Joel Goodman puts on a Humor Conference every year in Saratoga Springs, NY area. It is a very well run and informative conference and I highly recommend it. When I attended, Kevin Clash, aka the voice of Elmo, attended and received an award for his outstanding work. One morning during the conference I had the pleasure of having breakfast with him and getting to know him a little bit. Several times during that brief time someone would come over and say hi and mention that their 2 to 4 year old loved Elmo. Every time Kevin did the same thing. He asked where their child was at the moment. If they were home and near a phone Kevin would offer to have Elmo talk to them. You can imagine how each parent felt that they had arranged for their child to speak personally with Elmo! That had to make their day, week, month! 

I asked Kevin about it. He explained that most of the time he is completely anonymous, that Elmo has given him a great life that isn’t in the public eye and that when he can he is more than happy to give of himself and Elmo.