Tickle Me Elmo Versus Jet Engine [Video]

If you ever found yourself wondering what would happen if Tickle Me Elmo accidentally happened to run afoul of a jet engine, wonder no more. Subjected to that kind of heat, poor little Elmo literally disintegrates before your eyes.

Tickle Me Elmo was the hottest Christmas toy in 1996, to the point where stores literally couldn’t keep it in stock. Although the talking doll had an MSRP of under $30, prices on the secondary market skyrocketed when supply fell far short of demand. People reported, at the time, that some desperate parents and collectors paid as much as $1,500 to secure their own Tickle Me Elmo.

That popularity, combined with the doll’s incessant way of begging for hugs, made Tickle Me Elmo a target for ridicule over the years. And when Elmo’s Sesame Street puppeteer was accused of sexual abuse, it didn’t exactly help Elmo’s reputation.

YouTube is full of Tickle Me Elmo getting short shrift. For instance, this video of a YouTube user setting Elmo on fire is tremendously popular.

Since it was posted in 2007, that one video has racked up over three million views, almost 16,000 likes, and just 1,300 dislikes.

Two years ago, YouTube user PowerModz took Elmo abuse to the next level. In a 2014 video, which you can view at the top of this story, a Tickle Me Elmo doll is strapped to a post, and PowerModz brings in a truck with a jet engine strapped to the bed.

“Elmo gets it this time,” reads the video description. “I hate Elmo, and he has it coming to him.”

In the video, Elmo is repeatedly referred to as Elmer, in what turns out to be a final insult before he is totally obliterated. As it turns out, Tyco didn’t really design Tickle Me Elmo to stand up to the raw power of a jet engine. Who knew?

When the jet engine is first turned on, Elmo withstands the initial blast of air admirably. The furry red doll looks like he’s in a wind tunnel, but he’s strapped in tight, and he isn’t going anywhere. Then you see an initial flash, as a piece of Elmo’s fur breaks off and ignites. And before long, the poor little guy literally disintegrates.

The Internet is a weird place, where it’s hard to tell when something is going to surface and suddenly gain a powerful head of steam. While the PowerModz video of Elmo being destroyed by a jet engine was first uploaded roughly two years ago, it languished in relative obscurity until just recently, when it suddenly went viral. The current view count has hit over 250,000 at this time, but it’s climbing rapidly.

Last month, PowerModz uploaded a newer video where another version of Elmo is destroyed in a totally different way. In that video, a snowmobile with Santa Claus on the back races a quad with Elmo strapped to the front, because of course it does.

That video has less than 20,000 views, despite sending Elmo on a wild ride, so it probably doesn’t have a lot to do with the sudden surge in popularity of the jet engine video. While it might have something to do with the collective power of Imgur and Reddit, we may never know exactly what causes gems like these to surface after so long.

Hopefully the sight of Elmo literally having his face melted off by a jet engine won’t ruin too many childhoods, or cause too many sleepless nights.

[Image via YouTube]