Big Hugs Elmo

$60, Smart Toy

Teaches: a watch me toy

CTR Rating: 82%

CTR Review

Large, red, a bit chatty and certainly huggable, this year's animatronic Elmo is all about snuggling. Now produced under the Hasbro Playskool brand, Elmo has innovative foot-long arms (with a 22-inch arm span). Each arm consists of a fabric covered flexible plastic band with three hinges, so they can hug, or be bent in just about any direction. An internal motion detector knows if Elmo is upright or laying down, and a sleep mode can be manually toggled from the back (the switch is hidden behind the Velcro door). When in Sleep mode, Elmo will run through one routine, start yawning, and go to sleep for good, until the switch is moved back to the "play" position. So if an active child rolls on him, he won't wake up. This feature makes Elmo a viable nap or bedtime toy. Besides the hugging, Elmo has a sing-a-long mode, and four pretend scenarios where Elmo says such things as "let's pretend to be a horse." It also helps that Elmo is still huggable and has appeal, even when he is turned off or has low batteries. Whether he's worth $60 is another question, however. That's a lot to pay for features that a child's imagination will provides for free. And you don't need the four AA batteries.