Once again, Jon Stewart had a “tremendous show planned for you — well-designed, articulate,” but the tidal wave of current events would not let that slide.
It was “a truly illuminating dive into the overlooked role of the commodities markets in trade deficit accounting,” the host began on tonight’s episode of The Daily Show. “It was going to be so funny. But sadly at the last minute we had to scrap all that because Elmo … lost his f—ing mind.”
Stewart was referring to the hacking of Elmo’s X account by an unknown entity on Sunday, with Sesame Workshop confirming this morning that the compromised account had now been “secured.” Before removal, the tweets espoused racist and antisemitic views, and also called for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files by president Donald Trump, whom the account deemed a “child f—er.”
“As someone who has worked with Elmo … as everybody definitely remembers,” Stewart maintained the tweets were “shocking” to him, before proceeding to spoof Sesame Street with his own Elmo sock puppet. In mimicking the Muppet, Stewart appeared in a split-screen online, though in-person audiences could see he was puppeteering off to the side; in moments, the host was accidentally caught doing the voice on camera and struggled to suppress his laughter at the truly hilarious bit.
At first, Elmo hopped into the segment enthusiastically, ready to talk about “rainbows,” before Stewart prompted him to turn to the real subject of the day: “The Jews,” said a remorseful Elmo.
Covering his face from guilt, the puppet maintained, “They hacked Elmo! They guessed Elmo’s password was Elmo! Elmo123. Elmo knows passwords should have more numbers, but Elmo only knows three numbers.”
When Stewart pressed further, demanding accountability, Elmo’s revelation shocked audience members: “It’s true, Elmo wasn’t hacked. It was Elmo. But Elmo was radicalized by the manosphere. Elmo is part of the male loneliness epidemic. You-you-you see, what happened was, Elmo was doing his own research on flu shots. Six hours later, because of the algorithm, Elmo was moderating the QAnon Discord chat and building homemade bombs.”
And when the host hit a pain point in asking Elmo to claim further responsibility for his actions as a role model for kids, the red-haired character exploded: “Are you canceling Elmo?! Once again, the so-called tolerant left policing speech that’s inconvenient to their woke dogma. Who’s the real puppet now, Jon?! You! You’re the real puppet.”
Stewart, of course, was left speechless, alleging Elmo was spewing “alt-right talking point word salad.”
“Yeah, you said it, not Elmo. Elmo’s alt-right. No reason to cancel Elmo’s funding then,” the puppet said despondently, revealing yet another shocking truth — that he’s pandering to the GOP to keep funding for PBS Kids after the Trump administration terminated education grants back in May.
He continued, “Elmo can’t go back on the streets, Jon! You have no idea what it’s like. Elmo’s too pretty to live under a bridge, Jon. It’s a life brought to you by the letter sucking d—, OK? Elmo won’t! Elmo won’t go back. Elmo can’t go back. No!”
After the segment, Stewart dived into the recent right-wing ire at Trump’s waffling on the release of the Epstein files, which was initially among the fundamental points of his platform. Before signing off, Elmo reappeared once more to declare: “Viva la revolución! Antifa forever,” adding that listening to Stewart’s “trenchant analysis of the many hypocrisies of the right have re-radicalized Elmo to the populist left. Free Luigi [Mangione]!”
