TV Review: Being Elmo - A Puppeteer's Journey

On Thursday, April 5, 2012, PBS will air Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey as part of their Independent Lens series. The Whoopi Goldberg-narrated program concerns a young African-American man by the name of Kevin Clash, and his dreams of becoming a puppeteer. The story of how he went from a nine-year old fan, to actually working on Sesame Street with his idol Jim Henson, is one of the most heartwarming I have seen in some time.

Kevin was seemingly born to the task. The Clash family hail from Baltimore, Maryland, and they were solidly blue-collar. The house Keith grew up in was not in the best part of town, but there was obviously a lot of love in the family. Keith loved television shows such as Captain Kangaroo and The Wonderful World of Disney. When Sesame Street debuted, he was immediately smitten with the Muppets. Keith was enthralled by puppetry, and began making his own at an early age. He even cut up his father’s trench-coat to use the fur lining to fashion his own Muppet.

Kevin expected the worst when his parents got home that night. He was not acting out or anything, he says that when he discovered the materials, something just came over him. Their response goes to the very heart of what makes this show so memorable. When they saw what he had created, Mr. and Mrs. Clash realized their boy had a very special talent. Rather than punishing him, they encouraged him in every possible way. This could not have been easy, for there were Kevin's two sisters who needed to be taken care of as well, but somehow they managed.

While Kevin was still in high school, he auditioned for a position as a puppeteer on a local children’s show, and got it. When one of his high school classes took a field trip to New York, Keith was able to meet one of his early heroes, Kermit Love. Mr. Love was a Muppet designer, and Kevin was floored by what he found at the studio. The feeling was mutual, and he was taken under Kermit’s wing. When he graduated, he was offered a job there. As his mother says, “Kevin went directly from high school into his career, there was no middle ground.”

He was hired to work as a puppeteer on the Captain Kangaroo Show soon after this. Then came Kermit Love’s own series, the short-lived Great Space Coaster. When Jim Henson got to know him, he was offered the opportunity to work on The Dark Crystal film. The only catch was that he would have to quit his two series jobs, which forced him to do the unimaginable. He turned Jim Henson down.

Article Author: Greg Barbrick

Greg Barbrick is a Seattle native who was first published in 1988, in his hometown music magazine, The Rocket. Since then his work has appeared in print and online for numerous sources. He Googles himself so often that his mother told him it would make him go blind.
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