Toys ‘R Us pulling Mattel products (including DCUC)?

It’s being reported on several message boards that Toys R’ Us stores around the country have pulled Mattel toys off the shelves, including The Dark Knight, Kung-Fu Panda, Speed Racer and even DCUC.

I contacted my sources at Mattel to find out if this was an official recall on their end, and this was their response:

There is no recall on any of these products. Individual retailers are free to decide what product is on their shelf and how much space it gets, but there is no recall.

TRU employees on the message boards have agreed that this appears to be an internal recall, but that hasn’t been officially confirmed. According to these employees, the toys are “under investigation,” but not definitely recalled for safety reasons.

So what’s going on? I suspect it has something to do with TRU’s stringent new safety rules, which went into effect March 1. There may have been some sort of procedural issue, i.e., Mattel didn’t test their products enough times for TRU’s new standards, or didn’t date-code their items properly.

It’s quite possible all the product will be back on shelves within the week…or Mattel could announce a recall later today. I’ll update this post with any new information I receive.

UPDATE: Over at the Fwoosh, user Big_Ricks_Customs went the extra mile and got in touch with Toys R’ Us’s corporate office:

Anyway I called the corporate office and they gave me the exact same speech the manager at the store gave me. “Those figures are under investigation right now by TRU. TRU always tries to present the public with the highest quality product as possible. Until this investigation is done these figures won’t be available at TRU or TRU.com.” When asked if this was a Mattel recall he said “no”. I asked him if this was a lead issue like last year and he said “no”. He said if I feel uncertain to just return my kids toys and they will give a full refund (didn’t say they were mine Laughing ). I asked if all the DK stuff is involved and he said that they are pulling all product till this investigation is complete.

Well there it is as shady as he was he did give some answers at least. I don’t think they wanted news to get out so quickly as I caught him by surprise. Oh well hopefully when this is done they will have plenty of DCUC and MM to put out.