Hasbro’s decision to drop the Mr. from Mr. Potato Head inspired a lot of food for thought on Twitter.
Media reports Wednesday said that the popular tuber toy would now be gender-neutral and called just “Potato Head.”
The company later clarified that the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head characters will still exist, names and all, but the branding on the box will say “Potato Head.”
Still, before the clarification, some Twitter users hilariously imagined how people ― particularly certain Fox News personalities ― might overreact to the news.
Somewhere Tucker Carlson just learned he's going to have to talk about Mr. Potato Head tonight.
— Scott Von Doviak (@vondoviak) February 25, 2021
Fox News executives are pumped. This Potato Head story gives them six months of content. https://t.co/9JHopBj2su
— Adam Best (@adamcbest) February 25, 2021
Next on Fox
— David Frum (@davidfrum) February 25, 2021
"In my day, the potato-head dolls were made out of *real* potatoes that couldn't be eaten because they had frozen in the root cellar. Mom gave us broken bits of coal for the eyes and Dad made potato chairs out of empty spools of thread. But this generation ..."
I'm in the grocery store and picked up some potatoes during the Great Potato Head crisis. I can't tell the gender of this spud. All is lost. pic.twitter.com/gp52Qr4pEj
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) February 25, 2021
"Throw your Mr. Potato Head away, Billy! We're boycotting the Radical Left's Woke Agenda."
— Glen Weldon (@ghweldon) February 25, 2021
"But --"
"BUT NOTHING. Here's an eggplant. And here's a peach. Now go to your room and stick eyeglasses and googly eyes and whatnot on them, the way God intended."
Others pondered the idea of a potato having a gender in the first place.
Potato Head gender reveal party. pic.twitter.com/1n6QiZ38s6
— Cody Johnston (@drmistercody) February 25, 2021
i purposely bought my potato-shaped son a MR POTATO HEAD TOY so he would have a masculine potato-shaped figure in his life. what am i supposed to do now, HMMM???
— katherine krueger (@kath_krueger) February 25, 2021
Surely this is just another example of inappropriate informality and disrespect. I will continue to refer to him as Potato Head, Esquire https://t.co/BKsEWWyS0C
— Arieh Kovler (@ariehkovler) February 25, 2021
But as many Twitter users joked about potatoes and the inevitable right-wing backlash to a toy’s name change, one man had a more cynical take.
Absolutely genius move by Hasbro. They are going to sell so many toys to people on both sides who think commerce is a coherent political statement.
— Dave Schilling (@dave_schilling) February 25, 2021
No one's given two shits about Mr. Potato Head in years. This is truly the 5D chess that gets someone in marketing a corner office.
— Dave Schilling (@dave_schilling) February 25, 2021
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