Internet retailer ordered to stop selling obviously fake product [unicorn meat]


The apparently humorless folks at the National Pork Board have issued a popular Internet retailer with a “cease and desist” order over a fairly obviously fake product that was a part of a an April Fool’s Day gag.

Every year Think Geek creates a range of “products” for April Fool’s Day that, although humorous and rather awesome in nature, do not actually exist. Their canned unicorn meat elicited a few laughs from readers and shoppers alike – but not, it seems, from the National Pork Board.

The folks over there took exception with Think Geek’s use of the marketing slogan “the other white meat” in the promotion of their “product”. This occurred in spite of the “product” being an obvious parody (which makes usage of the slogan permissible) and despite having what appears to be a rather expensive team of lawyers on the case.

Think Geek offered a succinct apology:

We’d like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork–and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn’t actually exist.

The full version of the apology can be read here [PDF]. [Think Geek via Boing Boing]

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C.S. Magor is the editor-in-chief and a reporter at large for We Interrupt and Uberreview. He currently resides in the Japanese countryside approximately two hours from Tokyo - where he has spent the better part of a decade testing his hypothesis that Japan is neither as quirky nor as interesting as others would have you believe.
8 Comments on this post.
  • Blind Freddy
    22 June 2010 at 12:21 pm
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    How sad must their lives be that they can’t have a laught about something so obviously ‘tongue in cheek’.

  • Blind Freddy
    22 June 2010 at 12:21 pm
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    How sad must their lives be that they can’t have a laught about something so obviously ‘tongue in cheek’.

  • Blind Freddy
    22 June 2010 at 7:21 am
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    How sad must their lives be that they can’t have a laught about something so obviously ‘tongue in cheek’.

  • palfrei
    22 June 2010 at 5:31 pm
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    Robot Unicorn Attack is the film based on this story. Both unicorns are surrounded by rainbows.

  • palfrei
    22 June 2010 at 5:31 pm
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    Robot Unicorn Attack is the film based on this story. Both unicorns are surrounded by rainbows.

  • palfrei
    22 June 2010 at 12:31 pm
    Leave a Reply

    Robot Unicorn Attack is the film based on this story. Both unicorns are surrounded by rainbows.

  • Tweets that mention Internet retailer ordered to stop selling obviously fake product [unicorn meat] | We Interrupt — Topsy.com
    22 June 2010 at 4:29 pm
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    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andrea B, REALLY Crabby Kim. REALLY Crabby Kim said: Mmmm. Sparkly spam. I can't stop staring. http://shar.es/mEgbh I think the Pork Board was just jealous. […]

  • Alexandria
    6 December 2010 at 10:58 pm
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    I just bought this for my sister for Christmas, it’s hilarious. And now they have disclaimers saying it’s not edible (but when you open it it’s a stuffed dead unicorn…so duh). What ever happened to the sense of humor?

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