Wednesday

Ah – “Scrubs.” As a tv show, it makes me both laugh and cry. So sweet and fantastic.

Caught most of the re-airing of the season premiere of “Prison Break” on FOX. Looks like Wentworth Miller’s Michael Scofield has an opposition that actually is on his level of cleverness. Michael’s love interest, the prison doc Sarah is left in a rather bemused mood (well, who can blame her?). His brother Lincoln’s ex-girlfriend/lawyer… well, let’s just say… poor Veronica.

An article on the man behind Elmo. Cool:

Mr. Clash, a six-foot-tall African-American puppeteer, created that bright-red Muppet monster from “Sesame Street.” You know, the one with the falsetto and constant laugh. Although Mr. Clash, 45, has been Elmo’s constant companion for 20 years, he has not been nearly as identifiable as most celebrities. So a common reaction from some black adults — children ignore him and talk directly to Elmo — is “Elmo is a brother!” Mr. Clash said.

“It’s pertinent,’’ Mr. Clash said of his racial identity, during an interview in his small Sesame Workshop office near Lincoln Center in Manhattan. He has just started promoting his book, “My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love, and Laughing Out Loud” (Broadway Books). It goes on sale Sept. 5. [….]

Elmo was born in 1983, Mr. Clash writes. Mr. Clash was a Muppeteer in training when a “Sesame Street” colleague tossed him “a shapeless, soft bundle of red” — the show wanted a red monster — and challenged him to come up with a voice for the thing.

“His voice couldn’t be too primitive,” Mr. Clash recalled the other day. “He wasn’t as articulate at first. I’d used that falsetto voice in my characters before. When he gave me the puppet, I knew that was the voice.”

There is now a veritable Elmo empire, with dolls, puppets, videos and books, among many other products. [….]

Comic strip follow up: So, Mary Worth got mad at her stalker and slams the door on him. Yeah, that’s right.