People

Kevin and Elmo may seem like an odd pairing—like, say, Miss Piggy and Oscar the Grouch—but they share a world accentuated by curiosity, acceptance, and, sometimes, mischief. If two Muppet souls were ever meant to join, it’s Kevin and Elmo.

When Sesame Street and those wide-mouthed, plush puppets made their debut in 1969, Kevin had an epiphany. Sitting close to the television screen, he was captivated by the talking characters and fascinated by the mechanics of their movements.

By age 10, he was building his own puppets. And while other kids in the Turner Station area of Dundalk were emulating Baltimore Bullet Earl “the Pearl” Monroe, Kevin was instead channeling Geppetto, bringing life to discarded scraps of fabric, plastic, and toilet paper rolls that he collected and shaped into little puppets with big personalities.

Gladys and George Clash accepted their son’s hobby and encouraged his creativity, often taking time out from working (as a home daycare provider and a flash-welder, respectively) to teach Kevin how to sew or construct scrap-wood stages.

Accepting his puppetry, however, also sometimes meant grinning and bearing it. Kevin’s first puppet was made from plundered fabric from his dad’s coat; a walrus puppet given by Mom was torn apart and reconfigured as his next best character. Neither parent kicked up much dust, which probably helps explain Kevin’s carefree vibe.

Curious by nature, the budding puppeteer allowed his creativity to wander into other mediums, too, including music.

“I love music, but I’m no good at it,” he laughs. “I played the trombone in school. There was a trombone solo in ‘Trombone Boogie,’ and my music teacher, Mr. Hawthorne, said to me, ‘Just stay seated. Don’t stand up. You can’t play.’”

Admittedly, the best thing to happen to Kevin’s music career was puppetry.

But, as one art form often inspires another, music—in spite of Kevin’s trombone shortcomings—helped shape his craft, and he regularly tested his puppet mettle on the kids in his mom’s daycare.

Television jingles and hit songs often carried Kevin’s next puppet inspiration within their lyrics, and his penchant for parody turned basic advertising into kid comedy gold. He once constructed a gauze-wrapped mummy to sing the Band-Aid jingle, and a lightning bug belted out Debby Boone’s 1977 hit, “You Light Up My Life,” while flitting in front of a bed-sheet backdrop.

As Kevin’s puppetry skills grew, so did his audience. With his homemade cast of characters in hand (literally), he performed for crowds at the Dundalk Heritage Fair and for “Sunny Sundays” at the Inner Harbor. His shows caught the eye of Stu Kerr, a pioneer in local children’s television who would become one of Kevin’s most influential mentors.

Stu wanted Kevin to join his show, Caboose, on Channel 2 WMAR-TV, but there was one snag.

“Stu had to ask my mom’s permission because I was still in high school!” Kevin chuckles.

He eventually joined Stu and began his professional study of puppetry and children’s programming. From there, Kevin performed on Captain Kangaroo and The Great Space Coaster before joining Jim Henson and Frank Oz on Sesame Street in 1984.

In the early days of Sesame Street, Kevin was charged with creating personalities for Muppets who’d not yet clicked with audiences. One day, a fellow Muppeteer tossed him a red, frizzy monster and asked him to give it a voice.

The rest is Muppet history.