Posts from — June 2007

No, not bacon on your burger, silly. A burger made of ground bacon!

Like ordering the sausage patty pizza from Gino’s, this has got to be one of those “obesity epidemic be damned” types of dishes.  Somehow, me thinks this doesn’t fit into my marathon training.

Bacon Burger [via Dethroner]

[Update: This is supposedly the origin of the Bacon Burger.  My favorite quote: "I also opted for wheat buns and light Ranch dressing. We've all read about the health advantages of wheat bread over white bread, so that choice should be obvious. That white bread stuff will kill ya."]

Just as I suspected, HIT Entertainment doesn’t care to gets it hands dirty. The New York Time’s David Leonhardt has a piece titled, A Lesson That Thomas Could Teach that more or less confirms via their PR Agency that HIT is pointing the finger at RC2 and saying its not their fault. Yet, HIT Continued to sell these trains at their event this past weekend in Green Bay, WI.

If you were at one of the other “Day Out With Thomas” events, I’d love to know if James or Skarlooey were on sale and if they were items in the recall.

Looks like the NY Times picked up on the RC2 Recall with a story titled RC2’s Train Wreck that ran on the cover of the Business section yesterday. To further enforce how bad this situation is being handled, witness what took place to a friend of ours.

We took our son to the Day Out with Thomas event in Green Bay this past weekend and ran into a family who’s son also went to pre-school with ours. Both of the kids are HUGE Thomas fans, and had a blast getting a ride on a train pulled by Thomas and seeing all the other goings on of the event. Naturally, there was a huge retail tent set up selling tons of Thomas merchandise. Curiously absent from the tent was any indication that there was a recall of several toys. Our friend brought this up to one of the cashiers you got snippy with her and told her that all the affected toys were pulled from the shelves.

Evidentially not, when they got home they discovered one of the trains they bought was in the recall and even confirmed the serial number on the packaging! A quick email off of RC2 got a canned response. RC2 doesn’t seem to be actually trying to get the trains out of the sales channel. Nor are the organizers of these events actually posting anything. Sure, HIT Entertainment probably doesn’t have any legal obligation to do so (they didn’t manufacture the toys), but from a PR and public safety standpoint, it sure does seem like they should. These events seem like the perfect opportunity to reach affected consumers - they are packed full of parents and children who are obvious Thomas fans.

According to the NYT article, several journalists in China were detained at the RC2 plant in Dongguan when researching the story (Update: Looks like this story was filed here):

Just a few hundred yards away from RC2’s main office here, a group of about 30 young workers were seen boxing, folding and packaging the Thomas and Friends products on an assembly line. In interviews over the last two days, several workers said that metal and wooden train sets were often made here, and that the paint for some of those toys appeared to be produced on the factory grounds.

…the zone’s security staff detained a journalist from this newspaper, photographer and translator for over nine hours. The three were eventually released by police and local government officials early this morning.

As a parent, you really try to buy safe toys for your kids. Wooden trains - that sounds safe and wholesome. Now I don’t know what to think.

Update: As I suspected, HIT is distancing themselves from this big time. See David Leonhardt’s A Lesson That Thomas Could Teach. As David points out, HIT is running with an outdated script on this one. That is pretty obvious.

My wife just got an email from a friend that they are recalling a bunch of of wooden trains from the Thomas the Tank Engine series because they were made with lead paint.  From the pictures, most are red or yellow. 

See the CPSC page for more information.  I know we have a bunch of these, and more then one has received a “washdown” from our 9 month old.