Whoever created the concept for the Sesame Street character Elmo was a genius. Elmo appeals to kids and adults (usually in a parody or humor based environment). Since Elmo was first introduced in 1985 he’s graced the covers of books, starred in movies, interviewed Robert DeNiro, and even been a talking – laugh happy toy.

Elmo

A quick search of Amazon.com will show you that there are over 20,000 Elmo related products in their inventory. I probably own 50 of them. My daughter loves Elmo. He’s been responsible for her wanting to learn to read, knowing her shapes and colors, and even learning to potty. Probably too much information in that last example. But, seriously, Elmo has become an integral part of our lives. It’s scary on some level.

There’s such passion for the Elmo brand (I think he’s bigger than a character) that people have taken to creating mashups of Elmo. Here’s a great example.

Elmo has helped extend Sesame Street and Walt Disney into markets like Indonesia, Brazil, and India. As their presence has grown so has the revenue. Elmo has single handedly generated millions of dollars in revenue for Walt Disney. But, hear is the genius of Elmo. Rarely does Walt Disney or Sesame Street actually produce any of the items that are created and sold. All Disney does is license out Elmo’s rights. Companies like Hasbro, Fisher Price, and P&G are actually taking on the responsibility, overhead, and risk. Brilliant! Or Genius, if you prefer. You could make the argument that Elmo doesn’t even really belong to Walt Disney anymore, he belong to all of us.

Don’t believe me? After this vide launched, Wired ran an article questioning if robots (Elmo TMX would qualify) should have rights.

This is the quote that sticks out to me:

I’ve seen videos of the incineration of T.M.X. Elmo (short for Tickle Me Extreme); they made me feel vaguely uncomfortable. Part of me wanted to laugh—Elmo giggled absurdly through the whole ordeal—but I also felt sick about what was going on. Why? I hardly shed a tear when the printer in Office Space got smashed to bits. Slamming my refrigerator door never leaves me feeling guilty. Yet give something a couple of eyes and the hint of lifelike abilities and suddenly some ancient region of my brain starts firing off empathy signals. And I don’t even like Elmo. How are kids who grow up with robots as companions going to handle this?

Elmo has gone from a leftover prop that showed no promise to multi-million dollar industry that has us questioning if the Elmo robot toys deserve human-like rights. That’s Genius.