Printed matter

It was a wicked mistake by toy maker Mattel when it shipped out the singing dolls that were promotional items for the movie “Wicked.”

The dolls named after the musical-inspired movie’s witch characters, Glinda and Elphaba, were intended for children aged four and older. The labels on the dolls’ boxes, however, were erroneously printed with the web address of a porn website instead of the movie, BBC reports.

The blunder was posted on social media by buyers of the dolls in the United States, prompting Mattel to issue a public apology and notice advising purchasers to discard the mislabeled box to prevent kids from accessing the for-adult website.

Misprints like that rarely occur, unlike what happened with a letter printing machine in Germany’s tax office recently.

Due to a technical glitch in the automated tax system reportedly triggered by the transition to winter time or the end of daylight saving time, the request of a taxpayer from Quickborn town made on the last weekend of October to access the office’s online portal was repeatedly processed.

The overlap in processing caused a loop, resulting in the generation of duplicate letters, according to reports. The letters were delivered to the man’s house north of Hamburg on a Saturday.

The 1,700 letters from the tax office shocked the taxpayer. He checked the electronic version of the 1,700 letters and they were all the same.

The Finance Ministry learned of the blunder and its spokesperson apologized to the taxpayer.

The spokesperson offered to retrieve the letters to be destroyed, but the recipient declined and did it himself, using the paper to fuel his wood pellet heater.