Elmo Live Toy Review

Elmo Live is a hot toy this holiday season and despite the attempted price gouging you can find on eBay, the toy is widely available. I have had the Elmo Live toy for about a month now and I have mixed feelings about it. While this toy is likely to be appreciated by children, parents may have to learn to just tolerate it.

I come from a place of negative bias toward Elmo. I've disliked Elmo for years. My feelings have softened toward the character since my daughter started to watch Sesame Street. She happens to love Elmo and besides hijacking a significant portion of the Sesame Street airtime he really hasn't done anything wrong. With that said, Elmo Live was a gift to my daughter from her father. It wasn't my idea to buy it.

The best thing about Elmo Live is that all of the children in the house that have come in contact with this toy love it. My daughter is almost 18-months-old, my son is four-months-old and the other child I observed with the doll is almost three-years-old. According to Amazon.com, the manufacturer's recommended age is 18 months and up. Based on my observations, Elmo Live is more appropriate for the the oldest child's age group. Each of the children enjoyed the toy in a different way.

When Elmo arrived in our house, my daughter looked at it with a combination of fear and curiosity. She initially kept a safe distance as we were testing it out. Now she doesn't seem to be afraid of it but she is not able to work the toy on her own. You have to know where to press on Elmo to get it to work. There are triggers on the nose, stomach, back, and foot. I think my daughter only knows about the nose. She tries to squeeze it sometimes but mostly she'll just ask an adult to work it for her. She is most interested in grabbing the eyes on top of Elmo's head and sticking her hand in his mouth as he talks. My son expresses his like of the toy by kicking and laughing at it when it is played by his feet. I was surprised that he was so enthralled with it but really it's his sister's toy; I wouldn't buy it for an infant. My nearly three-year-old cousin had the most interactive play with Elmo even though she didn't know where the triggers were. She understood more of what he said and responded to his goodbye.

You probably already know that Elmo Live does a lot. He sings, dances, tells stories and jokes, and kisses among other things. I haven't counted all the actions that Elmo does and I'm not sure I've even heard them all because after playing it extensively today, there was song and a joke I hadn't heard before. I know that he tells two stories and neither of them are interesting. As the name suggests Elmo Live is more of a performer than a toy. It is rigid and robotic and doesn't feel like it should be handled much at all.

I don't like Elmo in general; the character is pretty annoying to me and this toy doesn't make it any less so. Of the things I dislike about this toy, the worst is that it is loud. The manufacturer could have been considerate to the adults that have to deal with this toy by including some type of volume control. It may have been intentionally made loud to cover up the mechanical noises it makes when it moves. The grinding sounds Elmo Live makes is even more irritating the high-pitched squeal of Elmo's voice.

Overall, I don't think Elmo Live is worth its cost (about $60). My children like it but they don't pay it much attention unless it is turned on. Because it's super loud and annoying, Elmo Live doesn't get much play in our house. For the die-hard Elmo fan it may be a good buy, but for me $60 could be better spent on a toy with more interactivity or educational value.