Tuesday 16 November 2010

Not so happy down on the farm...

MotherCare are selling (but currently out of stock) the Early Learning Centre Happyland Goosefeather Farm [current] for £30. In the product description:

  • All the fun of the Happy Land Goosefeather Farm with Farmer Shepherd and his wife
  • Includes a barn, tractor and trailer, sheep pen, pig sty, and six animals
  • Your little ones will love playing with the farmyard animals, while learning the different sounds they make with the help of the animal sound effects
Brilliant, eh? But what's this? If you want to buy it direct from the Early Learning Center [current] it's only £25. What do you think might be the difference? Their product description:
  • Bring all the fun of the farm to HappyLand with this lovely set.
  • Farmer Shepherd wakes up early in the morning to tend the fields. Mrs. Shepherd makes sure all the animals on the farm are well fed and happy.
  • Set includes barn, tractor, trailer, pen, 3 fences, gate, Farmer Shepherd, Mrs. Shepherd, horse, cow, sheep, sheepdog and chicken. 
  • Press the buttons on the roof to hear five animal sounds.

Can you spot the difference?

Bit difficult?

Ok - here's the promotional photo from Mothercare:


And the promotional photo for ELC:


Spot the difference yet?

How about a hint - here's the mother care one again:

Yes - for a reduction of £5, you can get the new version of Goosefeather Farm without pigs.

"New Version" I hear you ask?

Yup - the ELC have slaughtered all the pigs on Goosefeather Farm for fear of offending Jews and Muslims.

Really. But don't worry - the pigs are still there in spirit. Ghostly pigs can still be heard haunting Goosefeather Farm, because the button that produces the Oink sounds proved a little more difficult to remove than the pig.

Oh - what's this? ELC have done a U-turn due to bad publicity? Colour me surprised.

2 comments:

  1. All this self censoring because of sensitivies or potential for offence is 99% due to perceived offence and 1% actual offence. And even in that 1% it's 99% due to shroud waving.

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  2. I get the vague impression that a root cause of this is the 'professionally offended.'

    Those who, while not offended themselves, take it upon themselves to be offended on behalf of others.

    Browse the ASA complaints for example. The 'smut on smut channel' post I did is a glaring example.

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