Things Fall Apart: It's a Lead, Lead World

Karen Murphy — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:18:00 GMT

My three-year old has taken to watching "It's a Big, Big World." It comes on right after Teletubbies, which means I have an hour of uninterrupted blogging time if I can stand an hour of existentialist/acid trippy/environmentalist children's public television. Which I can, because, after all, an hour of uninterrupted blogging time? Punctuated by the occasional procurement of snacks? I can live with that.

However, I'm pretty sure that Snook the sloth would be aghast to find out that the Fisher-Price 6-in-1 Bongo Band with his likeness on it is covered with toxic lead paint. Lead paint that's rather anathema to the message of the show, as far as I can tell (not having actually watched more than a couple of minutes at a time, though the songs, the songs kill me and I always cry, what a wuss), which seems to preach a bit on the oneness of the universe and blah-di-blah. Which I rather like.

But. We're taking lead paint and toxicity here, so let's get down to it: the recalled set has product number K9343 inside the orange drum, and a date code between 139-7SH and 232-7SH is printed on the drum’s orange ring surface. The recall only extends to the sets that have both product number and date code. Affected sets were sold at a variety of stores in July and August 2007 for about $20.

If you own this, and 8900 of you do, contact Fisher-Price (a division of Mattel; I have to point that out) or phone them at(888) 496-8330.

Strollerderby : fisher priceer-price

Things Fall Apart: It's a Lead, Lead World