Middle-aged people remember the hilarious Gilda Radner skit on "Saturday Night Live" where she played with the “Looking For Mr. Goodbar Sleepytime Play Set,” with dolls based on the 1975 movie where a young schoolteacher goes to seedy bars looking for casual sex partners (and ends up murdered).
That’s how silly it sounds that there would be “Breaking Bad” action figures and that they would be sold at Toys R Us. When they were inevitably pulled off the shelves, “Breaking Bad” stars complained on social media. Sky News reports both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul complained about a Florida mom whose petition caused the “indefinite” suspension:
The actor [Aaron Paul], who plays [henchman] Jesse Pinkman in the award-winning series, has hit out at a petition started by a mother in Florida, which succeeded in getting the "dangerous" figures withdrawn.
There are four figures depicting characters from the show, including Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who turns into a crystal meth dealer, and Pinkman.
The dolls have a detachable bag of cash and a bag of methamphetamines.
He tweeted: "Wait, so @ToysRUs pulled all of the Breaking Bad figures from their shelves and still sells Barbie? Hmmmm ... I wonder what is more damaging?"
He also referred to the other adult products the company sells: "And what about all of the violent video games you sell @ToysRUs ? Do you still sell those? Florida mom really messed it up for everyone."
Toys R Us said in a statement that the dolls were taking an "indefinite sabbatical".
Bryan Cranston, the actor who played White, responded to the controversy earlier this week, tweeting, "I'm so mad. I am burning my Florida mom action figure in protest."
This reaction only underlines that the actors are proud of the violent criminals they played on the uber-trendy show, or that they revel in how people are thrilled rather than repelled by their (fictional) exploits and want to re-enact the violence and drug-dealing at home.
