Toy maker Mattel is apologizing after sending out a run of Wicked branded toys with a link to a porn website on the box. When Mattel learned about the problem, it pulled the dolls from retail shelves and issued an apology.
Mattel printed the URL for the wrong website on the boxes of singing dolls meant for enraptured children and adult collectors. You see the movie’s website is wickedmovie.com. But Mattel printed wicked.com. The first site lets you buy tickets and watch trailers. The second links to girl-on-girl action. And though Wicked is a story about the surprising relationship between two women at university, it’s not that kind of story.
Mattel assured consumers that Glinda and Elphaba are not that girl.
“Mattel was made aware of a misprint on the packaging of the Mattel Wicked collection dolls, primarily sold in the U.S., which intended to direct consumers to the official WickedMovie.com landing page,” it said in a statement. “We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this. Parents are advised that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children.”
Starring pop star Ariana Grande, Wicked is a musical adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. It hits theaters on November 22 and Hollywood expects it to be a big hit. First a novel and then a hit Broadway play, Wicked tells the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West.
In anticipation of a family-friendly box office smash, Mattel and others have produced a lot of merchandise for the film. The porn-linking toys were singing Glinda and Elphaba dolls. Retailers such as Target and Walmart have already delisted the toy from their online databases, but pictures of them still exist on eBay.
It’s a small error. The URL is printed just above the barcode on the back of the box on the bottom right. This kind of thing is a boon for aftermarket collectors. This kind of misprint, with its salacious story and simple method of verification, will create a market for the misprint. Wicked heads will need to get hold of the porno-URL box to complete their collection. Listings on eBay for the dolls vary wildly right now. A set of the deluxe models of the dolls with the misprint box is listed at just under $2,000.
How did this happen? We’ll never know and Mattel doesn’t have to tell us. But printing wicked.com instead of wickedmovie.com on a box is a pretty easy mistake to make. It’s the kind of thing that happens when a company isn’t doing its due diligence and triple-checking its work before sending it to the consumer.
Over the Summer, it announced that it had started using generative AI in its box designing process. It probably won’t help the toymaker avoid mistakes like this. And if it thinks it’ll make their boxes nicer they may as well try defying gravity.
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