Greg Hyman, an electronics wizard and toy inventor who was a creator of Tickle Me Elmo, the giggling red plush Muppet when it appeared in 1996 and became a runaway success, died on May 1 at his home in Boca Raton, FL. He was 78.

Elmo was a bundle of red fluff and googly Muppet eyes. He giggled and said “That tickles.” What followed was retail mayhem. The first 400,000 sold out by Black Friday. As the company scrambled to make more, deploying Boeing 747s to deliver them, there were reports of frantic parents ambushing store employees and each other. A black market quickly emerged, with reports of Elmos, which had a retail price of $29.99 being scalped for as much as $7,000 each.