Threaten Me Elmo?

When a friend on Muppet Central passed on this news video about a defective Elmo doll making death threats, I couldn't help thinking: "This is what happens when Sesame Workshop depends too much on tie-in products to raise money for their programs." No, I'm not going to turn this post into a rant about Elmo ruining Sesame Street; he's been on the show in some form since 1979, and was actually a decent supporting character at first. Still, I miss the days when the Workshop didn't need  to cash royalty checks from toy companies...or mention corporate sponsors at the beginning and end of every Sesame Street episode.

[Update: After Googling for more information about the story, I found another user's blog post explaining the malfunction. What James' mother mistook for "kill" is actually the name "Keir"; the doll was saying two names accidentally!]