T M X - Tickle Me Elmo X

[friendofjimmyk]

I just read an article regarding T M X - Tickle Me Elmo - 10th year edition or anniversary - whatever. The X stands for the tenth year and extreme! I was reading about how it's already sold out in most places and I immediately thought of this website and the stories I may read regarding SCs and extreme Elmos. Anyone run into this yet or have any related type of stories. I know I have seen a few on here before but I just thought if there were others, they are great to read!

[Retail's Bitch]

Yeah I saw that and thought. "Wow... It's been 10 years since people went nuts and started causing bodily injury and death over that thing..." Wow does time fly!

[friendofjimmyk]

The newspaper article had someone in a retail store quoted as saying "it's just like crack..." I laughed about that one!

[gundam40]

There's around 10 left at my local Superstore (grocery store). I don't get why people love this thing so much. It's been done before, by the same company. So it flails around a bit more, big whoop...

[draftermatt]

I bought a Tickle Me Cookie Monster at an antique store for $3 a few months ago. It works just fine, and is just as cute as it was when new. But I never got what the whole "need to have" crap was about.

[MadMike]

It's always some "latest greatest new thing" that people are going nuts over. Back in the 80's, it was those fugly Cabbage Patch dolls.

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

Toying with my emotions

Man, in all the time I worked retail, never did I see more psychotic behavior than I did when I was dealing in toys. I survived Cabbage Patch, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Nintendo, Beanie Babies, and $12 yo-yos.
Mix people with the latest craze and you get absolute FREAKS (especially if they think there's a chance they can turn a profit like those morons who claimed they were going to sell their Beanies one day and put their kids through college - yeah, how's that workin' out for you lately? ).
Never had to deal with the Elmo thing though.
One less headache for me!

[MadMike]

(especially if they think there's a chance they can turn a profit like those morons who claimed they were going to sell their Beanies one day and put their kids through college - yeah, how's that workin' out for you lately? ).

Thank you. I had forgotten all about that.

Back during the "Elmo" craze, I saw ads in the paper where people were trying to sell these things for hundreds, even thousands of dollars in some cases.

Of course, after Christmas was over and I still saw those ads, I had to laugh. Once Christmas was over and done with, you couldn't even give those things away.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

The Tickle Me Elmo is what made me realize that there is a class of people whom have hit rock bottom and are grabbing the drills and explosives to keep on going...ecpecially around the Christmas Season.

First time the TME came out it was a Christmas release and there was a MASSIVE rush on the damn things and stores couldn't keep them in the stock if they encased them in Carbonite and welded things to the structural ironwork of the building.

It was that bad.

Anywho, Toys-r-Us in Virginia (don't recall which, but thinking it was Alexandria or Fairfax) had a news crew and was giving one lucky girl one of the coveted TME's (or she was the lucky one who was next in the raincheck line...again memory fails). Anyway, they have her take it out of the box for the photo-op and then has her leave the store...escorted by the biggest knuckle-dragging security types I've ever seen. They do this while the cameras are running to show just how crazed the shoppers were for the stupid thing. Not out the back door, not letting her put it in a bag to disguise it, out the front door THROUGH the near-riotious crowd.

Facing a crowd of deranged shoppers at Christmas time is a daunting task for adults so you can imaging the trauma suffered by this poor defenseless six-year old child.

The people ran the line of suckyness ranging from the mostly harmless "Please, I'll buy it off of you for $200", to people screaming that THEIR child deserved the doll and not her, to people who actively lunged at the girl with intentions of snatching it and running.

Thankfully the security guards were able to (barely) keep the psychos off of her and she made it out of the store and into the safety of the car (likewise escorted out of the parking lot) but the poor girl was clutching that TME for dear life and looked terrified to the point of wetting herself...frankly I'm damn amazed that she didn't.

I'd like to find out the name of the jerk(s) who thought that such a specticle would be good for business/ratings, kidnap them, take them back in time and turn them loose naked in the streets of Sodom.

I don't know about you, but when my parents on Christmas day came to me and said "We're sorry, Santa really wanted to give you [hot ticket item of the season] but he ran out. He gave us a note and some money to buy one for you when the stores have them again.", I was cool with that. I think my response was "Ok" and start looking for what the Jolly Fat One *did* bring me and I was happy enough.

Frankly I'm not sure who disgusts me more in that situation...the event planners for throwing a helpless child to the wolves, or the rioters who *were* the goddamn wolves.

Mongo

[ArenaBoy]

TMES, Beanies, and does anyone remember Furbies? I hated the Beanies so much. One of my high school teachers went to a McD's when they were selling the Beanies. He bought a kids meal and decided just for fun to see if people were really that desperate for a toy. When he goes in front of the line of cars full of kids and parents, he holds the Beanie in plain sight and drops it in the garbage because he doesn't have a kid and he doesn't have a need for it. Needless to say, the kids ran out like mad.

Furbies are what clearly stuck in my mind quite a bit. I hated those things, and when I went shopping with my mom people almost knocked us over for those annoying things.

[The Gatekeeper]

To touch on a comment in the OP:

"X" is the Roman numeral for 10.



GK awash in a wave of geeky information.

[Becks]

I still want a Chicken Dance Elmo.

I am sooooooooooo weird.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Furbies are what clearly stuck in my mind quite a bit. I hated those things, and when I went shopping with my mom people almost knocked us over for those annoying things.

Oh come on, Furbies were FUN! If you had a palm pilot and the program that let you use it as an infrared learning remote you could beam commands at the display of Furbies and have them start up in a massive, collective epileptic fit...especially if a display had at least 10 furbies to demonstrate the interactive relationships the programming had.

Store clerks hated me.

Mongo

[skeptic53]

I was overseas during the Pet Rock craze, supposedly several million were sold (also a Christmas season release). The odd thing is that they all disappeared. I have never seen one in the 30 years since. I've seen examples of all the other craze items at garage sales: Rubik's cubes, POGs, Pokemon, Yugi-Oh, TMNJ, Power Rangers, Beanies, Cabbage Patch, Bigmouth Billy Bass, etc etc ad infinitum but never a Pet Rock. Maybe someone can post a pic of one.

[trunks2k]

I was overseas during the Pet Rock craze, supposedly several million were sold (also a Christmas season release). The odd thing is that they all disappeared. I have never seen one in the 30 years since. I've seen examples of all the other craze items at garage sales: Rubik's cubes, POGs, Pokemon, Yugi-Oh, TMNJ, Power Rangers, Beanies, Cabbage Patch, Bigmouth Billy Bass, etc etc ad infinitum but never a Pet Rock. Maybe someone can post a pic of one.