SOLD-OUT TOYS STORY : PARENTS ACTING CHILDISH IN PURSUIT OF PRIZED ITEMS.

Byline: Rachel Beck Associated Press 

Surprised by soaring demand, Tickle Me Elmo's maker is flying in shipments from China. You'll be hard-pressed to find the latest Nintendo. And not only is Holiday Barbie another sellout, but the bionic version on CD-ROM is gone, too.

Barely one week into the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, the blood pressure is rising among moms and dads who waited too long before buying Christmas toys.

``Parents are breaking down doors for some of these toys,'' said Frank Reysen, the editor of Playthings magazine. ``There's not just one hit this year, but a couple that everyone wants.''

Like the Cabbage Patch Kids' craze of 1983 and the frenzy over Holiday Barbie last year, anxious parents are using guerrilla-shopper tactics. They're lining up by the hundreds before dawn at stores rumored to have the toys. They're tugging and brawling to get one after the doors open.

At a Target store in Davenport, Iowa, a clerk handing an Elmo doll to a customer saw it intercepted by another customer. At a Best Buy store in Aurora, Ill., police charged a woman with battery after she slapped another woman who grabbed the last Nintendo box on the shelf.

``Grown people are willing to go to pretty far for one of these dolls,'' said Jen Smith, a mom who checked out other prospects at New York's FAO Schwarz store after failing to find a Tickle Me Elmo. ``It's pretty crazy.''

Stores can't keep stock of Tickle Me Elmo, a plush doll based on the Sesame Street character that giggles when you press its stomach. It sells for under $30.

Tyco Toys Inc. is going so far as flying the dolls from factories in China to the United States to get them here faster. The company will have shipped 1 million dolls between its July debut and Christmas.

``You can never plan a phenomenon,'' said Neil Friedman, who heads Tyco's Preschool division.

``We will be shipping every day to retailers,'' he said. ``Even doing that we are not going to be able to supply the demand that this product has taken.''

Also scarce is Nintendo 64, the new video game system that exploits advances in computer chip and software design to create three-dimensional game play. The system costs about $200 and each of its eight games costs about $70. Many of the 1.2 million machines the company allotted for Christmas sales in this country have already been sold.

That's bad news for dads like James Lynch of Nashua, N.H., who has been searching for a Nintendo since this past weekend. They were sold out at the local mall.

``It's too bad because my boys are going to be disappointed if I can't find it anywhere else,'' Lynch said.

Even parents who succeed aren't necessarily gloating.

``I don't think I'll do it again,'' said Carmen Ruiz, who waited an hour at an Elizabeth, N.J., toy store last weekend just to get a Nintendo for her 13-year-old daughter.

The Nintendo shortage is crunching supplies of other video game players, like Sony's PlayStation and Sega's Saturn, which many parents are buying up in Nintendo's absence.

Finding a Holiday Barbie is a perennial challenge. But this year you can't even find her new CD-ROM, which lets kids create their own fashion designs, print them and then make the outfits.

Many merchants offered rain checks that guaranteed the toys by Christmas, but even the rain checks have been sold out of many stores. Others are offering coupons to receive the toys in 1997.

Some merchants are trying to hype toys that resemble the popular picks, like Sesame Street's Ernie in place of Tickle Me Elmo.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Barbie, always a popular Christmas item, fills shelves at a Toys `R' Us store in Aurora, Ill.

(2--Color) The demand has been great for the Tickle Me Elmo doll.

Associated Press