--- title: Elmo: Video of Hairless Sesame Street Character Goes Viral description: A viral video of Tickle Me Elmo that shows the Sesame Street character getting skinned is spreading fear across Twitter canonical: https://time.com/4738127/tickle-me-elmo-viral-video/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-13T14:03:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:42:45.767Z og:title: The Internet Is Terrified of Tickle Me Elmo Without Fur og:description: People are freaked out about this video of the toy laughing without its hair og:url: https://time.com/4738127/tickle-me-elmo-viral-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Internet Is Terrified of Tickle Me Elmo Without Fur twitter:description: People are freaked out about this video of the toy laughing without its hair twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Tickle Me Elmo Laughing Without His Fur Is Terrifying Everyone on the Internet by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Apr 13, 2017 2:03 PM UTC by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Apr 13, 2017 2:03 PM UTC This is Elmo like we’ve never seen him before — and it’s terrifying. A furless [Tickle Me Elmo](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1947621%5F1947626,00.html) is terrorizing the internet after the Canada Science and Technology [Museum](http://time.com/4717158/french-artist-eggs-abraham-poincheval/) in Ontario shared a now-viral video of the iconic Elmo doll skinned alive — and it was still laughing its cute little head off on Twitter. “Ever wondered what #TickleMeElmo looks like without fur?” was the nightmarish question posed to followers. The internet’s resounding answer was no, they had not. “It’s so disturbing,” the woman in the video concluded. The video already has more than 12,000 likes and 9,000 retweets — and other Twitter users were quick to share their shock at the hairless version of the beloved red [_Sesame Street_](http://time.com/4706442/sesame-street-muppets-autism-julia/) character. Tyco Toys released Tickle Me Elmo in 1996, when it became the [must-have toy of the year](http://people.com/archive/just-tickled-vol-47-no-1/). See some of the reactions to the real end-of-days sign below. > [](https://twitter.com/Ingenium21/status/852305649132339200) > [](https://twitter.com/Henderson1983/status/852347772745515008) > [](https://twitter.com/mmorningstar9/status/852316809084755968) > [](https://twitter.com/Jewles/status/852322251533938688) > [](https://twitter.com/NoBullIntention/status/852250803804962816) > [](https://twitter.com/werejustdreamin/status/852315720658681856) The museum eventually responded to the broken dreams. > [](https://twitter.com/SciTechMuseum/status/852273799001251842) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4738127/tickle-me-elmo-viral-video/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4738127/tickle-me-elmo-viral-video/"},"headline":"Tickle Me Elmo Laughing Without His Fur Is Terrifying Everyone on the Internet","datePublished":"2017-04-13T14:03:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:42:45.767Z","description":"A viral video of Tickle Me Elmo that shows the Sesame Street character getting skinned is spreading fear across Twitter","url":"https://time.com/4738127/tickle-me-elmo-viral-video/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashley Hoffman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4738127/tickle-me-elmo-viral-video/","name":"Tickle Me Elmo Laughing Without His Fur Is Terrifying Everyone on the Internet"}}]}] ```