They/them.
He hasn’t been canceled, to be clear. He’s just… trans now. Well, no, not exactly. Trans and gender neutral are two different things. Either way, all I can think is: Does Mrs. Potato Head know? I bet she had her suspicions. As one Twitter pal said, “The removable mustache was surely a clue.” Bloomberg’s write-up makes me think this is less about making Mr. Potato Head — sorry, I mean “Potato Head” — androgynous than about letting kids from nontraditional families build characters who look more like their own parents. Starting in the fall, Hasbro will sell Potato Head family kits. They’ll come with two non-gendered “adult” potatoes, one “baby” potato and 42 accessories, according to a spokeswoman. That will let kids decide the parents’ gender, rather than being told they are “Mr.” and “Mrs.” The traditional Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head dolls will still “live on as part of the brand,” the company said, without elaborating. Fast Company elaborates: Over the decades, the Potato Head brand has explicitly played into this tendency to create families. It has sold Mr. Potato Head family sets, with a male and a female character, along with smaller potato children. In 2012, Hasbro celebrated the 60th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head with a boxed set featuring the couple. But eight years later, the brand wants to stop leaning so heavily into this traditional family structure.
