A sad day for Sesame Street.

The story of Kevin Clash, the voice and puppeteer of Elmo and some other Sesame Street characters has been floating around for a little while now and while I was aware of it, I really dug into it after hearing a debate on local talk radio. The debating question was, “Will you take away or banish Elmo from your children’s lives, now that Kevin Clash is caught up in this scandal?“. To my surprise, most of the callers stated the sensible fact that “Elmo is Elmo“, and the little fuzzy and cute character has nothing to do with the actions of the man controlling him. A few callers had great difficulty dealing with Clash going after boys and being gay. Would it be better if it was teenage girls that were accusing him instead? Gay or straight, the issue is that he was pursuing and having sex with minors. That is why he has resigned, from Sesame Street. The first accuser was paid to recant his statement, but a second has shown up and blown everything out in the open again. It’s just sad really. I saw a brief screening of Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, and Kevin Clash really worked hard and struggled to get to the position and status he was in; All to have it end on such a sour note. What adults do in their bedrooms is their own business. As long as they are doing their jobs properly is all that matters. But once you start to mess around with kids and minors, all bets are off. We’ll have to see where this goes from here. I’m sure someone will replace Kevin Clash as Elmo, but there is no need to share this story with your kids or remove Elmo from their lives.