Greg Hyman, 1947 – 2026

Inventor Greg Hyman, who unleashed the creepy, annoying Tickle Me Elmo doll upon an unsuspecting populace, died on May 1. He was 78. A science buff and inventor from his early years, Hyman dropped out of Cornell to pursue his work, which included a hovering bumper car, an anti-siphoning device for cars, and dolls that drank milk and had audible heartbeats (racheting up the creepiness early). Elmo started out as Tickles the Chimp, a laughing monkey toy (I didn’t want to sleep ever again, anyway). Tickles was Frankensteined by Hyman and Ron Dubren into the popular Sesame Street Muppet, debuting in 1996 to great and inexplicable success. Hyman’s other creations include a talking Barney the Dinosaur, Major Morgan the Electronic Organ (!), an electronic musical phone, and the Big Blaster Electronic Bike Horn. (I had to spell-check all this carefully, as autocorrect kept insisting on “Tickle Me Emo").