Al Snow Recalls His Figures Getting Banned From Walmart In 1999

In an interview with NBC Sports Boston (via Wrestling Inc), Al Snow spoke about Walmart banning his action figures for sale back in 1999 thanks to complaints from women. The complaint was that the Snow figure was carrying a “decapitated head”, which was really just the mannequin Head. Walmart would continue to sell Snow figures without Head, then later sold them with a blank styrofoam head instead of the mannequin head.

He said: “I was getting canceled before cancel culture was a thing. Two women, who were of all things, assistant professors of Communications at a college in Georgia … went into a Walmart and without any study, without any homework, without any research, jumped to a very wild and completely innocuous conclusion that the action figure that I had, which included a Barbie doll head that was popped off that had ‘HELP ME’ right across it, was a decapitated women’s head, and then wrote a letter to the Atlanta Constitution. And of course, because wrestling was so hot at the time, the Atlanta Constitution printed it, without doing any actual research themselves … and then of course, Walmart saw it, panicked and then it led to where the toy was banned across the nation in every retail outlet, which just led to them selling out that much quicker. Walmart will not sell (the figure) as they feel its an endangerment to the community; now granted, you can still go to Walmart, buy a hunting gun with ammo and a hunting knife to cut up your victim but you can’t buy pregnant Barbie or my action figure.“