Elmo Knows Your Name Malfunction with name "James".

[Fozzie Bear]

All I know is that was meant for me, Swear to god the whole universe is out to get me

What we need to do is dress you up in woman's clothing and put you in a closet with dolls like Gertie did with E.T., and that'll keep you safe!

 

[ISNorden]

Once again... these &^%^ toys at one point contained deadly lead paint, and these idiot mothers are worried that a mumbled, jumbled phrase ambiguously sounds like something offensive or terrifying. Seriosuly. The fact that last one that told the kid to "rip Elmo's Fur off" was one of the toys recalled for Lead paint really struck a nerve with me.

And, in all honesty... he sounds more like he's saying "Tell James" or "Kell James" as like a small malfunction of saying Kelly and James at the same time. Doesn't even remotely sound like kill at all to me.

I think one too many parents accidentally read Johnan Valazquez's "Tickle me Helmo" comics.

"Rip Elmo's fur off?" Sheesh, that one sounds as if a disgruntled Old School Sesame fan were trying to sabotage the dolls at the factory. As for the "kill James" malfunction, the first syllable definitely started with a K and ended with an L. The vowel, though, is so in-between that it could be part of an accidental "Kelly"; I seriously doubt that anyone meant those dolls to make death threats to their owners.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Well...lol...it doesn't sound great, but sounds are a funny thing. Our ears are imperfect organs and don't always interpret things correctly. I can kinda understand why the mother is upset, but the solution is to explain to the kid that is toy is broken and it needs to be replaced. Yes, he may cry for a few seconds, but he will move on. I know this from my own childhood experiences, lol.

Yeah the company might as well replace it, it probably just got broken.

It's not that big a deal. Though, I personally never really wanted to buy my kid an Elmo doll. Or at least, not JUST an Elmo doll. I'd rather he/she had a variety.

Oh! You know what this reminds me of? The other day at a Toys R Us I saw these bouncing ball things that were made to look like Bert and Ernie's heads. When you pushed them they talked. I pushed the Ernie one, but Bert's voice came out! Even more shocking, when I pushed the Bert next to him, Ernie's voice came out!

 

[ISNorden]

I Googled this story to see what other people had to say about it; one parent said that there was indeed a technical reason for the alleged "kill James" message. First, all the names that Elmo could say are stored on an internal ROM unit; the doll goes for the closest match it "hears". Second, several of the names do sound garbled (even obscene) according to this person; I suspect that Fisher-Price needs to fix the speech-recognition program they used. Third, one of the garbled names happens to be "Keir"--which this parent tested, and got the "kill James" mistake.

 

[Drtooth]

Well...lol...it doesn't sound great, but sounds are a funny thing. Our ears are imperfect organs and don't always interpret things correctly. I can kinda understand why the mother is upset, but the solution is to explain to the kid that is toy is broken and it needs to be replaced. Yes, he may cry for a few seconds, but he will move on. I know this from my own childhood experiences, lol.

Not only are the ears imperfect, it's coming out of an ultracompressed sound file of a cheap tin speaker. So if anything even comes out coherent, you've got a wondertoy there. I can't forget my cousin's talking Spiderman Pinball machine that sounded like it said "How much is Penguin" insetad of "Spidey Sense Tingling"

at the very least, at least the talking toy technology past beyond this