A mum has hit out at a UK toy store after they advertised a WWE toy that encourages children to smash apart an ambulance all in the name of sports entertainment.
The offending toy is the ‘WWE Wrekkin Slambulance Vehicle’ which is available from Smyth’s Toys for the price of £39.99 and is aimed at children aged six years and up. An advert for the product featuring former two-time WWE Champion Drew McIntyre was spotted by eagle-eyed mum Sabrina Fitzsimmons who was watching television with her partner, who works for the National Health Service.
In the advert, McIntyre encourages kids to ‘tear the slambulance apart for the ultimate brawl’ with footage shown of the slambulance gettings its back doors smashed in by a stretcher. The ad also shows pieces from the slambulance being kicked out with lights also being ripped from it, characters are then seen using the weapons to attack one another.
Mum of three, Fitzsimmons took to social media to register her complaint with Smyth’s Toy Stores asking the company what the logic is of selling a toy like this “at a time during a pandemic when there are active campaigns to reduce violence towards essential workers?”
Speaking to LADBible, Fitzsimmons elaborated on her complaint:
“This toy is massively inappropriate. I wouldn’t purchase that for my child and I certainly wouldn’t get behind advertising it, I just think you’re crossing a line of ethics and morals. Toys are supposed to teach our children, not only be fun. When I saw it I just thought ‘what a time to be advertising a toy like this to children.'”
“These people in the health care sector saved our lives. To advocate for a toy that perpetuates the message of violence towards the vehicles and the people that help us, I just think ‘what kind of message are you sending to children here?’ How is that ok? WWE has a huge following from littles ones right up to adults, including my 13-year-old son, I think it’s just such the wrong message. I wasn’t trying to be a ‘Karen’ but I just found it really offensive given the pressure I know the services have been under and the sacrifices that they’ve made. I could see that the advert really upset my partner.”
Fitzsimmons continued:
“It won’t just have offended me, it offended my partner who goes to work every day to help other people in the emergency services. A lot of her friends work there, she’s witnessed and been party to having violence against her and her friends and her colleagues like I myself have in retail.”
“We’re trying to curb that and get that message across that it’s not acceptable and they’re perpetuating a toy that is telling kids that it is at a very young and impressionable age. I think it’s so wrong.”
WWE has responded only to say the toy is made by Mattel and sold by Smyth’s with neither of those companies offering comment at the time of writing.