Toy stores sure aren’t what they used to be; a sentence that’s true regardless of how many Werther’s one should be holding while saying it. A bunch of pissed off parents are coming together to stop Toys R Us from selling Breaking Bad action figures in their stores, because the toys come with plastic replicas of the show’s signature blue meth. The purest fake blue meth toy out there, probably.
Florida mother and Breaking Bad fan Susan Schrivjer started an online petition on Change.org calling for Toys R Us to remove the toys from their shelves, saying these toys being sold next to more traditional playthings “is a dangerous deviation from their family friendly values.” Schrivjer told Today, “Anything to do with drugs is not doing the right thing.” Strange how the petition is only calling out the meth and the sack of cash and not the gun that this villain is actually holding for the figure’s webpage. But I guess that’s because guns have been toys for ages, while meth is the new demon child on the block.
Currently selling for $13.99, the Mezco Toyz “Heisenberg” figure (that looks a lot like Bryan Cranston in the picture) also comes with a removable hat and glasses to go with the “bag of blue crystals.” Aaron Paul’s character Jesse Pinkman also gets a figure, dressed in a Hazmat suit and accessorized with a gas mask, chili powder and a tray of blue crystal, bitch. There are many worse things from Breaking Bad that could have made their way to mass-produced toy lines, but I guess meth isn’t the most imagination-friendly extra for a toy to have. I wonder if Jesse’s comes with the detached sense of grief already included.
But, as Toys R Us said in a statement, the figures’ packaging is clearly labeled as being for children 15 and over, and they’re sold in a part of the store where other adult action figures are stocked. Sounds like they win to me. Obviously kids who can’t quite get the hang of Big Wheels don’t need to be looking on the shelves where their older brothers are hanging out and smoking cigarettes or whatever. But even if small children happen to see these tiny blue shapes, I don’t know of any narcotic epidemics that were spawned by collectible action figures.
When I was a kid, seeing hit adult dramas represented in Toys R Us would have meant a J.R. Ewing puppet or a small-scale Murder, She Wrote typewriter. Not a lot of need for meth back then. It remains to be seen if the 1,900 signees (as of this writing) will make any headway with Toys R Us in the future. In the meantime, let us know how you guys feel about it.
This poll is no longer available.
