Jon Stewart spoofs Elmo’s X account getting hacked

We have seen Elmo of “Sesame Street” in a variety of lights, but never as an alt-right supporter. After the beloved character’s X account was hacked, Jon Stewart decided to have some fun with a look-alike puppet of Elmo on the “The Daily Show” on July 14. (Roy Rochlin/Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

We have seen Elmo of “Sesame Street” in a variety of lights, but never as an alt-right supporter.

After the beloved character’s X account was hacked, Jon Stewart decided to have some fun with a look-alike puppet of Elmo on “The Daily Show” on Monday.

The talk show host reminded the audience with a photo that he had worked with the famed muppet years ago and said he was “shocked” by the tweets.

Stewart, voicing the “Elmo” puppet, claimed that he was hacked after someone “guessed Elmo’s password was Elmo! Elmo123. Elmo knows passwords should have more numbers, but Elmo only knows three numbers.”

Stewart soon got the “truth,” insisting Elmo needed to take responsibility for his actions.

“It was Elmo, but Elmo was radicalized by the manosphere. Elmo is part of the male loneliness epidemic,” Stewart as the puppet said. “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.”

After Stewart reminded him of his influence on children, the muppet clapped back.

“Once again, the so-called tolerant left policing speech that’s inconvenient to their woke dogma,” he said. “Who’s the real puppet now, Jon? You! You’re the real puppet.”

They then got to the heart of the matter after Stewart accused the character of sharing “alt-right talking point word salad.”

“Elmo’s alt-right,” the puppet said, joking he was pandering to save funding for public broadcasting and children’s education programs. “No reason to cancel Elmo’s funding then.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has encouraged Congress to revoke funding for PBS, the birthplace of “Sesame Street,” accusing them of a liberal bias.

“Elmo can’t go back on the streets, Jon! You have no idea what it’s like,” Stewart said as the puppet. “Elmo’s too pretty to live under a bridge, Jon.”

On Tuesday, the Instagram account for Elmo posted a statement saying that “Elmo’s X account was briefly hacked by an outside party, in spite of the security measures in place” on Sunday. “We strongly condemn the abhorrent antisemitic and racist content, and the account has since been secured.”

The statement continued, “These posts in no way reflect the values of Sesame Workshop or Sesame Street, and no one at the organization was involved.”

By Lisa Respers France.