Hitler Kettle - H 2013
JCPenneyJ.C. Penney was thinking tea party. Everyone else saw the Nazi party.
The strange odyssey of their tea kettle said to resemble Adolf Hitler — which caused a sensation after it was spotted on a Culver City billboard and posted online — has drawn to a close … sort of, as the retailer has removed the offending ad, CBSLA.com reports.
But the furor over the Fuhrer-esque appliance caused the J.C. Penney online store to sell out of the controversial product.
By Wednesday, the site no longer carried the kettle at all.
Neither Michael Graves, who designed the kettle, nor J.C. Penney has responded to The Hollywood Reporter‘s request for comment, but the retailer did tweet repeatedly through their official account that the resemblance was “totally unintentional.”
“If we had designed the kettle to look like something, we would’ve gone w/a snowman :),” read one response.
“If we had been strategizing, we probably would have gone with a cute puppy or kitty kettle. :),” read another.
“J.C. Penney did the right thing by responding to public concerns and removing the tea pot from their product line,” anti-Semitism watchdog group the Anti-Defamation League says in a statement to Mother Jones. “We take J.C. Penney at their word that any resemblance to the Nazi dictator was completely unintended.”
The $40 kettles have since been popping up on eBay, where they have been going for upwards of $160.
