Tickle Me Elmo
Type | Toddler/kid toy |
---|---|
Inventor(s) | Tyco Preschool |
Company | Tyco Toys |
Country | UK, US, Canada |
Availability | July 1996–present |
Tickle Me Elmo is a children's
The toy was first produced in the United States in 1996 and slowly became a
Development
"Tickles The Chimp", the precursor to Tickle Me Elmo, was invented by Greg Hyman and Ron Dubren, who were known in the toy industry for having invented Alphie the Robot (a children's learning computer) several years prior.[2] In 1995 it was presented to Tyco Preschool as "Tickles The Chimp," which was a toy monkey with a computer chip which laughed when tickled. At the time, Tyco didn't have rights to make the Sesame Street plush, but did have the Looney Tunes plush rights. The toy was worked on for several months as Tickle Me Tasmanian Devil, successfully selling it at the WB Studio Store in California. A short time later, Tyco lost the rights to use the Looney Tunes property in their products, but gained the rights to Sesame Street, thus leading to the creation of Tickle Me Elmo. The invention was originally introduced under Cabbage Patch at Hasbro Industries.[citation needed]
Neil Friedman, who was then president of Tyco Preschool, recalled years later that, "When you played with Tickle Me Elmo for the first time, it brought a smile to everyone's face. It was a magical surprise."[3]
1996 craze
Tickle Me Elmo was released in July 1996, with a supply of 400,000 units. The dolls sold well and remained widely available in stores until the day after Thanksgiving, when they suddenly sold out. With the Christmas shopping season approaching, Tyco Preschool ordered 600,000 more dolls from their suppliers.[4] Promotion was helped by Rosie O'Donnell, who had shown the toy on her popular TV show in early October.[5][6] O'Donnell's "surprise plug" was probably too early to create unexpected demand for Elmo, as the resulting shortages in the stores that sold it happened nearly two months later.[7]
The scarcity of the new toy provoked a "shopping frenzy".
By the end of December, the entire stock of one million "Tickle Me Elmo" toys had been sold.[10][11]
Other Tickle Me toys
In early 1997, Tyco released new "Tickle Me" toys based on other characters from Sesame Street – first Tickle Me Ernie and Tickle Me Big Bird, then Tickle Me Cookie Monster – but despite good sales, none of these toys achieved as much fame as Tickle Me Elmo.[6] With the re-release of Tickle Me Elmo, Mini Tickle Me Cookie Monster and Mini Tickle Me Ernie were also put on the market.[citation needed]
The "Surprise Edition" of Tickle Me Elmo, issued fall 2001, was an elaborate contest. Five of the "Surprise Edition" Elmos stopped laughing on January 9, 2002, and instead announced to the people squeezing them that they had won a prize. The grand prize was US$200,000.[12]
TMX (2006/2007)
For the tenth anniversary of Tickle Me Elmo,
The full look of the doll was not revealed until it debuted live on
Toy analyst Chris Byrne told
TMX and other toys helped Mattel's earnings for the third quarter of the 2006
In January 2007, Mattel announced it would release TMX Friends, featuring Elmo, Ernie and Cookie Monster.[20]
LOL Elmo (2012)
Playskool released the toy again as LOL Elmo. Not a single image of the toy was revealed until the American International Toy Fair 2012; in the Hasbro showroom's Sesame Street section, there is a sign printed "Laughter Unleashed! Fall 2012". Above it was a video of kids giggling. The toy was released in September. It is also known as Tickle Time Elmo.[citation needed]
Tickle Me Elmo (2017)
Legacy
Tickle Me Elmo helped Children's Television Workshop recover from its financial problems that it had been dealing with since the 1980s, and also helped in boosting the popularity of Sesame Street, which had been facing stiff competition from other children's shows throughout the 1990s. Likely as a response to this craze, the show began pushing Elmo to a starring role more heavily, a practice that is still done on the show today. This most noticeably resulted in the show dedicating the last few minutes of every episode to the character, beginning in 1998 with Elmo's World, with three other Elmo-centric segments debuting on the show since then.
Non Tickle-Me Elmo Toys
- 1998: "Walk 'n' Talk" (with Big Bird and Cookie Monster)
- 1999: "Rock 'n' Roll" (with Ernie)
- 2000: "Let's Pretend Elmo"
- 2002: "Chicken Dance Elmo"
- 2003: "Hokey Pokey Elmo"
- 2004: "E.L.M.O"
- 2005: "ShoutElmo"
- 2008: "Elmo Live!"
- 2009:
- "Elmo Live!: ENCORE"
- "Elmo's Tickle Hands"
- 2011: "Let's Rock Elmo"
- 2013: "Big Hugs Elmo"
- 2014: "Let's Imagine Elmo"
- 2015: "Play All Day Elmo"
- 2016: "Love2Learn Elmo"
- 2018: "Let's Dance Elmo"
- 2019: "Love to Hug Elmo"
- 2020: "Rock 'n' Rhyme Elmo"
See also
- Furby
- ZhuZhu Pets
- Hatchimal
- FurReal Friends
- List of toys
References
- ^ a b "Just Tickled". People. Vol. 47, no. 1. January 13, 1997. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
- ^ Black, Lisa (December 10, 1996). "Toy Creator Unwraps Story Of Success". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
- ^ Greenwood, Chelsea (2009). "Child's Play: Mattel's Neil Friedman Has Built a Career out of Toying Around—And Making Kids horny". Success.
- ^ a b Baca, Maria Elena (December 10, 1996). "Desperate shoppers not laughing at Tickle Me Elmo". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014.
- ^ Cummins, H. J. (August 4, 1997). "Toy-craze sanity; First came Tickle Me Elmo. Then Beanie Babies and Tamagotchis. When kids go crazy over all these new toys, what's a parent to do?". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014.
- ^ Boston Globe}} "Elmo got his big break in early October of last year with an on-air plug from talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell."
- ^ Fisher, Eric (November 16, 1998). "Tickle-Down Economics". Insight on the News. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 0-8144-7063-7
- ^ Riddell, Mary (December 20, 1996). "Spend! Spend! Spend! Ten Years Ago Shopping Was, Quite Simply, the Thing to Do: But Now It Has Been Restyled – as a Vice, a Sin, an Addiction". New Statesman. "In New York demented mothers chase lorries of toys in the hope of tracking down this year's must-have plaything: a furry 'Tickle Me, Elmo'".
- Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)."The company sold its entire supply of 1 million TMEs last year".
- The Florida Times Union. "[1996]: Tickle Me Elmo becomes the hottest toy of the holiday season. More than a million are sold that year alone."
- ^ Dean, Katie (October 11, 2001). "Elmo's Worth More Than a Tickle". Wired. Retrieved May 2, 2020.
- Daily Herald (Arlington Heights).
- ^ "Tickle Me Elmo X TMX Elmo" (on Youtube).
- ^ a b Barker, Olivia (February 1, 2006). "Meet 'Top Secret Elmo'". USA Today.
- The Huffington Post.
- ^ "Tickle pickle: Your Elmo or your life!". New York Daily News. September 25, 2006. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007.
- ^ "Mattel Posts 6 Percent Rise in Profit". AP Online. October 16, 2006. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014.
- Cincinnati Post. October 17, 2006. Archived from the originalon July 14, 2014.
- ^ Kavilanz, Parija B. (January 29, 2007). "Following T.M.X. Elmo, here come his friends". CNNMoney.com.
External links
- Wired: Elmo's Worth More Than a Tickle on the Surprise Edition
- CBS13.com: Elmo Demonstration Archived October 25, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, video demonstration of the new Tickle Me Elmo