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Editorial
'Tis the season for inappropriate costumes, toys
Monday, October 20, 2014
Free enterprise keeps our country running, but it also keeps commentators on the job as it pushes the boundaries of good taste.
Halloween has turned into one of the year's biggest holidays when it comes to retail sales, so it's not surprising when companies go a little overboard to try to land their piece of the pie.
A prime example is one of the top-selling Halloween custumes, an Ebola hazmat suit.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, as the whole holiday is a celebration of death and the macabre, but most parents of young revelers prefer to dress them as princesses or firemen.
Walmart has drawn fire in England for selling bloodied, bullet-pierced American football and cheerleader outfits, complete with protruding broken bones.
Poor taste isn't confined to Oct. 31, of course.
Toys R Us is being petitioned to stop selling Breaking Bad toys. You could call them action figures, if by action you mean recruiting high school students to help cook meth, and killing drug dealers.
The figure of Walter White, the high school chemistry teacher who uses his skills to make and sell drugs to pay his cancer-related medical bills, comes with a duffle bag full of bank notes, a tiny bag of simulated blue crystal meth. His former student, Jesse Pinkman, wears a gas mask and hazmat suit
Toys R Us issued a statement that "the items are intended for ages 15 and up" and "are located in the adult action figure area of our stores."
Not very reassuring.
Giantmicrobes Inc. has sold out of its entire stock of Ebola plush toys, including a small Ebola doll for $9.95, a giant Ebola doll for $29.95 and an Ebola petri dish toy for $14.95.
To be fair, that company markets a whole line of biological toys to be used in educational settings.
While it's fun to buy the trendiest Christmas toy or Halloween costume, most young kids would be happiest with parents who are enjoying trick-or-treating along with their kids or helping play with the new toys once the wrapping paper is thrown away.