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It's in stock at Amazon for $39.92 and nothing about it is hard to find, so ignore any 1996 flashbacks about queueing outside a toy shop. The thing worth knowing before you buy: this is an 18-inch animatronic, not a squishy plush. It's firm where people expect soft, and that single mismatch accounts for almost every bad review it has.
Where To Buy It
Widely available and not remotely scarce, which is worth saying plainly given the name it carries. It went on wider sale in mid-July and has stayed in stock since.
| Where | Status | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AmazonThe 18-inch Giggle Max, by Just Play. Rated 4.0 across 133 ratings. | In Stock | $39.92list | Check Stock Status |
| WalmartSame toy. Rates slightly better there at 4.3 across 61 ratings. | In Stock | See livecheck both | Check Stock Status |
| World's Smallest ElmoPocket-sized giggling Elmo with a keychain clip. Rated 4.4. | In Stock | $14.73stocking filler | Check Stock Status |
| T.M.X. Elmo (2006)The tenth anniversary version. Collector pricing now. | 4 Left | $121.50rated 3.9 | Check Stock Status |
Buried near the bottom of Just Play's own feature list is this: Giggle Max ships in Try-Me mode. There's a wire attached to the underside connected to a demo button, and until an adult tugs it free and throws it away, you are not getting the full toy. It's the shop-display mode.
Do that before it's wrapped, not on Christmas morning with a toddler watching. And while you're in there, put the batteries through their paces, because one buyer reported theirs arrived dead and that is a much better problem to find in August than in December.
Three tickle spots rather than one: the belly, the left foot and the right foot, each with its own giggle. When he goes, his arms move up and down, his mouth opens and closes and the whole body shakes. Between fits he says things like "Elmo is SO giggly!" and "Here we go again!" At eighteen inches he's noticeably bigger than the Elmo most people remember.
Thirty Years Since The Riot
Some context, because it's the reason this toy exists in this form and the reason you'll be hearing about it until Christmas.
The original Tickle Me Elmo landed in 1996 at $28.99. Demand did something nobody had planned for: it sold out everywhere, resale listings reached over $1,000, there were brawls in shops across the country, and a Walmart employee in Canada was trampled. Tyco's annual sales went from $70 million to $350 million off the back of it. It is still the benchmark against which every toy shortage since gets measured.
Worth doing the arithmetic on that price, though. $28.99 in 1996 is comfortably north of fifty dollars in today's money, which makes the $39.92 Giggle Max cheaper in real terms than the toy people fought over, and six inches bigger. Whatever else is true, you're not being gouged.
What Buyers Are Saying
This is where it gets interesting, because the scores are oddly split and the reason is not what you'd guess.
Amazon has it at 4.0 out of 5 across 133 ratings. Walmart has it slightly higher at 4.3 across 61. But look at the shape rather than the average: on Amazon, 65% give it five stars and 15% give it one, with barely anything in between. Walmart's split is the same story, 79% five-star against 13% one-star.
How the Amazon ratings break down. Two thirds love it, a sixth can't stand it, and hardly anyone lands in the middle.
The giggling is genuinely infectious, and three separate tickle spots keep a toddler occupied far longer than one does.
The theme across the five-star reviewsIt's a proper size. Eighteen inches reads as a real present under a tree rather than a stocking filler.
The theme across the five-star reviews"Body is hard and arms are soft. Very bulky and not toddler friendly design."
Walmart reviewer"Not as plush as I expected. His bottom is hard and you can feel the wire in his arm."
Walmart reviewer"The repetitive laughing" frightened a two-year-old badly enough to put them off Sesame Street.
Walmart reviewerOur Read On The Reviews
Read the one-stars and they say the same thing in different words: it isn't soft enough. Hard bottom, firm body, a mechanism you can feel through the arm, bulky to hold. Almost nobody complains that it doesn't work or that the giggling is disappointing.
That's a mismatch between the name and the object. "Tickle Me Elmo" makes people picture 1996, which was a small squeezy plush that vibrated. Giggle Max is eighteen inches with motors driving the arms, mouth and body, and hardware that size has to live somewhere. It's an animatronic wearing plush, and it feels like one.
So the split isn't good toy versus bad toy, it's what were you picturing. If you want a toy that performs and makes a room laugh, the two thirds giving it five stars are your people. If you want something a toddler curls up with at night, buy a normal Elmo plush for half the money and be much happier.
The other thing the one-stars flag, and it's worth taking seriously with a very young child: it's loud, and it goes on. One reviewer's two-year-old was frightened off Sesame Street entirely. If your toddler is cautious about noisy toys, this is not the one to gamble on.
Who It's For
- You want the performance. The giggling and shaking is the whole product and it delivers.
- The kid is two or three and enjoys noisy, silly, reactive toys.
- You want a gift that looks substantial. Eighteen inches lands well under a tree.
- The nostalgia is for you as much as them. That's a perfectly good reason.
- You want a soft cuddly Elmo. This is firm, and that's the top complaint by a mile.
- Your toddler is wary of loud toys. The laughing is sustained and it has scared some.
- It's for sleeping with. A plain Elmo plush costs half as much and does that job better.
- You just want the joke. The World's Smallest version giggles too, for $14.73.
Tickle Me Elmo Giggle Max FAQ
The Bottom Line: Thirty years on, the toy that caused actual riots is sitting in stock at $39.92 with nobody fighting over it, and in real terms it costs less than the 1996 original did. It's a good toy if you know what you're buying: a big, loud, performing animatronic that will make a room full of people laugh. It is not the soft squeezy Elmo the name conjures up, and the buyers giving it one star are almost all people who expected that. Pull the Try-Me wire out before you wrap it, and if the child in question wants something to fall asleep holding, buy a plain Elmo instead.
