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Just when you’d think that the human kind has its hands full with wars, natural disasters, malicious animals, and its own general stupidity, a new foe has recently uncovered its ultimate plan to destroy the humans.

This time, the villain is taking a shape not of Darth Vader, Nurse Ratched, or even Master Vile from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but that of a cute, fuzzy, sweet little Elmo from Sesame Street.

Last week, the furry Elmo Knows Your Name doll elicited the first threat toward humanity, directed at its two-year-old owner, James.

The doll, which functioned just fine until its batteries ran out, suddenly started to say “Kill James” in a creepy falsetto voice after the batteries were replaced.

Although nobody in the terrorized household has done anything to act out the threat, the resemblance of her child’s favorite toy to Chucky was startling to James’s mother, who right away proceeded to contact the local news. While Sesame Street gone bad may not necessarily lead to the complete doom and destruction of the human race, the toy industry definitely has the potential to do so.

Aside from the obvious advantages over humans, like the ability of some toys to bend backwards, look pretty all times, and never have to eat, sleep, or work, the toys have a few other tricks in store.

Take Cindy Smart, a doll that shook the market (and people concerned about artificial intelligence slowly taking over the world) a few years ago.

A blond, blue-eyed toy made of plastic, whatever they use to make toy hair, and 16-bit microprocessor, Cindy Smart was dubbed the Stepford child for its creepily stereotypical looks, ability to read, recognize and fulfill about 70 different commands, and process visual data.

If having an obedient, intelligent, beautiful blonde on their side doesn’t automatically give the toys an undeniable advantage over humans, having Yuki-taro in its arsenal certainly does.

Although not necessarily a toy, Yuki-taro is a robot that, if it had a free will, a soul, and a choice of lifestyle, would most certainly choose to rebel against the humans for the type of work it is forced to do.

This particular technological creation can do something that no human ever can. Yuki-taro eats snow and poops out perfectly rectangular bricks of ice. Though it may not be entirely clear how this representative of the dark side will function in the eventual showdown between us and them, it gets special points for going where no man has ever gone (and hopefully never will go). The bottom line is, if there ever was such a battle, the toys would own us, humans, quite badly. After all, we have, throughout history, let toys into our homes, allowed them to observe our behaviors, trusted them with our children, and let them sleep in our beds.

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