The 1990s were Weird

What this episode is about

The main topic explores the cultural phenomenon of the Tickle Me Elmo toy in the 1990s, detailing its creation by Ron Dubren and the unexpected chaos that ensued during its release, including bomb threats, mob-related incidents, and even an Elmo kidnapping. The narrative highlights how a simple concept for a ticklish toy transformed into a nationwide obsession that sparked a series of bizarre events.

Key takeaways

• Tickle Me Elmo reveals how a plush toy became an accidental catalyst for chaos and public mayhem.
• From cute to criminal: One Elmo's giggle catalyzed bomb threats and even an organized crime backlash.
• In a twist of fate, Elmo's plush success came from a discarded Tickle Me Taz prototype. Oi vey!
• Remember kids, the slippery slope from innocent laughter to parental panic starts with a vibrating toy.
• Elmo's vibrating escapades show how consumer frenzy can turn holiday joy into a shopping gladiator arena.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Ron Dubren · 1 min speaking
• Greg Heyman · 1 min speaking
• Stan Clutton · 1 min speaking
• Ellie Bagley · 1 min speaking
• Rosie O'Donnell (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Brian Gumbel · 1 min speaking
• Janice Yates · 1 min speaking
• DJ Hal 9000 Abrams · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Ron Dubren, Stan Clutton, Greg Heyman
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Looney Tunes, Tao, Hasbro
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Freeman PR
4. 9:00 – 12:00: Freeman PR, Brian Gumbel
5. 12:00 – 15:00: Tao
6. 15:00 – 18:00: John Gotti Jr.

Notable quotes from "The 1990s were Weird"

• And evidently popular as this idea was though, it didn't spring into the world fully formed with the toys inventor, Ron Dubren, spending over a year refining the idea of a ticklish toy for toddlers into its now familiar Elmo form.

  about Ron Dubren · at 1:06

• Dolls making it out of the prototype stage. Because while all of this was happening, Clutton was able to acquire the sole toy making rides for the Sesame Street brand.…

  about Stan Clutton · at 3:43

• Out, expectations for the toy were strong, but conservative with Tao ordering about 400,000 units to ship to stores in July of 1996. Then in the leadup to Christmas, which for…

  about Tao · at 5:52

• Brian Gumble, who according to a segment talking about the toy that aired before the O'Donnell show, plugged it, sat with the toy on his lap for the entire segment as it…

  about Brian Gumbel · at 9:24

• Things to satisfy demand. So, they just decided to ship out what they could and tell Freeman PR to cancel any and all further advertising that they had planned. Something that…

  about Freeman PR · at 10:58

• Hands on an Elmo was John Goty Jr., the son of John Goty. Yes, the mobster John Goty. In fact, Goty Junior got several of them after strolling into a Toys R Us 10 minutes…

  about John Gotti Jr. · at 15:13

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Ron Dubren — Person · Referenced inventor (origin story driver) · 3 mentions · first at 1:10
  Described as the toy inventor who developed the ticklish-toy concept that became the basis for Tickle Me Elmo.
• Stan Clutton — Person · Referenced toy executive / rights & product champion · 1 mention · first at 2:30
  Depicted as the Playtime Products figure who pushed to attach the gimmick to Elmo and helped steer the product toward Sesame Street licensing.
• Greg Heyman — Person · Referenced co-inventor / technical collaborator · 1 mention · first at 1:43
  Presented as the inventor with prior interactive plush experience who helped engineer the ticklish-toy mechanism and early prototype work.
  Friends or siblings. With this idea firmly in mind, Dubran approached a friend and fellow inventor Greg Heyman about the logistics of creating such a toy, which as it turns…
• John Gotti Jr. — Person · Referenced public figure (anecdotal buyer in craze) · 2 mentions · first at 15:13
  Used as a colorful example of how extreme the demand became—portrayed buying large quantities at Toys 'R' Us amid media scrutiny.
• Brian Gumbel — Person · Referenced media personality (secondary publicity driver) · 1 mention · first at 9:22
  Credited (via PR executive quote) with an early TV segment that helped popularize Tickle Me Elmo before the Rosie O'Donnell giveaway.

Companies & orgs

• Tao — Company · 2 mentions · first at 5:56
• Freeman PR — Company · 3 mentions · first at 6:11
• Looney Tunes — Company · 2 mentions · first at 3:29
  Show. The plush rides, well, they were owned by Hasbro. However, not all was lost because Playtime did just so happen to own the plush rides to another brand popular with…
• Hasbro — Company · 1 mention · first at 3:04
  Is really good. It would make such a great Elmo. The only issue was that at the time, Playtime Products didn't actually have the correct rights to create such a toy.…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Anybody watching this remember the film Jingle All the Way? Is that Tim Allen? You know the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger body checks his way through a crowd of harried single moms is an accessory to a bomb threat and physically assaults like four retail workers all for the chance to get his hands on that year's hottest toy. I do remember this. It's not with Tim Allen. Is it with Tim Allen and Arnold Schwarzenegger? I don't think so. Of course you do. That film is great. Don't remember it that well. Okay, so let's talk about the time all of that happened for real here in our world. Only instead of a Durotastic action figure with booster accessory. Don't worry, there's plenty of boosters left. We're talking about a foot tall vibrating Elmo plush.

0:40 This is the story of Tickle Me Elmo and how the cutesy red Muppet indirectly caused a whole heap of problems, including, as alluded to, a bomb threat, irate mob bosses, and even an Elmo kidnapping. Firstly, for anyone unfamiliar with the Tickle Me Elmo toy, it's exactly what it sounds like. A small plush faximile of the ever popular Sesame Street character Elmo that you can if you really want to tickle. An action that will cause Elmo to vibrate at high speed and giggle as one naturally does when tickled. A simple and evidently popular as this idea was though, it didn't spring into the world fully formed with the toys inventor, Ron Dubren, spending over a year refining the idea of a ticklish toy for toddlers into its now familiar Elmo form.

1:19 According to Dubran, a toy inventor by trade, he was inspired to create a toy that responded to being tickled after witnessing two children falling on their ass laughing while tickling one another in a park sometime in 1995. The sheer joy and simplicity of this moment got the gears in Duban's head turning, and he began to wonder if something like that could be replicated with a toy, presumably for kids without friends or siblings. With this idea firmly in mind, Dubran approached a friend and fellow inventor Greg Heyman about the logistics of creating such a toy, which as it turns out, for Heyman at least, was literally child's play. We say this because Heyman had already cut his teeth in the blistering fast-paced world of interactive plush toys. Being the man behind a talking Barney the dinosaur plush released a few years prior. An accolade we're fairly positive makes Heyman personally responsible for a couple of broken

2:05 windows as we can't imagine there isn't at least one parent out there who launched this thing out of a window for being annoying at some point in the '90s. In any event, with an idea in mind and the technical expertise to bring it to life, Heyman and Dubran went into the workshop and slapped together the toy that was going to make their careers Tickles the Chimp. All right, so Tickles the Chip didn't exactly set the toy world a flame, but the idea behind it was solid. As later recounted by Dubin in a 2023 interview, Stan Clutton at Playtime Products, a company that would later be acquired by Tao, who themselves would be bought by Mattel, was greatly enthusiastic about the toy's potential if they were able to attach the gimmick to a better known character like Elmo. Again, according to Dubin, it was actually Clutton who suggested ripping off Tickles the chimp's skin and placing his vibrating

2:53 robot skeleton inside of an Elmo doll. More accurately, according to Dubin, Clutton's first words upon seeing a prototype Tickles in action were, "This is really good. It would make such a great Elmo." The only issue was that at the time, Playtime Products didn't actually have the correct rights to create such a toy. Specifically at the time, Playtime Products had what are known as the plastic rights for the Sesame Street brand, which would allow them to make, as you've probably surmised here, plastic toys based on the show. The plush rides, well, they were owned by Hasbro. However, not all was lost because Playtime did just so happen to own the plush rides to another brand popular with roughly the same demographic, Looney Tunes. This left Dubin with a pretty big choice to make.

3:34 Which member of the Looney Tunes would the idea of his toy best translate to? His answer, Taz, the Tasmanian Devil? Sadly, we're unaware of any Tickle Taz dolls making it out of the prototype stage. Because while all of this was happening, Clutton was able to acquire the sole toy making rides for the Sesame Street brand. Reportedly, by promising the brands that they'd make gate kit butt plush, featuring one of their characters and advertising the living crap out of it on television. That character was, of course, Elmo. With the rights in hand, Clutton told the engineers at Playtime Working on Tickle Me Taz to toss their work and start working on an Elmo version instead. As an aside, because this is kind of funny, Looney Tunes were, as you'd imagine, all kinds of pissed to learn that they were like this close to having the hottest toy of 1996. And when the Elmo craze died down, had Dubron work on a Looney

4:20 Tunes knockoff of the idea. For some reason, the company opted not to go with the original idea of a ticklish Tasmanian devil. you know, the character known for his erratic movements and flipping out at a moment's notice and instead told the team to make a Tickle Me Bugs Bunny and Tweety Bird instead. Neither of those sold well. Back to Elmo. While Clutton was certainly convinced a vibrating Elmo plush would do gang busters, Sesame Street weren't all that enthused about the idea. In particular, the company didn't like the idea of an Elmo doll that could vibrate on its own because they were worried that parents and children would come to the natural conclusion that this meant Elmo was having a seizure. which to be honest when researching this is not where we thought their complaints were going to go when they were selling a vibrating doll to adolescence. Now to remedy this engineers altered the design

5:05 so that Elmo would only vibrate when he was giggling. So kids knew for sure that Elmo wasn't going into anaphylactic shock or something. For anyone curious, Tao, who by this point had acquired playtime, genuinely conducted research to see if anybody out there thought the doll was having a seizure when it vibrated without laughing. The exactly zero people thought this was the case, but the change was made anyway to secure Sesame Street's okay. Another perhaps more sensitive change made to the toy during this revisionary period was to no longer have Elmo get sick of being tickled. You see, initially, after being tickled one too many times, Elmo would beg for the tickle torture to end and repeatedly scream, "Stop, stop, stop tickling me."

5:44 Oh boy. As Mar Johnson Williams, one of the designers who worked on the toy, would later recount, there was something sinister about that. This all figured out, expectations for the toy were strong, but conservative with Tao ordering about 400,000 units to ship to stores in July of 1996. Then in the leadup to Christmas, which for toy manufacturers starts closer to October, if not earlier, they ordered another 600,000, an amount it's likely all Tao would have needed to order if not for one member of the marketing team, Ellie Bagley of Freeman PR, deciding to earmark a couple of hundred for Rosie O'Donnell. To explain, in the 1990s, talk shows were kind of a big deal because humans and a popular thing talk shows would do to secure better ratings is, well, just give some away. Now, while Oprah is probably the most well-known example of talk show host doing this with the Big O, famously giving away several hundred

6:33 cars on her show that one time, something we actually talked about in detail a few years ago, so check that out if you want to. But O'Donnell gave away her fair share of stuff, too. Like with Oprah, those giveaways were highly popular and quickly became an absolute marketing boon for any company who could wrangle their way into O'Donnell's good graces. with the best way to do this, at least according to O'Donnell, being to promise a donation of some kind to charity. In her words, you could go, "Well, listen, I'd love to talk about your new product.

7:01 If you were able to send 300 kids the new Elmo toy, we'd be able to do this for you." And that's how we did it. We bartered for charity. Of course, money also changed hands. The exact amount we can't say for sure, but suffice to say, Oddonnell wasn't plugging these things out of just the kindness of her heart. This said, according to Janice Yates, a former associate vice president of marketing and development at Tao, you couldn't just send any old thing into the show. O'Donnell actually had to like the product for her to be willing to make it part of her giveaway.

7:29 Fortunately for Tao, O'Donnell did indeed like Tickle Memo. In fact, Tao had sent her one for free as a gift after Elmo appeared on the show, a gift O'Donnell's son promptly flushed down the toilet, something she of course shared on her show because it's humanizing. But one person who wasn't laughing was the affforementioned Ellie Bagley because she knew that they'd just been handed an absolutely golden opportunity to promote the toy for basically nothing when she saw O'Donnell recount that story. To this end, Bagley contacted Taiko and requested every Elmo we have and as much red tissue paper as they could get their hands on. Bagley then saw to it that this veritable pile of Elmo was handd delivered to the studio with a note from the brand wishing her son well. Within an hour, Bagley received a call from Morrosio Donald show rep asking if the company could send along a couple more.

8:17 When Bagley inquired as to how many exactly they needed, the rep asked for enough to give every single member of the audience one as a gift. It was at this moment Baggley knew they had secured one of the most lucrative advertising spots on television for the manufacturing cost of like 200 Elmo. The exact amount isn't clear. Some sources say 200, but O'Donnell herself says 300, so it's hard to know for sure. What we do know is that O'Donnell did an admirable job as an impromptu spokesperson for Tickle Meow. In fact, some would say that she did too good a job because during the episode in which she gave them all away, she really played up how much fun the toy was, which makes sense given that Odona was a fan of Sesame Street and good friends with Elmo. The pair even collaborated on a Christmas song together, which yes, is as absolutely as bad as you can imagine. In any event, it's really hard to overstate just how important

9:04 Odona was to the success of this toy. with a lot of sources we consulted crediting her as being almost single-handedly responsible for the ensuing Christmas bonanza, which is sort of true, but not the whole story. For example, according to Bruce Maguire, the CEO of Freeman PR, another individual who deserves some credit for popularizing the toy, is Today Show host Brian Gumble, who according to a segment talking about the toy that aired before the O'Donnell show, plugged it, sat with the toy on his lap for the entire segment as it occasionally vibrated in excitement. To quote Maguire, he was not the type you'd expect to have Elmo on his lap. It seemed to humanize him.

9:39 Still, O'Donnell inarguably resulted in the bigger push to the point that the predicted sales forecast for October in the wake of the segment went from 100,000 to a million. If you recall, this was literally twice as many and then some that Tao had ordered for the entire rest of the year. Now, you're probably thinking, "Well, couldn't Tao just order some more?" Well, not really, due to a rather ironic twist of fate. You see, the very thing that made the plush so desirable, its ability to vibrate on command whilst giggling, required a motor that itself required a highly specialized process to piece together. In fact, the complexity of this motor almost saw the toy shelved during the prototype phase due to the proposed increase in cost, vibrated and giggled when squeezed, and another that just giggled before being asked which one they'd buy for their kids. With researchers making sure to note the

10:27 version that vibrated would cost $10 more. The overwhelming response was that they'd picked the more expensive vibrating version.

10:34 SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY. In any case, the complexity of this motor meant that Tao quite literally couldn't keep up with the demand as any attempt to make the process go faster would result in the machinery and tools used to make the motor just burning out. In an attempt to remedy this issue, Tao had to resort to ordering new tools and then ultimately the tools needed to repair those tools. Even then, there was no way Tao could get enough of these things to satisfy demand. So, they just decided to ship out what they could and tell Freeman PR to cancel any and all further advertising that they had planned. Something that gives this toy the rare distinction of being a product so successful that they had to stop advertising it. We know of at least one other thing that's actually covered in the bonus section today. So hopefully this sets the scene for the things mentioned in the intro because we

11:22 know you're here to hear about people getting the kicked out of them over Elmo. So let's get into that. All right. So pretty much right away every single toy store in the States ran out of Elmos by the end of November which saw parents desperate to get their hands on one fighting literally in some cases over an ever dwindling and eventually non-existent supply of Elmo dolls. For example, two women in Chicago were arrested after throwing down to get their hands on the last one. This is by no means an isolated incident, though most injuries were sadly suffered by overworked and no doubt sorely underpaid store workers.

11:55 The most noteworthy of these being Robert Waller, the Walmart employee in Friedrichton, Canada, who was knocked out cold by a crush of approximately 300 parents fighting over a morning delivery of about 48 Elmo. That said, in the time before widespread internet shopping, that was just a common Black Friday event, with pretty much every year countless news stories of people being trampled, sometimes to death, when stores would first open their doors on the morning of Black Friday. The '9s, everybody. But in any event, according to Wallup, the last thing he remembers before his butt was knocked all the way over was a parent screaming, "There's the Elmo." In the ensuing stampede, Waller suffered a broken rib, a pulled hamstring, and was knocked unconscious by, in his words, a white added ass shoe kicking him clean across the face. The last thing he saw before he ultimately woke up in hospital several hours later.

12:46 For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Waller's jeans had also been partially removed to the point that the crotch had been torn out of them. We can only we can only assume this was probably the result of one of the members of the crowd trying to see if he had an Elmo tucked away in there or something. A similar story occurred at a Toys R Us in the United States with a manager there recalling how an entire pallet of Elmo was torn apart by a crowd of parents before he could even wheel it to the correct shelf. According to a report from the New York Times, the experience of seeing a crowd of people tear apart the boxes of Elmo, which we should clarify, would giggle when jostled to advertise that feature, was reportedly so harrowing that the unnamed employee, very understandably, we feel, burst into tears, no doubt weeping for what humanity had begun. And speaking of Toys R Us, they eventually had to resort to

13:34 handing out Elmo's more prepared parents had pre-ordered prior to the rush in unmarked boxes. Apparently, so that those parents wouldn't get the crap kicked out of them when they came to pick them up. In fact, employees around this time were specifically instructed to not refer to the toy by name when doing this in the event someone hanging around heard that there was an Elmer available, and they responded to being told no in a way that would endanger staff. And no, we are not joking. available at South Park Mall starting Black Friday.

14:03 As alluded to at the start of this piece, multiple people called in bomb threats to Taico's head office during the rush and some parents went as far as to stalk or threaten employees, which is awful. So, we'll share a slightly less emphasize on slightly here terrifying story recounted by the former vice president of Taico's marketing department, Janice Yates. Quote, I was riding the train home from New York one night and Stan asked me to go to do a radio interview. I get on the phone and did the interview. I look up and everyone on the train is looking at me.

14:32 You work for that place? Can you get me an Elmo? I really felt like my life was in danger. End quote. Here's the thing, though. As it turns out, Tao did have a bunch of spare Elmo sitting around in their offices, and there were a handful of execs with the authority to dole them out to whoever they felt deserving. As many would find out though, this Elmo access was something of a fouian bargain with execs soon finding themselves having to tell charities that they didn't have any Elmo's left after agreeing to send some to celebrities who themselves promised trinkets in return.

15:00 For example, Tao agreed to send Harvey Weinstein, yes that Harvey Weinstein, an Elmo in return for some VHS tapes. We feel that Elmo would not approve. Also, speaking of such people, another individual who managed to get their hands on an Elmo was John Goty Jr., the son of John Goty. Yes, the mobster John Goty. In fact, Goty Junior got several of them after strolling into a Toys R Us 10 minutes before closing with a bunch of friends and filling 10 whole shopping carts with stuff, including an unopened box of Elmo's staff just so happened to find when he arrived. When asked for comment, a Toys R Us spokesperson strongly denied that Goty Jr. got any special treatment with a manager commending him for being in the right place at the right time to find that year's hottest and most sought after toy. At this point, we should probably note that John Gotti Jr. paid approximately $8,000 in total in cash

15:49 and handed every staff member a crisp $50 bill before leaving. When the story broke, friends of Goty Jr. were quick to criticize the press for daring to insinuate that he had any untoward intentions, claiming that all of the toys were for local charitable organizations. They claim Goty Junior's own lawyer eventually dismissed, telling the Associated Press he bought the toys for himself. And if we're honest, Goty got a good deal here because while the toy was listed for about $30, when it was on store shelves, on the secondary market, they were going for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. Something that ultimately resulted in one man taking a stand at putting Elo on trial for his crimes. That man was DJ Hal 9000 Abrams who was so incensed by the furer surrounding the toy and the fact that people sculpting them for thousands of dollars was antithetical to the spirit of Christmas that he got his

16:35 hands on one and then on air threatened to feed it into a wood chipper. Eventually, after a massive calling campaign to save Elmo, he relented and gave the doll to a guy dressed as Santa who subsequently gave it to a child in a nearby hospital. Actually, we should clarify that two men took a stand. Because while DJ Hal ultimately spared Elmo, another DJ for 101 WF in Detroit was not so kind and ultimately opted to strap Elmo to a log and slowly push him into a wood chipper. Again, live on air. In this case, there was no clemency for Elmo, and the toy and the log, we guess, were shredded to pieces. Pieces that were then scooped up, placed in makeshift coffins, and handed out to onlookers so that everyone could have an Elmo. Footage of this exists if you want to give it a Google. Now, we don't know about you guys, but there's something not quite right about this whole Christmas ordeal and people getting so worked up that

17:24 they strapped a benevolent, lovable thing who only ever preached the benefits of love and tolerance to the masses to a piece of wood and cheered as it was killed. Humans. And now for a bonus fact. Another ad campaign that was ultimately too successful was the so-called lingerette commercial created to advertise Levi's jeans. The commercials featured British singer and model Nick Coleman walking into an Americanstyle laundromat and removing his jeans to wash them. The ad resulted in such a massive spike for that particular style of jeans. The ad was made to sell slimmer fitting jeans after an internal survey found out that young people thought Levis's was an old person brand that it had to be taken off the air. The ad was so successful that jean sales of every style and brand increased nationwide in the UK, as did the sales of the type of underwear Carmon was wearing. Thank you for watching.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The 1990s were Weird"?

Ron Dubren, Greg Heyman, Stan Clutton, Ellie Bagley, Rosie O'Donnell (Guest), Brian Gumbel, Janice Yates, DJ Hal 9000 Abrams.

What is "The 1990s were Weird" about?

The main topic explores the cultural phenomenon of the Tickle Me Elmo toy in the 1990s, detailing its creation by Ron Dubren and the unexpected chaos that ensued during its release, including bomb threats, mob-related incidents, and even an Elmo kidnapping. The narrative highlights how a simple concept for a ticklish toy transformed into a nationwide obsession that sparked a series of bizarre…

What is mentioned in this Today I Found Out episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Ron Dubren, Tao, Stan Clutton, Freeman PR, Greg Heyman, John Gotti Jr.. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The 1990s were Weird"?

The episode runs 18 min; the transcript is about 3,789 words in 27 timestamped sections.

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