Mascot Love

10 thoughts on “Mascot Love”

1. Good Morning from Omaha,

   I have yet to understand the dinosauar for the Rockies, but it would not be my first choice as in there must have been something, anything better.

   In KC we have a lion with a crown on his head called “Sluggerrrrrrrrr” who could probably hit better than half the line up and was sued last year after he catapulted either a t-shirt or a hot dog into the stand and almost cost some spectator his vision using one of those air guns.

   THe chiefs, in a effort to be politically correct, have a lady riding a horse called warpaint. They brought that idea back from the early years of the franchise. NO chief, no indian just an arrowhead with KC on it.

   At least in Denver the mascots have a purpose and are tied to the team, somehow, except for that dinosuaur.

   What can you say, its all about marketing and branding. change the label, sell some merchandise. The omaha royals were the Royals for years, then became the Omaha golden spikes for about 3 years. They sold more merchandise and then reverted back to the Royals. A few years later, NOW, they are the “Storm Chasers” with a tornado looking symbol, thunder when they hit a homerun and storm sirens when a good play is made.

   Sell merchandise is the name of the game. THE team is almost incidental, to a point.

   Strive for excellence, nothing but your best.

   Gene

2. Dear Drew,

   You mentioned some of the wonderful mascots like the San Diego Chicken but one you did miss who I think is great is the Phoenix Sun Gorilla. My sister/brother in law took me to a Sun’s game and I marveled at his antic’s. He is all that is right with mascot’s

   All the best

   Louis

3. Nothing about the USA women’s World Cup soccer win over Germany? As long as Solo is in goal, there will be Hope for another World Cup.

4. @ good ol` george: USA won over Brasil, not Germany. And they won also against the FIFA….

5. Ordinarily I’d chide you over omitting the Rapids mascot…but they have four of them! FOUR! When talking smack with other fans in MLS, Colorado fans will routinely boast, “We’re Deep at Mascot.”

6. I love you… you love me…. we’re one happy family… then a shot rang out and Dinger hit the floor! Now there’s one less dinosaur!

7. I remember a cartoon in an alternative newspaper about 15 years ago – it showed a “Barney” like dinosaur in an easy chair in front of the TV, popping a beer and saying “I Love You, You Love Me – what a wuss!” The caption read “Eddie, Barney’s lesser-known brother.” I still think of that every time I see any reference to that purple abomination. I refuse to let my children know that he exists.

   I know a few people who think the “Oompa-Loompas” from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” were the scariest things from their childhood. For me, it was the evil Baron in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” who kidnapped children. I made my father take me home halfway through the movie.

   I still think the worst mascot ever was the “Whatzit” from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He later got a name (Izzy), but it was a marketing failure, if ever there was one.

8. I think it would be fun to see what you would come up with for mascots! We should keep our eyes out for franchises needing new ones, or new franchises needing a mascot. Somebody start a team! Wonder if my alma mater is still the warriors? We could have used something different for sure. Very politically incorrect, even had AIM threatening us. That whole Wizard of Oz movie bothered me, it was so like a frustrating, bad, nightmare. Do the kids love Dinger? Don’t they all want to be hugged by him?

9. Drew–

   Ugh! I can’t believe that thing is the Rockies’ mascot! Kinda reminds me of the purple grape guy in the Fruit of the Loom underwear commercials.

   As a kid, I was scared to death of KISS in their kabuki-style makeup.

10. Hey Drew,

    Funny that you should draw such a cartoon about Dinger the Triceratops. I definitely think it misses the mark as a great mascot. The Barney comparisons are valid… it’s too bad we had to have the color purple to work with, when deciding that our mascot would be a dinosaur.

    One reason why I feel that it’s such a miss, is that the Rockies haven’t done a great job of explaining why we even have a triceratops as a mascot to begin with. I was watching the Natgeo channel the other night and the had a show on called Prehistoric. It’s a series that visits different cities across the US. This particular show was on Denver. Apparently when they were building Coors field, they uncovered a rib bone of what they thought could be a triceratops. This is how we came to adopt Dinger as our mascot. Now, I may be the only one that didn’t know that… but somehow I don’t think so. Also, little known fact: The first discovery of triceretops was found in Denver in 1877.

    The following link is the video clip from the show:

    http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/prehistoric-denver/