#285: Alexander McZebrafeld's Notorious Plaid Collection

Slothrop came back from Kauai looking tan and rested. Which is a good thing because we have a little emergency this morning. You probably know the Alexander McZebrafeld franchise is big in Iceland, where he’s known as “Erik Sebrahestur”. The character blew up this year after the second largest newspaper in Reykjavik requested caption translations and became a syndication partner. Which led to a toy licensing deal and an order for four-hundred thousand plush dolls by an Icelandic retailer. Well, it turns out there are only 280,000 people who live in Iceland, so this probably should’ve raised some questions from the get go. But the wheels of commerce roll on. Anyway, it turns out that the dolls were being used to smuggle drugs in from Eastern Europe. The people of Iceland woke on Sunday to a front page story with a big picture of a Keflavik customs agent holding a sliced-open Xander/Erik doll and pulling out some little plastic bags from inside it. Now the paper wants to cancel the syndication deal, and no one in our Accounting Dept seems to know what happened to the licensing money or who the licensing partner on the other side actually was. The FBI’s Seattle field office is sending some agents over this afternoon to go through the files. The Committee is in the conference room with the blinds closed talking to the Legal team from SynrSys HQ. So everyone’s good vacation vibes have been fully extinguished and it’s only 8:30 on Monday. Long week ahead. -Ed.