Clifford is a Muppet character, performed by Kevin Clash. He is a violet-colored creature with multi-colored dreadlocks and big lips. Like many other Muppets, it is never specified what kind of creature he is, but it is speculated that he is in fact a catfish.

He was created to be the bass guitar player for the Solid Foam band on The Jim Henson Hour. In that series, Clifford usually wore Hawaiian shirts and always wore sunglasses. When The Jim Henson Hour was canceled, Clifford was one of its few characters to reappear. In 1990, he appeared as a member of the Electric Mayhem band in The Muppets at Walt Disney World television special. In that special, Clifford did not play bass guitar; he did, however, play glockenspiel, tambourine and cowbells. Clifford also made appearances on The Arsenio Hall Show and VH1.

In 1996, Clifford became the host of Muppets Tonight, but with a redesigned look. This new Clifford had eyes and wore a sweater and neck tie instead of a Hawaiian shirt. The puppet's head was also built slightly differently. But when Muppets Tonight ended in 1998, Clifford vanished once again. He had a small part in Muppets from Space, wearing sunglasses again but now wearing a brown leather jacket and striped shirt. While he was treated as a part of the Muppet family in the movie, his screen time was minimal and he was not part of the movie's main plot, a quest to rescue Gonzo. At MuppetFest, a Muppet fan convention held in 2001, Kevin Clash revealed that he disliked the eyes of the Muppets Tonight redesign and was happy to see the revert back to sunglasses . Clifford made a brief cameo in The Muppets' Wizard of Oz as the manager of the nightclub Poppyfields.

James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. He was also an Oscar-nominated film director, Emmy Award-winning television producer, and the founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He died on May 16, 1990 of organ failure resulting from a Group A streptococcal infection caused by Streptococcus pyogenes.

Henson, who was born in Greenville, Mississippi and educated at University of Maryland, College Park, is one of the most widely known puppeteers ever. He created Sam and Friends as a freshman in College Park. After suffering struggles with programs that he created, he eventually was selected to participate in Sesame Street. During this time, he also contributed to Saturday Night Live. The success of Sesame Street spawned The Muppet Show, which featured Muppets created by Henson. He also co-created with Michael Jacobs the television show Dinosaurs during his final years. On June 16, 2011, he posthumously received the Disney Legends Award.

Kevin Jeffrey Clash (born September 17, 1960) is an American puppeteer and voice actor whose characters include Elmo, Baby Sinclair, Clifford, Splinter and Hoots the Owl. He currently serves as Sesame Street Muppet Captain and co-executive producer.

In the fall of 2006, Clash released an autobiography titled My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love and Laughing Out Loud. He is the subject of the 2011 documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey.

Kevin Clash was born on September 17, 1960 in Baltimore, Maryland. Clash's interest in animation in general, began with watching Disney on television. Clash had a strong interest in being a puppeteer since early age. His parents were very supportive of his ideas. One day Kevin saw his father's nice church coat and decided to use it to make a puppet. When his father got home Kevin hid. His father confronted him and asked what was the puppet's name, then told him to ask permission next time. In his neighborhood growing up, Clash would put on puppet shows for the children that his mother babysat.

Arsenio Hall (born February 12, 1956) is an American actor, comedian, and former talk show host. He is best known for hosting The Arsenio Hall Show.

Hall is also known for his appearance as Alan Thicke's sidekick on the talk show, Thicke of the Night. He was the winning contestant on NBC's reality show, Celebrity Apprentice 5, after defeating singer and American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken in the Celebrity Apprentice live finale.

Arsenio was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Fred and Anne Hall. His father is a Baptist minister. Hall performed as a magician when he was a child. He graduated from Warrensville Heights High School in Warrensville Heights, Ohio in 1973. After he graduated, he attended Ohio University, where he was on the speech team with Nancy Cartwright and Leon Harris. He then transferred to and graduated from Kent State University.

He later moved to Chicago, and then Los Angeles, to pursue a career in comedy, making a couple of appearances on Soul Train. In 1984, he was the announcer/sidekick for Alan Thicke during the short-lived talk show Thicke of the Night (a role for which he has on occasion noted his confusion with Monty Hall). Arsenio was the original voice of Winston Zeddemore in the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters from 1986–1987. In 1988, he co-starred in the comedy film Coming to America with Eddie Murphy.

Jonathan Smith (born January 27, 1971), better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, music producer, entrepreneur, and international DJ who was a member of the group Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz. Lil Jon formed the group in 1997, and the group released several albums between then and 2004. He then went solo and released a new album in 2010 called Crunk Rock.

Lil' Jon was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Frederick Douglass High School.

After working as a DJ for Atlanta night clubs, he started working for So So Def Recordings between 1993 and 2000. The group signed to the Atlanta-based Mirror Image Records and were distributed by Ichiban Records. In 1997, Lil' Jon & the East Side Boyz debuted with Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album. It included singles "Who U Wit?" and "Shawty Freak a Lil' Sumthin'", the latter of which came out in 1998. Both singles charted on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at No. 70 and No. 62 respectively. In 2000 Jon took part in starting up his own label BME Recordings and signed a distribution agreement with Norcross, Georgia based Southern Music Distribution. There he released his break through album titled We Still Crunk. Among the tracks on that project was the hit single "I Like Dem Girlz", which reached No. 55 on the R&B chart and No. 3 on the Hot Rap Tracks chart.