Is your Poké Ball Trying to kill you?

During 1999 and 2000, Burger King and the Consumer Product Safety Commission held an effort to recall plastic containers resembling Poké Balls in the United States after it was determined they presented a suffocation hazard.

Burger King released a set of 57 Pokémon toys in a $22 million Pokémon: The First Movie promotion, which were contained within round Poké Ball containers measuring from 2.75 and 3 inches in diameter. Burger King distributed the Poké balls inside big kids meals and regular kids meals, and it was to last for eight weeks from early November through December 1999.

On December 11, 1999, a 13-month-old girl in Sonora, California, suffocated on the container, and was found deceased in her playpen with half of the ball covering her nose and mouth.

She died after one half of the plastic Pokéball, measuring just under three inches in diameter, became attached to her face. She had somehow gotten it stuck over her nose and mouth, forming an airtight seal.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) stepped in, urging an immediate recall of the toys and a suspension of the giveaways. But the promotion continued.

A spokesperson for Equity Marketing, the toymaker that had partnered with Burger King, would later state that the toy "meets or exceeds all federal safety guidelines." And Charles Nicolas, a spokesman for Burger King, argued, "It was not concluded that the ball was the cause [of death]."

Ten days later, on December 23, it happened again: An 18-month-old girl in Kansas almost suffocated. By the time her father pried the half of a Pokéball from her face, the girl's lips had turned blue. After this close call, outrage was mounting.

"When we found out about the first death, there was the realization that this could be huge national concern," Brown, who resigned from the CPSC in 2001, tells MUNCHIES. "This was a worst case scenario: a major fast food chain, not just a toy store, distributing these toys by the millions."

Regulators criticized Burger King for acting too slowly. The success of the Pokémon tie-in, it seemed, was why the chain appeared to be dragging their feet regarding a potential recall.

A voluntary recall by Burger King in conjunction with the CPSC began on Monday, December 28.

When the recall did go live nationwide that week, consumers were urged to immediately take the Pokéballs from children and either return or discard both halves. You'd even get a free small order of French fries for each pokéball—and kids still got to keep the Pokémon toy inside.

The warnings were printed everywhere: on tray liners, on carry-out items, and on fry bags. Burger King also bought commercial time on cable and network television to inform the public, and gave out an 800-number. Unfortunately, these efforts were not enough.

On Tuesday, January 25, 2000, almost a month after the recall began, four-month-old Zachary Jones was found dead in his crib in Indianapolis, Indiana. He, too, had been suffocated by a Pokéball. "It's hard to believe that you go get the kids something to eat and you bring home a lethal toy," Michael Jones, the boy's grandfather, told the Chicago Tribune. His death was the last one attributed to Burger King's Pokémon containers.