Welcome to FTW Explains: A guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. You may have seen some stuff about Mattel’s Wicked dolls and a printing error and you may be wondering what’s up with that. We’ve got you covered.
That’s right, the movie adaptation of the hit musical Wicked is coming to theaters, and of course you know that means that with it comes all the merch and swag and whatnot.
Except there was a bit of an error recently with printing something on Mattel’s version of the dolls from the movies. We’ll explain:
What’s this now about the Wicked Mattel dolls?
Mattel — which makes Barbie and other dolls — manufactured dolls based on the characters played by Cynthia Erivo, Arian Grande, Johnathan Bailey and so on.
As part of the marketing, they printed directions to the movie’s website if buyers wanted to learn more.
OK, that seems fairly innocuous.
Well, sure. Except … they didn’t direct folks to the correct movie website.
Oh really? Where did Mattel send everybody instead?
We here at For The Win are a family website, so we can’t say. But it wasn’t www.wickedmovie.com. And it was a very NSFW site.
Oh dear.
Yup. From TODAY:
In a statement to TODAY.com, Mattel confirmed the mislabeling. The toy company said it “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.”
“We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this,” Mattel said.
The company also included a message to parents who have already purchased the item.
“Parents are advised that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children. Consumers who already have the product are advised to discard the product packaging or obscure the link and may contact Mattel Customer Service for further information,” Mattel said in the statement.
Oops.
Hey, it happens!
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This article originally appeared on For The Win: The Mattel Wicked dolls packaging controversy involving an NSFW website, explained
