Tickle Me Not: The Story of Evil Elmo—An Original Urban Legend

A Chapter by Steven Cash

This is part one of my October Horror Mini-Series. October 13

Sesame Workshop is a place that was meant to be the birthplace of shows and brands that would revolutionize the lives of children worldwide. To educate them and help them learn and love life.

But that's not the Sesame Workshop, or particularly, the Sesame Street we will tell the story of tonight.

Tonight we tell the tale of a tortured mind. That mind is Jim Henson. Jim was the creator of just about every character you see on Sesame Street and the Muppets. He also was the voice behind Ernie, and Kermit and a few others.

But the character 'Elmo' was not created in a board room or in a 'brainstorm' session. It was created by a nightmare Jim Henson had on the night of August 12, 1971, and three weeks consecutively after that.

It was a very simple dream. There was a little white fur monster who would come up to Jim and say, "Want to play with me?"

Jim would always answer yes, and then this monster would take him down one of the streets of New York, and slaughter people at random. Jim would always be appalled and horrified by the sight, but he would never be able to stop it. By the end of the slaughter, the little monster's fur was red with blood.

Jim would always wake up in cold sweats. Well, soon these dreams subsided.

But then one day in a board meeting, a new character was brought to the table. Jim was horrified to see this character, a little red monster, there on the drawing board.

Upon seeing this, Jim was terrified and muttered the words 'Hell no', to which, the others thought was a name. but they misheard it as 'Elmo'.

Either way, that is not the crux of the story. As we know, Jim Henson died in the 90s of cancer, but the legend of the original Elmo that haunted Jim's mind continued. In the Sesame Workshop, a prototype of the Tickle Me Elmo doll was brought to the executive room where everyone was able to touch the doll.

As part of the prototype make, the doll was supposed to laugh and do some basic motions.

But this doll, when pressed, said one phrase. "Want to play with me?"

But not in the iconic voice of Elmo. It was Jim Henson's voice.

Everyone was a little bit shocked and terrified, and tried to raise the voice again. Instead, the doll shorted and never worked again.

Nobody from that room could explain what happened that day. Or what the phrase meant.

Only Jim knew.

Only he knew the real Elmo.

It is said that if you take any Tickle Me Elmo doll, and place a drop of blood in the mouth, you can awaken the doll to say the original 'Want to play with me?"

Only one person, Jeff Stevens, was brave enough to try the feat. And he recorded the whole ordeal.

He did the ritual, with a drop of blood, and waited. He is shown on the video for 3 minutes staring at the doll. Then, suddenly, he drops the doll and runs off screen screaming.

What perplexes people who have seen the video is, what he saw that made him horrified.

Also, why is he heard screaming off screen.

And who murdered Jeff, leaving behind a bloody knife in his apartment.

And most of all, who stopped the video and posted it to Youtube.

Because Jeff lived alone, and his body wasn't found until weeks later.

The video has been taken down, and the Sesame Workshop and Henson family have declined comment.

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© 2012 Steven Cash

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Featured Review

anxia

Gosh this freaked the hell out of me, steve!!!!!!!!!!! I love elmo (not sure if anymoreO.o)
My sister and I used to play with it as kids like all the time.
We used to keep elmo as a baby and we used to feed it cerelac and milk.
When i was reading about your creative ritual plot i was appalled and was like, 'thank god it was milk we used not ..BLOOD!'
Very well written!