Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

Well here’s something you don’t see every day: A man dressed in a giant Elmo costume yelling obscenities and anti-Semitic rants at passersby in Central Park.

The video above is from June 16th, but the story got a lot of coverage yesterday because police were called to the park on Sunday to deal with the angry Elmo.

Gothamist points out Elmo has a history of harassing people in Central Park — they dug up a couple of other videos, including the one below, which Gawker succinctly describes like this:

“Elmo’s rant about how he works for John Gotti sends kids and parents scattering, before he is confronted by a magician in a heart-patterned overcoat.”

Note: The video below has quite a few f-bombs — you might want to lower your volume if  you play it at work.

Hard to say for sure if it’s the same guy (because, you know, he’s hidden in a giant Elmo costume), but the voices certainly sound similar.

The Daily News has a photo of Sunday’s Elmo unmasked, as he’s carted into an ambulance by NYPD and EMS.

Lest you think the Sesame Street people support this type of behavior, NYT City Room got this rather unemotional response from a spokesman for the Sesame Street Workshop:

Muppets are known the world over, and we do not condone unauthorized representations of our characters.

Thanks to Lauren for the tip.

Filed under: Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, News, NYC, Photos, Upper West Side, Upper West Side Blog, Upper West Side Oddities, UWS, Video 1 Comment »
Tags: angry Elmo, anti-semite, anti-semitic, Elmo, New York City, NYC, rant, Upper West Side, UWS, Video, wtf