Ryan Dillon (born May 25, 1988) is an American

puppeteer A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, called a puppet, to create the illusion that the puppet is alive. The puppet is often shaped like a human, animal, or legendary creature. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from ...

who has worked as an ensemble muppeteer for the Jim Henson Company since 2005. He also played Cooper and Paul Ball for the interactive series Sesame Street TV for Xbox Kinect, and appeared on all four seasons of the new

CBeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 years and under. Its sister channel CBBC is aimed at older chil ...

and co-productions of ''Sesame Street'', '' The Furchester Hotel'', and '' The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo'' as

Elmo Elmo is a red Muppet monster character on the long-running PBS/ HBO children's television show ''Sesame Street''. A furry red monster who has a falsetto voice and illeism, he hosts the last full five-minute segment (fifteen minutes prior ...

. In March 2017, Dillon was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming.

Background and career

Dillon was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. As a young puppeteer, Dillon came to the attention of ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) and ...

'' producers when he went to an audition as a high school student. He took time off from school during his senior year to participate in the shooting for Season 37 in 2005. Since 2014, he has taken over performing Elmo in new productions and appearances, replacing

Kevin Clash Kevin Jeffrey Clash (born September 17, 1960) is an American puppeteer, director and producer known for puppeteering Elmo on ''Sesame Street'' from 1984 to 2012. He also performed puppets for ''Labyrinth'', '' Dinosaurs'', '' Oobi'', and various ...

after his resignation from ''

'' in November 2012. Ryan has also taught classes in television puppetry at

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High ...

, and various schools and centres in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. He also replaced the late Richard Hunt as

Don Music The Muppets are a group of puppet characters created by Jim Henson, many for the purpose of appearing on the children's television program ''Sesame Street''. Some of the best known Muppets on ''Sesame Street'' include Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch ...

in ''Sesame Streets 50th Anniversary tribute. In addition to playing Elmo, Dillon has appeared on Kraft MilkBite commercials, "Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me," "Little Children, Big Challenges," "Little Discoverers: Big Fun With Science, Math and More," '' Julie's Greenroom'', '' The Muppets Take the Bowl'', ''The Muppets Take the O2'', the

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

webseries A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single ins ...

"Ask Sylvia" as the title character, and '' John Tartaglia's ImaginOcean'' (2010).

Filmography

Television

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dillon, Ryan 1988 births American male voice actors Muppet performers Daytime Emmy Award winners American puppeteers Living people Sesame Street Muppeteers