorite Sesame songs including "Elmo's Song," "I'm Proud to Be a Cow," "That's What Friends are For," and, my personal favorite, "Sing After Me." Thankfully, Geiss's legacy will live on forever with his wonderful songs, writing, and memories.
Born...
In the 1970’s, Kevin met Muppet designer Kermit Love, who arranged for him to visit the Sesame Street set and perform in The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as Cookie Monster in 1979. In 1983, Kevin was hired to join the cast of Sesame Street for ten episodes. Unfortunately, he was working on two other shows at the time, whose producers refused to work around the Sesame Street schedule, forcing him to cancel his appearances. In 1984 he officially joined the cast, performing characters such as Hoots the Owl, Dr. Nobel Price, and Baby Natasha. His most famous character, of course, would arrive in the form of Elmo.
Elmo started out as furry, red, generic “Baby Monster” in the 1970’s. In season 12 he was first known by the name Elmo, and was performed by Brian Muehl. After Muehl left the show, Elmo was recast to Richard Hunt. Hunt grew tired of the monster however, and threw the puppet to Kevin in the Muppeteer break room and told him to "come up with a voice for this thing." Kevin performed Elmo in his next sketch, introducing the now well-known Elmo falsetto voice. Elmo grew popular among audiences, soon becoming arguably the most popular Muppet character on the show. 
Ryan Dosier - Hello, Muppet fans! I am so, so excited today because I get to share with all of you a brand new interview with yet another legend: Kevin Clash. Kevin, as you probably know, is the performer of Elmo on Sesame Street. Kevin has been a great part of Sesame Street for nearly 30 years now, performing other great characters like Hoots the Owl, Baby Natasha, Wolfgang the Seal, and Kingston Livingston III. He also performed Clifford with The Muppets. Recently, Kevin has directed numerous episodes and specials for Sesame Street and is the subject of the recent film Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey which premiered this past Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival.
