Thursday, May 26, 2005

Team Player

MASCOT: (noun) a person, animal, or object adopted by a group as a symbolic figure especially to bring them good luck.
(Merriam-Webster Online)


Mascots are fun. MSU has Sparty, The Lugnuts (Minor League Baseball) has Big Lug and Ratchet, and that lame school down the road has a giant weasel. Fitting. One of my favorite mascots was The Moose, who represented the minor league hockey team, The Rochester Americans. I never did understand the link between a moose and ice skates, but the Moose took a lot of grief from the fans, and we loved him for it.

Long, long ago, in an ad campaign far-far away, mascots were everywhere, representing everything from lard to plywood to roacher killers. Nowadays, mascots mean serious business. Just ask my boyfriend, and he'll tell you it's Mascot Mania -- from camps, to classes, to roadside cemeteries, it's obvious that not just any old shmoe can shill for the corporate bigwigs.

More training?

"More training."

But nowadays, being a mascot doesn't necessarily mean being the embodiment of good. Take Polyp-Man, for example. He embodies, well...POLYPS. This isn't exactly resume building material.



But my new favorite is a local. It has been declared that in the mitten, this week is known as Emerald Ash Borer Awareness Week -- complete with a sunglass wearing, smirking mascot and her evil green dump truck of doom.
(Poor thing. It's not exactly the Batmobile, now is it?)



Emerald Ash Borers.
Don't let this happen to you.

6 comments:

mensch71 said...

Your tax dollars at work. I'm pretty sure the Boy had something to do with the costume acquisition. ;)

nk said...

My high school mascot wore--I kid you not--a giant potato costume. We were/are the Spuds.

lifeonhold said...

Hilarious, Tuna! This post must have taken hours of research. It makes me wonder how you come up with these topics.

Gary said...

On a more serious note, the bits about the cemetery mascots reminded me of this story:

http://www.novareinna.com/bridge/bobby.html

An uncommon loyalty, even among humans..

GreenTuna said...

Aww, G -- that's a sweet story.

Anonymous said...

Bwah!
you're welcome. Great picture!

the boy