Making friends with Elmo

Young Chang

Sit Hollie Do, who’s nearly 2, down in front of a “Sesame Street”

episode, and she’ll have herself a blast every time.

Wait until Elmo appears -- in all his furry-red monstrous glory -- and

Hollie will positively swoon.

“Elmo! Elmo! Elmo!” she’ll say, according to mother Emily Do. “That’s

all she remembers. She doesn’t know any other characters. She laughs, she

points, she watches it every day.”

Emerie Bell, 18-months-old, also loves Elmo. He’s her star character,

her main Muppet.

Local kids confirm, there’s just something about Elmo.

Maybe it’s his monster-speak, how he refers to himself in the third

person, his optimism, his tap dancing and his round orange nose that have

rendered him the hottest television celebrity among local kids nowadays.

Maybe it’s his name and how fun it is to say it. Or maybe it’s that

he, like many of his fans, is just 3 1/2-years-old.

“He just really wants to make everybody happy,” said Lori Marble, who

will play the part of Elmo for the upcoming run of Sesame Street’s “Let’s

Be Friends” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. “And he is

really enthusiastic about everything.”

Part of a touring group that stopped most recently in Thousand Oaks,

the musical production features Elmo, Zoe and a host of other “Sesame

Street” regulars.

The story has Elmo and his pink-nosed cohort starting an exclusive

Friendship Group. As the show progresses, the two characters learn that

friendship should be more inclusive. The rest of the cast -- including

Big Bird and Cookie Monster -- are invited to join the club.

Marble, a 23-year-old professional dancer, said she prepared for her

Elmo role by keeping in mind who Elmo really is.

“You need to remember that Elmo’s only three. He’s a three-year-old

boy monster, and there are a lot of things he still doesn’t know,” she

said. “In this show, mostly I try to remember that he is just wonderfully

gung-ho about life and friendship.”

Marble admits to having been more of a “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood”

fan than a “Sesame Street” watcher as a kid. But one episode, which she

remembers from not too long ago, stuck with her.

Whoopi Goldberg was the guest star and talked with Elmo about fur and

skin color -- she liked his red fur, he liked her black skin.

“They talked about the differences between skin and fur and how we

can’t trade them and how it’s a good idea that we can’t trade them,”

Marble said.

Matthew Bell, a local parent who grew up watching “Sesame Street,”

remembers learning the alphabet and even some Spanish from the furry

puppets.

“Agua -- this thing they did on water,” is what the 26-year-old still

recalls.

Pam Barrios, also a parent, remembers learning the alphabet but also

the numbers.

“The cow counted,” she said.

But her son Brett, a 5-year-old fan of the show, said he loves Big

Bird because he likes talking. The character talks to Elmo, which Brett

enjoys, and they converse nicely.

“And I learn some crafts,” he said.

For Marble, playing the part of Elmo is more than just another gig.

“It’s one of the few performing jobs I know of where you get to make

thousands and thousands of little kids happy and smile every week,” she

said. “And there’s a part of the show where you actually get to go out

and play with the audience and give out hugs.”

FYI

WHAT: “Let’s Be Friends”

WHEN: Thursday through June 17. 7 p.m. Thursday; 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Friday; 10:30 a.m., 2 and 5:30 p.m. June 16; and 1 and 4:30 p.m. June 17.

WHERE: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive,

Costa Mesa

COST: $15, $20

CALL: (714) 740-7878.