Not only is Wicked (Part 1!) defying gravity at the box office, the film is also raking in a fortune from an arsenal of popular merch that’s been rolled out just in time for the holidays. Over a month before the movie was even released, people were already fighting over the official Stanley water cups, and those didn’t even have any character likenesses printed on them — they were just pink and green! But no worries, because of course witches Glinda and Elphaba were destined to get their very own Barbies. Which they did last month, in several costumes for each character taken directly from scenes in the film. There was just one, teenie weenie, problem: parents and kids followed directions on the back of the box to get more info from the film’s website, only instead of linking to the right place (WickedMovie.com), they ended up visiting a page with adult content. Now, in an entirely foreseeable move even the wizard and I could see coming, a parent is suing Mattel for the x-rated misprint:
Mattel has hit a legal bump in the yellow brick road.
After mistakenly printing the URL for a pornographic website on the packaging of dolls tied to the blockbuster movie musical Wicked, the toy maker is being sued by a South Carolina woman who says she and her minor daughter were “irreparably harmed” by the mixup.
In a proposed class action filed Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court, which Entertainment Weekly has reviewed, Holly Ricketson alleges that she bought a Wicked doll for her daughter, who subsequently “used an iPhone to visit the website shown” on the packaging. “To her absolute shock the website, ‘Wicked.com,’ had nothing to do with the Wicked Doll,” the complaint says. “Rather, Wicked.com pasted scenes of pornographic advertisements across her phone screen.” Ricketson and her daughter were both “horrified” by what they saw.
Ricketson’s suit accuses Mattel of unjust enrichment, negligence, breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, violation of California’s false advertising law, and more.
Mattel, the California-based company behind classic toys such as Barbie and Hot Wheels, told EW that it does not comment on pending litigation. A spokesperson also provided a statement that said, “The Wicked Dolls have returned for sale with correct packaging at retailers online and in stores to meet the strong consumer demand for the products. The previous misprint on the packaging in no way impacts the value or play experience provided by the product itself in the limited number of units sold before the correction. We express our gratitude to our consumers and retailers for their understanding and patience while we worked to remedy the issue.”
Mattel apologized for the error last month, after it was discovered that customers were being directed to an adult website rather than WickedMovie.com. Customers were advised to discard the product packaging and obscure the incorrect link.
But that wasn’t enough for Ricketson and her legal team, who say in the complaint that Mattel “did not offer any refund for consumers who had already purchased the dolls such as Plaintiff and the putative class members as plead herein.”
One of Ricketson’s attorneys, Roy T. Willey IV, said in a statement to EW, “Parents trust that products marketed to children are safe and free from risks of exposure to harmful content. Unfortunately, that trust was broken in this instance.”
He added, “This lawsuit is not just about recovering the cost of these dolls; it is about holding corporations accountable for the responsibility they have to safeguard children. When a company markets a product to young children, it has an obligation to ensure that every aspect of that product — from its design to its packaging — is free of risks to their safety and well-being.”
[From EW via Yahoo! Entertainment]
Yeah, I don’t see how Mattel has any way out from eating sh-t over this. But to fully appreciate their f–k up, you have to backtrack to this summer when they proudly announced how they were using generative AI to work on Barbie packaging. They said it would make things “better or stronger” and enable “the creative process to move faster.” Better, faster, stronger… just not factually accurater! As I said in the aftermath of the Megaflopolis trailer using AI to fill in film review quotes — which all turned out to be fake — AI is NOT a reliable fact-checking tool! This is a job for humans. It is not glamorous, it requires research and diligence, and there are no shortcuts. Which is why I think Mattel’s obvious next step should be releasing a Fact-Checker Barbie. Will it help with the lawsuit? Not at all. But it would be a savvy PR spin, an acknowledgment of their mistake, and just a good measure to promote and honor the profession. This Barbie keeps authors, outlets, and companies from making public fools of themselves.
Mattel accidentally released official #Wicked dolls that link to a p-rn site
The URL was supposed to be ‘Wickedmovie’ but instead just says ‘Wicked’ and leads to a site requiring users to be 18 or older pic.twitter.com/Zf0Oq73G7j
— Culture Crave (@CultureCrave) November 10, 2024