Everything on the Internet is bad or porn until proven otherwise.
Oops! CNN.com:
Toy manufacturer Mattel has apologized after mistakenly printing the web address of a pornographic site on the packaging of its newly launched “Wicked” dolls.
Instead of pointing readers to the official website of the movie adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical, information found on boxes of the special edition dolls leads to a page that requires users to be 18 years or older to enter, according to social media users on X.
“Mattel was made aware of a misprint on the packaging of the Mattel Wicked collection dolls, primarily sold in the US, which intended to direct consumers to the official WickedMovie.com landing page,” the company said in a statement sent to CNN on Sunday.
“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,” it said.
People who have already purchased the dolls are advised to discard the packaging or obscure the link, Mattel added.
“Misprint.” Sure. Like the colors were out of registration. Could happen to anyone.
Honestly, this does not seem like a crisis. If Mattel had accidentally printed a porno URL on packaging for Barbie (25 percent of revenue in 2023), that would have been a crisis! And at that point possibly simpler for them to just go buy out the offending domain, though they’d be in a weak negotiating position. But on the “Wicked” movie tie-in dolls? I don’t anticipate a tearful CEO video apology for this, though I suspect some people in the packaging design and marketing teams got yelled at.
And rightly so! It was careless. Site unseen, what are the chances the domain “wicked.com” is a pornography website? Close to 100 percent, right? If you were doing the packaging for “Kinky Boots” dolls, you’d damn well check the URL before printing the packaging. (There does not seem to be either toys or a dedicated website for “Kinky Boots,” so this is academic.)
Imagethief 