We were walking back to my car in Knights Stadium’s parking lot when one of the kids I’d taken to the baseball game came up with the idea. Smitten by the Knights’ big green mascot Homer the Dragon, they started naming all the mascots they knew: Sir Purr of the Panthers, Chubby from the Checkers, the Speedway’s LugNut, even Ronald McDonald. Eight-year-old Louie got so excited, he shouted, “I think everything should have a mascot.”
“What do you mean, everything?” I asked.
“You know, like restaurants and banks and stuff like that — everybody. That’d be cool.”
I drove the kids back to Charlotte while they spent time thinking up and yelling out their ideas for mascots for various non-sports-related businesses. The kids ranged in age from 6 to 14, so once their creativity kicked in, the concepts got pretty strange, and pretty funny. Here are three of the best we came up with during our postgame trip, and a few more that came to me after I got home (I ran those by the kids for their approval, of course).
Imagine these mascots:
• Krispy Kreme According to the kids, the fried, sugary confection’s mascot is now Kolesterol the Poor, Fat Zitface. Picture a donut-shaped costume with big zits and its pockets turned inside out to reflect KK’s recent financial woes. This one was the kids’ favorite.
• Harrelson Ford The troubled car dealership can lighten its image by showcasing their new mascot, Harry the Forger. He’s a big-headed guy in a chain-gang outfit with slips of paper and 100-dollar bills coming out of his sleeves and he’s ready to “do whatever it takes,” even faking official documents, to get you the car you want. Yeah, I helped the kids a little with that one.
• Duke Power Replace the retired Reddy Kilowatt, who for years provided Duke Power with a perky, public service-oriented image, with something more contemporary. Meet Smudgy the Soot Particle, a big furry black blob with legs. Duke Power recently won a lawsuit that allows it to spew more crap into the air from its coal-fired plants, so Smudgy seemed to hit the spot — maybe it’s that spot on your lungs!
• Sonny’s BBQ Porky the Bypass Patient. It’s a simple concept: a cute pink pig with a huge scar on his chest and oxygen tubes in his nose, tottering around upright, using a walker.
• Arts and Science Council I thought the ASC deserved a more conceptual approach for its mascot, so welcome Henri and Hugh, the conjoined arts twins. Hugh’s side wears a dark pinstripe suit with a white shirt and sensible tie, while Henri wears leotards and the theatrical “smile” mask. When there’s a dispute between the two, Hugh wins every time.
• Bank of America Ozzy the Octopus is a big red-white-and-blue, blobby-looking mascot with eight movable appendages. Ozzy holds miniature replicas of bank buildings in each arm and periodically squeezes each one into powder, then sends the powder to India.
• WSOC-TV News Channel 9, devout follower of the TV news dictum “If it bleeds, it leads,” needs perky Bobby Bloodclot as a full-time employee. Whenever there’s a gruesome car crash or a grisly murder, Bobby will show up with the news crew to entertain the crowds and place that special WSOC brand on the story.
• Charlotte Mecklenburg School System What better way to represent CMS’ impenetrable bureaucracy than with a big, furry replica of Joseph Stalin? Don’t worry about frightening the smaller kids — Uncle Joe has a “Preparing for Greatness” tattoo on his chest to make him more lovable.
This article appears in Aug 24-30, 2005.
