Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey

If you grew up watching television shows like Howdy Doody, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood you were undoubtedly entertained by those loveable wooden string marionette puppets. My exposure to puppets came from watching Sesame Street and later The Muppet Show. The Muppets, a word created by combining the words “marionette” and “puppet”, are known worldwide and for decades they have been entertaining and educating kids around the world. But why do kids find them so intriguing? How do they keep kids glued to the television and guarantee parents at least an hour of uninterrupted quality time?

The answer might be found in Constance Marks’s documentary film Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey. The film is about Kevin Clash, the puppeteer responsible for making the Muppet Elmo one of the world’s most adored Muppets of all time. The film is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and includes interviews with Frank Oz, Rosie O’Donnell, Cheryl Henson, Joan Ganz Cooney and others. The film is integrated with archival film footage that spans varying levels of Kevin’s career.

Kevin Clash began building puppets at the age of ten and performed puppet shows for the kids in his Baltimore neighborhood. Later he would put on shows at Baltimore’s Harbor Front and at various events for kids. While performing a puppet show as a teenager, he drew the attention of a producer of a local kids television program. After spending some time working on the show, the producers of the show helped Kevin put together an audition tape which eventually landed him a job working as a puppeteer on Captain Kangaroo, and another show called The Great Space Coaster. After meeting Muppet designer Kermit Love, Kevin would later be asked to work with his idol Jim Henson on the fantasy film Labyrinth and eventually he would land his dream gig as a puppeteer on Sesame Street.

For a kid growing up in Turner Station, a small community outside Baltimore City, Maryland, affectionately known as Chocolate City and unfavorably known for being a community that exists in the middle of a perfect storm of pollution sources, the world of imagination is the greatest asset one might use to escape the reality of the conditions of this type of environment. Outside of watching lots of television, making inexpensive hand puppets would be a cost effective creative outlet. But imagine the ridicule a kid would receive, especially a young black teenager growing up in a blue collar community, for making puppets and putting on puppet shows. Imagine the looks of askance that a teenage boy would get from all the hip kids, and forget about meeting girls. But In Being Elmo, you could feel Clash’s passion for his work and his desire to improve his craft. It’s amazing to see someone at such a young age be so focused and committed to developing his gift. He was set on mastering the artifice of a puppeteer and a lot of his success can be attributed to the unrestricted support he received from his parents.

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey is truly an amusing film to watch, and you can’t help but feel joy and excitement for Kevin Clash as you watch his dreams unfold on screen. It’s also refreshing to watch a story about a young kid whose gifts stand outside the box. I hope this film inspires kids to be different and to be confident with the gifts they possesses. For every artist or for anyone who has dreams or is ambitious about achieving any goal, this story will help you understand that obstacles are just a part of the journey, but if you stay resilient and never lose sight of your goals, as cliché as it sounds, anything is possible.