Elmo’s Fire : Toy a Hot Commodity at Carnival, but a Now Poorer Reporter Settles for a Devil
Elmo, that fuzzy red sensation of the 1996 holiday season, has an evil twin. He doesn’t laugh when tickled, but he knows his way into your wallet.
Elmo was the star game booth prize at this past week’s Conejo Valley Days carnival. He was joined by a colony of stuffed creatures, like one awfully familiar purple dinosaur and some authentic friends from Looney Tunes. I set out with a $40 budget (the real Elmo’s retail price) to see if I could snag an addition to my girlfriend Vicki’s stuffed animal collection.
I missed free throws at about $2 a pop. I lost $10 trying to bounce whiffle balls into laundry baskets. I spent $5 to swing a sledgehammer. And though I didn’t score an Elmo, I admit to feeling a feverish rush when two of my softball tosses landed safely in a tilted wooden basket, letting me take home either Tweety Bird or the Tasmanian Devil.
My pricey tour began at the basketball booth. There, I watched John Robinson of Thousand Oaks rattle six shots in and out of the hoop, setting him back $10. Robinson’s son, Chris, was wearing a Nick Van Exel tank top but made like Shaquille O’Neal, missing his only toss.
“It’s not a round rim, it’s oval,” John Robinson complained. “It would be a shock if a carnival didn’t rip you off.”
But he didn’t seem too mad. He planned to spend between $50 and $100 Sunday on games and refreshments for himself, his wife and his son.
Before I plunged ahead, I asked Joe Blash, the deeply suntanned Dana Point man who brought the carnival to Thousand Oaks, if the games were rigged.
Blash assured me that there would be plenty of winners. One in 12 contestants sink their basketball shots, he said.
“People aren’t stupid,” he said, adding that $40,000 worth of prizes would be handed out at the carnival. “If nobody won, there’d be too many sore losers.”
As for those stuffed creatures of questionable lineage, he said, “Those aren’t Tickle Me Elmos. . . . They’re Elmos.” And the Barney-like prizes were dubbed “Kid Dinos.” Not quite convinced, but still curious, I proceeded.
My wallet thinned out fast.
At the Cover-Your-Spot booth, prizes went to those who could conceal a large green dot by dropping five separate metal disks on it. I dropped $5.
I made the mistake of giving a worker a $20 bill at the whiffle-ball-into-laundry-basket stop. After bombing on my three tosses, he made an offer: For another $5, I’d get three more tosses, plus Vicki would get three “free” tosses. We went 0 for 9.
The booths run by nonprofit groups were a bit kinder.
I lost $2 at the Living Word Christian Fellowship’s stop, trying to fling tiny plastic balls into a set of rings floating in a pool. After getting shut out, a volunteer handed me a necklace with black and blue beads, and a map to the Newbury Park church.
“Our goal isn’t to make money,” 14-year-old volunteer Mike Ortiz said. “It’s to spread the word.”
At the Thousand Oaks High School Punk Rack, I spent $2, knocked down a pin and won a little plastic beetle that clicks when you press it.
I fared worse at the Newbury Park Optimist Club’s game booth. There, I spent $3 in an unsuccessful attempt to pull beer bottles off the ground with a stick and a string.
But with much coaching from concession manager Tommy Zito, I used backspin to place two softballs in wooden baskets. Elmo wasn’t featured at that booth, so I chose Taz, at Vicki’s request.
Zito said Taz costs about $8 retail, and the carnival gets them wholesale for about $3.25 each.
On my way out, I bumped into the happy Horan family of Newbury Park. Mike Horan had swished two free throws and his wife, Lisa, and daughter, Lauren, were clutching their Elmos like they were the real thing.
Meanwhile, Chantal Blash, the carnival owner’s wife, said she came up with a solution to one family’s dilemma.
A heartbroken 2-year-old boy wailed after his father failed to win an Elmo, despite spending $50 at the basketball booth. The mother complained.
Blash went into action.
“I sold her an Elmo for 10 bucks.”