Why were the Burger King Poké Balls recalled?
The campaign itself ran from November 8 to December 31, 1999, under the slogan "Gotta catch 'em here!" Burger King distributed 59 different Kids Meal toys, marketed as 57 because three were variants of each other: launchers, light-ups, key chains, beanbags, spinners, squirters and talking Pikachu. Every toy was paired with a PokéTrivia trading card made exclusively for the promotion, and between them the cards covered all 151 Pokémon plus Mew. Demand was so heavy that restaurants ran out; a promotional poster was printed for stores with no toys left, and when even that failed, Burger King handed out nine-card Master Sheets of the trivia cards instead.
The toys and the gold cards shared one piece of packaging: a plastic Poké Ball container. In December 1999 those balls were recalled after two infants suffocated when a half of the ball covered their mouth and nose. Burger King's warning was published on December 27, 1999. The episode changed the toy line permanently: Poké Ball toys made afterwards, Hasbro's included, were produced with air holes in them.
The promotion had one more act. When Pokémon: The First Movie reached VHS, Burger King ran the same 59 toys again from March 13 to March 26, 2000, a last chance to finish the set.