Good Job, Brain! - 144: Mascot Mania

Episode Date: February 25, 2015

Gotta go fast! From a speedy blue hedgehog to a prospector named after a bread, we plunge into the wacky and ridiculous world of mascots. Can you name the sports team by their cheesy mascots? Take Dana's quiz on beloved product spokesperson/spokesanimal/spokesthing, and Chris' VERY HARD videogame mascot challenge. Find out how frozen orange juice made a huge (and controversial) splash with a Disney character, and how Montreal broke ground in mascot history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, meritorious merry makers and mer people and mer folk. Welcome to Good Job, Brady. Your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 144. And, of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your medley of meddlesome medallists who meditate about Medusas. And Murfoke. And Murfoke.

I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. Karen, every time you talk about mermaids or murfoke, I think about your story about how mermaids reproduce. Like your question. I'm like, how in depth the theory was. Oh, I think that was in our first Monsters episode. Yeah, that's right.

And I was like, how do Murm people reproduce? Painfully. Let's really find out. I think you edited it down, though. It was like a long, long in-depth. So according to this, we're like, what? We'll show up in the Good Job Brain archives someday. The unedited.

The ovaries would be here and check out this diagram. I think of mermaids every time I put both of my child's legs. accidentally into the same pant leg Part of that I think about when I every time like after that episode and how we talked about the Starbucks. The Starbucks

Yes, she's a melusine. Yeah, Melusine. Yes. That sent me into a frenzy like okay then how do they re-producing I knew you and I look that up too. I feel like you need to write an article or something about how mermaid is

Only if it's accompanied by your drawings. Like, I think it needs to have, like, yeah. Like arrows. MS paint level. Yeah, lots of arrows and circles. Question marks. I have a room in my office that's like those murder boards with yards. There's like articles.

I'm so glad to ask. Page is torn out from Victoria's Secret and Aquarium World. Like X's on legs. Won't work. Too small. yeah. All right. Before we start very quickly, I have some housekeeping here.

A couple of people online after we talked about Michael Jordan and his many retirements and many comebacks. I mentioned how when he came back the first time, you know, the league had fined him for switching numbers, for switching from 45 to 23 without alerting them first. And, you know, a couple of people, it's funny. had reached out and asked me online, sort of the same thing that I had always heard originally, and I didn't have time to mention this. It was like, oh, well, part of the fine was because the number had been retired, that when

he retired the first time, the Bulls, you know, of course, are like, oh, well, up in the rafters, number 23, we don't, we're not going to let anyone else on the Bulls never going to wear this number, and that that was part of the fine. And in fact, that's not true. The League, the League really doesn't care what individual teams do with retired numbers. You know, their attitude is basically, like, that's great with the team. If you want to retire, that's between you and the team. But the fine really was just purely for changing numbers mid-season without clearing it with the league.

It wasn't anything to do with his having retired by the Bulls or anything like that. And then just for a little bit extra, a little fun fact here, something else I also didn't get to mention was. So, of course, when he retired, the final time from the Bulls, they did retire it. So there will never be anybody else who wears number 23 for the Bulls. Even if he comes back. I hope it. For everybody's sake, I hope he doesn't come back. at this point. But what also happened is the Miami Heat, they retired the number 23 as well

as an honor to Michael Jordan. But I thought LeBron James is 23. He was 23 on the Cavs. So when he got to the Miami Heat, when he traded there, he actually had to change his numbers. So he was number six. Good point, though. Right. He couldn't wear number 23 because the Heat had retired it saying like, Michael Jordan, you were such an awesome competitor, basically. We're never going to have another player wear number 23, which I think that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool for a rival team to do that means... Are there other teams that... That's weird. That also did that? No other team has done that example. That's kind of a unique thing. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Leagues have retired entire numbers before. Like, you know, the NHL, for instance, has retired number 99, you know,

because of, you know, Wayne Gretzky. So like, the entire league... I was thinking in my head, I was like... Because, you know. Yeah, sorry, sorry. Because it's almost 100 and they can't have three digits. I was like, I want to say Gretzky, but I'm not gonna, because I'm going to see it, and then it's going to wrong. Yeah. So anyway, just a little bit more to, to the story of Michael Jordan and the Bulls and their fines and why they were getting fined. To continue with the housekeeping here, we did have an, we had an, um, actually against our own trivial pursuit card. It was a question about the shot clock in international basketball. Yeah. Olympic basketball. Okay, right. It was how long is the shot clock? And I think I had guessed 24. And they were like,

no card basically said it's 30 and I went after we're done recording I'm like that doesn't seem right and I looked it up and sure enough that card predated a rule change yeah so it is 24 seconds and the rule change was not recent right the rule change was a while ago yeah yeah it was like over a decade ago well you know we try to bring out the old trivial pursuit cards just to change things up and you know sometimes this happens well yeah you never know yeah it was it was going to be outdated it was correct at one point much like uh her first segment uh pop quiz hot shot. Oh.

And this week it is everyone's least favorite. 1960s Jeopardy. Yeah, talk about being outdated. Talk about a version of the Jeopardy home game that we found at a flea market here near Collins' place with questions and answers from the 1960s. No, no warranty of any kind is implied here. The questions are now mostly impossible. But however, I have picked out a category for us to go through.

All right. And the category is odds and ends. Okay. And that means, in fact, that there is no category. These are five rango bag. Rangoback bag. Potpoury, as they would have called it in 1990s, Jeopardy. For $20, knee bends, dish pie, and the blue sea.

Knee bend, knee bends, dish pie. pie and the blue sea. Colin. What are dances? No. I'm sorry, you've lost $20. Dish pie. Dish pie.

Knee bends and the blue sea. Knee bend. Dish pie. What is that even? You feel like that is the connection. Yeah, right. That's if you can figure out that. What is dish pie?

Kne bends, dish pie, and the blue sea. Karen. What is the Mediterranean? No, no. The answer is, what is deep? Deep Nevens, deep dish pie, and the deep blue sea. The dish pie was the part. I was like, wow.

As in Chicago deep dish pizza pie. It was like deep, blank, blank for all of them. People from the 1960s were about it, apparently. That's your $20 question. Okay, here's your $40 question. Language said to be the language of love. Karen. What is French?

Yes, indeed French. Okay. For $60. Substance used to dry ink before blotters were invented. Oh. Substance used to dry ink before blotters were invented. Substance. Dana.

Wind. Before? No. Powder, like talcum powder. I'm sorry, all answers must be in the form of a question. Dang it. What is powder? No.

What is it? The substance apparently is sand. Apparently they'd sprinkle sand on ink to dry it. Okay. Oh, actually I've heard that. Yeah, oh, yeah. I'm like, oh, yeah. Oh, then they brush it off after.

Sure. Did not know that. Yeah. For $80, a loaded card deck. Okay. A loaded card deck. Yes. Oh, wow.

Okay. A loaded card deck. A loaded. Okay. It's going to be another wordplay thing or category thing. No, I think maybe there's a name of like a loaded card deck. Like with all, including the jokers or something. What is 54?

No. Yeah, I think you're thinking that's too puzzled. I think loaded as in someone has manipulated it. Yeah. That's what I think, too. But I'm trying to think, what's the question to get to this answer? It's a one-word answer. It's a word that is used to describe.

This deck has been blank. What is stacked? It is stacked. Oh, okay. Stacked deck. The deck has been stacked against you. Yeah, I know. I feel like there are other synoms.

Well, all I can give you is what's on the paper. This 1960s Jeopardy feels more like definitions rather than trivia. Yeah. All right, and for $100 American, the small band of flesh around a fingernail. What is cuticle? What is it? Cudicle, yes. Maybe people didn't pay as much attention to their cuticles in the 1960s as we do now in the tens.

There are two of these on your face, and you use them to see. It was a simpler time. It was a simpler time. No, yeah. On your face. Dan is so bitter. All right, good job, Brains. Thank you for our outdated trivia.

A trivia. Unquote. Synonym. Our word puzzle segment. All right. So today's show, the theme was suggested by Mr. Eric S. Stubblefield. Don't know if it's a real or fake name.

It's awesome. Stubblefield. It's plausible. We can agree it's at least plausible. Like a, oh, like, oh, Harry's like stubble. He should talk to our sponsor. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's true. Yeah. This is a famous football player, Dana Stubblefield. Oh, really? So Eric wrote in via email and he goes, Hey guys, love the podcast. I have included a picture of a retro Pepsi Cola sign. How about a quiz on product mascots?

So he sent us a picture of a, uh, of an old mascot called Pete. Pete and Pepsi. Okay. It's kind of just like an old tiny dude. I thought, well, it wouldn't be cool if we had a show about old mascots, current mascots, history of mascots. So today we're time about mascots. When I was young, saw football games at the great big stadium.

Could tell the fans from out of town by the clowns which they had off. 20,000 Red Cowboy Hats with Sport Husters of you. so future all in the zoo So when we agreed to do So when we're all of Arkansas With plastic kids now On the head so we Got out them hogs

So when we agreed to do Mascots for this episode I think it was just all four of us implicitly understood that I would take the sports angle If there was any sports mascots I would talk about sports mascots Yes

Because I love all the lore, and I knew that you guys might not be that interested. Oh, no, I totally am for sports mascots. But you have no grounding in it, yeah. It's because you can't just, like, do a crash course in it. Yeah, it's something that you have to kind of build up over time. The breadth and depth of mascots and sports, at least, especially in America. Oh, it's so. College's.

College in particular. We had to, I think in our elementary school, they had us vote on what we wanted our our mascots to be. Was it a cat? No, I think I picked the gerbils, and I think we had a... It was an open ballot? Well, in North Brantford, the high school, was the Thunderhawks, which is not even a thing.

It sounds cool. It doesn't it, though? Doesn't it, though? And I think that's what we ended up going with through the elementary school. I don't know. It was pretty bad. Yeah, it's pretty good.

It's pretty good. The college, like, seriously, college mascots could be an entire podcast just on its own, like, ranging from real actual animals, you know like karen i know you know uga right the uh the bulldog the bulldog for a university of georgia you know so uga is the dog's name and then yale so is handsome dan yeah yeah i think yeah also a bulldog um i know my dogs yeah yeah do you know do you know mike the tiger mike was a real tiger mike mike the tiger is uh ls you yeah is he's an actual tiger that

they trot out in a in a cage holy they park him in a cage next to the tunnel where the opposing team players have to run out so they have to run by an actual live tiger um it's yeah it's a real tiger it's kind of crazy so if you're gonna i can't do college i settled on pro sports teams is my focus for a couple reasons so chris you talked about like you know having people vote on names yeah and i realize like with pro sports the mascots are always the result of like a marketing department or a focus group or just a branding campaign and they you know it's they end up with just ridiculousness in their own ways. It's like bad puns, just lazy geographical references abound. It's like this is where it's not anything like Mike the Tiger. Like no pro sports team would

ever end up with Mike the Tiger. And aside from like, you know, like the glory days of the late 70s and early 80s of pro sports. And we'll talk about that maybe later in the show. Most of these mascots these days are just, they're so overpolished and overthought. So what I'm going to do, I thought this would be a fun quiz. I'm going to give you guys the name of the mascot for a pro sports team. And you guys together need to reverse engineer. Like, okay, what pro sports team is it? Basketball, football, baseball, baseball, baseball, hockey.

So these will be American pro sports teams, yeah, the big four, right. Yeah, pro basketball, pro football, pro baseball, pro ice hockey. And just to give you a flavor, like, for example, like the Buffalo Bills, okay, you know, the football team, their mascot is. Billy Buffalo. You know, it's like... Why didn't you put that in the quiz? We could have gotten at least one point. They went with the first idea they had.

Right, right, right. Yeah, the San Jose Sharks, the hockey team here in our law or our hockey is S.J. Sharky. Is there, is their mascot. I think his name should have been Jose. And virtually all of these are sort of anthropomorphized animals, basically like a person with a giant. foam ahead of whatever the speeches of animal is.

Yeah, exactly. Who can, yeah. All right. We need to make a costume, some dude's got to be in it. So here we go. All that's set up for. So I will give you the name of the mascot and the sport. And you guys tell me, ideally you tell me city and team name. But remember, you can work together. You can work together. All right. The complete answer

will be city and team name, but give me what you can. This is going to be so frustrating for people who are going to in sports. This professional basketball team has a You don't have to tell us what sport. Oh, yeah?

Are you sure? Oh, yes. Yes, he does, Karen. You know, Karen, there are a few later in the quiz that I'll give you without the sport. How about that? Well, we'll do it that way. All right. This is the pro basketball team has a mascot named Blaze the Trail Cat.

Oh, Trailblazers. Yes, that is the Portland Trailblazers. Wait, sorry. Blaze the Trail Cat. Is there an animal called the Trail Cat? He's a mountain lion. Yeah, so as like a cat you might encounter on the trail. Oh, my God, no.

Oh, man. I think that's one of Sonic the Hedgehog's friends in the cartoon, I think. Who's the Bob? Bigsby the Bobcat? This pro football team has a mascot named Sourdough Sam. Oh. Oh, wait. Oh, wow.

Don't overthink, though. No. Don't overthink, though. Is he a loaf of bread? He's like a 49er. He's a filled with playing chowder? He was originally a prospector. He was originally, and he was very stereotypical.

Like, he had, like, the guns shooting him in the air, you know, like a Yosemite Sam kind of. That's not what prospectors did. No, no. They have an axe because they're like, they're pan for gold. They're planning for gold. But it's like he's the Sam the Panhandler. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or he's like a line cook or something. Yeah. These are very broad caricatures. Yeah, he was actually, so he was a human. He was the one that sort of the non-animal. Sourdose. So, Sourdough Sam, these days he's just, he's more sort of just sort of vaguely old westerny these days. Yeah, he's got the big hat and the, you know, the jeans and that, yeah, but he's a prospector.

All right. They could have been Denham Dan. That would have been. He's going to be Startup Sam in like 50s. Startup stance. Startup stand. That's great. That's great.

Startup stand. He's got his little tablet. Yeah, yeah. Instead of guns, he's got all these like, like, iPhones. Yeah, iPhones. Two iPhones. Programming his app. He's tweeting in one hand, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This pro football team has a mascot named Gumbo the dog. Gumbo football team? Pro football team. New Orleans Saints? Yes, the New Orleans Saints. Gumbo the dog. Wouldn't they have, I guess, wouldn't they have like a saint-like thing?

They have a couple of mascots. He's one of their mascots. Is he a St. Bernard? Yes, yes, St. Bernard, right? Does it have to do it? Because St. Louis. Oh, no, that's wrong. No.

It's actually more. complex than that if you want to get into it we can unpack this uh oh yes i'm so glad you at st bernard parish in louisiana yeah um the saint bernard the dog yeah it's you're making a lot of eye contact and speaking slowly i feel like i don't know what you're talking about this professional football team has a mascot named po poe p o'e oh karen yes baltimore raven it is a baltimore raven It is great. It is great. That's pretty cool. It is pretty clever, right?

And so they're called the Ravens directly because of Edgar Allan Poe. He lived and he died in Baltimore as in, well, he's buried there. Yeah. They originally had an Edgar and an Allen and a Po. And they kind of phased out Edgar and Alan. All ravens? Yeah, they're all ravens. They're, again, like Anthropathized Ravens, right.

A group of ravens is called an unkindness. Oh. Nice. So maybe they went down a one. I like that. A murder of crows and an unkindness of ravens. This basketball team has a mascot named Bernie and Bernie. Oh, oh, okay.

Is this the Miami Heat? It is the Miami. No. Because it burns so good. B-U-R-N-I-E-B-E-B-U-R-N-I-E. What is it? He's like a vaguely unidentified. He's like a vaguely unidentified.

anthropomorphized flame ball. He's got like a basketball. He's part red fur. He's a little kid with a magnifying glass and he goes around burning ants during the games. Mascox is a little kid

and a giant foam magnifying glass. All right. We're going to close out here with three and I'm not going to give you the sport, Karen. So as you have, we'll make this a little trickier. So you guys can buzz in if you want. You can work together.

So I'm going to give you the name of the mascot. You tell me the sport and the team. Okay. So that means that the sport will be hinted at in the mascot name. Okay. All right. What team has a mascot named Iceberg? Iceberg.

Iceberg. Berg. Dana. Hockey. Yes. Pittsburgh? Yes. Oh, wow.

Yes. And it is spelled Ice. B-U-R-G-H. Yes. Iceberg. the penguin. I didn't say the penguin because that would have been a clue. So it's, yeah, very clever. All right, next one. What team

has a mascot named Stuff the Magic Dragon? What? Stuff the magic dragon, Chris. Is this the Orlando Magic of basketball? It is the Orlando Magic Bastafall team.

Oh. Stuff. As in stuffed the ball. Yes. Stuff. They have to pay residuals on Mary? I think they might. I hope they are.

All right, last one, last one. Here we go. What sport and team has a mascot named the swinging friar, the swinging friar. And that's friar as in like. Friar Tuck, yeah, not like a deep friar. The Swinging friar? Swinging friar. Okay, well, it's baseball.

It is baseball. Oh, it is. Dana. The Padre. It is. Oh, there we're going to. The San Diego Padres. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised you didn't have, uh, you didn't have Lucille in this quiz. We all know Lucile. Oh, but you know, you know, but not, listeners at large might not know. Yeah, so Lucille is the mascot for the San Francisco Giants. He's a, Lou, Space, Seal, the Seal, yeah. But it's also sort of a reference to the San Francisco Seals, which were the pro baseball team for many years in the Pacific Coast League.

Oh, that's just because we had. seals. It's sort of a way of also... We do. We've got the seals right off the coast. Sea lions. Ah, sorry. Sea lions.

Sorry. Good catch. But Lou Seelion ruins the pun, though. No, it doesn't. Lou the sea lion. It's like a Lucille ball if she were a charged particle. Lucille lion. Oh, nice.

All right. Well, good job, guys. You nailed every single one there. Well done. Okay, so I have a quiz for you guys. It is a product mascot quiz. I've tried to order it from easiest to hardest. All right.

That's how my brain works, so that's good. Let's buzz in with the answers. We'll do it lightning style. We'll just try to go through these. All right. This was the name of Domino's pizza mascot in the 80s and 90s. Everyone. The noid.

The noid. He's almost like an anti-mascott. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would ruin your pizza. Sir shakes a lot. burger thing and Wizard of fries were mascots for this fast food chain

McDonald's no no oh is it sir shakes a lot Karen Wendy's no I'm gonna guess Burger King it was Burger King because they got the royalty thing right right right yeah Sir shakes a lot yeah the Wizard

I thought it was just sort of discarded McDonald's yeah it was discarded Burger King mascots it felt like they were trying really hard to like wrapping McDonald's. To create a whole... When I think of a medieval setting, yeah, I think of burgers. Leo the Lion is the mascot for which film company?

Chris. MGM, Metro Goldwyn-Mire. Yes, yes. What is Jack in the Box's mascot's full name? Oh, well, it's... Chris? Jack N. Box. Oh, you're so close.

Oh, really? Yeah. Colin? Jack D box? No. Jack I box. Jack I box. Like in the box.

Jack eye box. So as a bonus, do you remember, he mentions his wife's name in one of the commercials. Do you remember her name? Her name is cricket. Yes. What? I just like that name. I just wanted to ask that question.

I do too. I know he has a sign. He's junior. Yeah. And I think they're. Why, he's such a good mascot. I think there's one where he's wearing a sweatshirt, and it says like he went to ball state.

Like it's head is a ball, right? It's like, I love this little universe I've created. It's very self-aware. What's the name of Toys R.S.'s mascot, Karen. Jeffrey, the giraffe. Yes. Spelled. Gioffrey.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Geoffrey. The mascot for planter snacks. Oh, Karen. Oh, is your full name, Mr. Peanut? Mr. Peanut. Yeah. Okay. He, you know, it.

What's his first name? His last name. He missed her. Mr. He had another name, and it was super long, but it was the 14-year-old kid who drew him first. Oh, that's right. Right. But it was not his official name, so I didn't include it.

Yeah, okay. What are the names of the Cracker Jack mascots? Crack. Oh. Oh, sorry. I was thinking, sorry, Rice Krispies. I'm sorry. The boy and the dog.

Yeah. Yeah. Is it just like Crack and Jack? No. The dog has its own. Is one of them Jack? Kind of. Jackie.

Is it Jacques? No. Jackson. It's Sailor Jack. Sailor Jack. His dog had a. And his dog. Crunch.

Bingo. What? Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. You're on the right. Tries. Yeah.

Bingo. Yeah. Because. Sailor Jack and Bogo. That's good. That's good. That's good to know. Sailor Jack and Bingo.

That's good to know. Who is the mascot for progressive auto insurance? Call on. That's flow. Flow. Who's the e-surance mascot? That's the cartoon with the spy. The spy cartoon.

Yes. That is Aaron Esurance. Yes. Wow. Yeah, the voice actress for Aaron insurance every now and again shows up at like Comic-Con and stuff like that. Signing autographs for money.

I sold the laptop to her. Oh, wait. She's local in San Francisco. The voice actress. Well, that just stops on my story. I saw her wife and you sold her a laptop. Yeah, like my old MacList. I donated her a kidney.

How about that? I am Aaron insurance. He should have been faster with the buzzards. Yeah. Yeah, I think I did. It was on Craigslist. What's the name of the Hawaiian Punch mascot? Oh.

Punchy. Punchy. Not like. I thought it was going to be something clever. Yeah. No. Nope. Nope.

And he really punched people. He did. He's like, you want to punch, and then he like slams in the face with his fist. And then he like, like, you like the punch. Jokes on you. They never get a drink at all. Soda for jerks. Like, full on assault.

Which actress is the voice of the brown Eminem? Oh. Colin. I know this because I think Karen told me it's Vanessa Williams. Yes. Yep. So full credit. it to you, Karen. I got that knowledge

from your head. It was from a, yeah, our good job bringing Twitter, I think it was a tweet. Okay. Here's a little, the cereal section. The name of the cinnamon toast crunch chef. Oh. What? Toasty. No.

Crunchy. His name is Wendell. Wendell. Okay. I knew that because I watched a lot of Saturday morning cartoon. Wendell. Wendell. I guess that's just part of the commercial lore. Yeah. Sure.

Is it a canon? Sure. The name of the cornflakes rooster. Oh, that. Karen. Cornelius. Yes. Oh.

The honeynut Cheerios B. Oh, I don't know. Oh, yeah. What is his name? It's Chris. Honey. No. That's what his mom calls them.

Oh. I can't remember. Buzzbee the bee. Buzzbee. Kellogg's Raisin brand. Karen. The son. Oh. Sunny?

Sunny. I didn't know that he had a name. Okay. What's the name of the Orbitz chewing gum woman? Oh, my gosh. She has a name. Orbits. She's a human being. Orbits. I have no idea. Miss Clean.

No. It's got to be something that starts with, oh, like, like, just start with O. It's a British lady name. Odessa. Oh, you're so close. It's Vanessa. Oh. Oh, okay. Wow, did they ever, this is like, that's deep, deep, yeah.

You gotta be a, like, a gum jockin. A gumhead. Yeah. Real gumhead. This mascot's real name was Honey Tree Evil Eye, and she featured in a very popular advertising campaign for beer. Honey Tree. Evil Eye? Evil Eye.

Yeah. That is the real name of Spuds McKenzie. Yes. Oh, my God. God. Wow. And do you know how long the Spuds McKinsey advertising campaign ran? It was two years.

Oh, really? I wasn't going to guess that short. I was going to guess like five years. It was like 87 to 89. And it was because moms against drunk diving were like, you're advertising this to kids. You're advertising. Oh, cute dogs. Because there were all these stuffed toys.

Yeah, exactly. Went out with Joe Camel. Yeah. Tom Arnold voiced an oven mitt, who's the mascot. for this fast food chain For a fast food chain Yeah, Karen Arby's

Yes Tom Arnold voiced an oven in oven I first thought I was going to be hamburger helper But that doesn't sound like Tom Arnold The second worst decision Tom Arnold ever made So this mascot first appeared in 1889

And in the picture He's holding a goblet of nails and glass Exclaiming in Latin What translates to Now is the time to drink. Oh, oh, yes. His name is Bibidam. Yes.

Who is the Michelin Tireman. Yes. Because Michelin Tire swallow obstacles. Right. So he had a goblet full of nails. And that poster, that concept art, was originally for a beer company that the artist drew. And then quickly, they quickly modified it because it's like, this tire company needs a mascot. Oh, okay.

well, he's now made of tires. He drinks nails. And yeah, you get it. And they did. Yeah. Yeah. They got it. The John Draper of their office when it had pitched that one.

They sold it. They sold it. Really well. Last question. What is the first name of the Pringle's mascot? Oh. The guy with the mustache. Oh, dang it.

I, it's. I didn't know here. Yeah, I know. Oh, he did. Crisp? No. Pop? No.

Is it, like, Phineas or something like that? Yeah, it's in that spirit. It is Maximilian. Julius. Julius. Julius Pringles is his name. Julius Pringles. Yeah.

Well, you know, sure. Okay, Julius Pringles. Wow. You got to remember that one, along with Horatio Magellan Crunch. I like these names a lot. That's great. A lot. There you go. Mascots.

That was awesome. Let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsor. Are you dreaming about becoming a nurse or maybe you're already in nursing school? I'm Nurse Mo, creator of the straight A nursing podcast and I want you to know that I'm here for you. I know nursing school can be challenging. I've been there. But it doesn't have to be impossible. Sometimes the key to succeeding in nursing school is to hear the constant. explained clearly and simply, which is exactly what you get with weekly episodes of the Straight A Nursing podcast. Each Thursday, I teach a nursing concept or share tips and advice to help you succeed in school and at the bedside. My goal is to help you improve how you study,

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Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses? now than they used to. Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to Minute Earth wherever you like to listen. Okay, in Dana's quiz, we had a lot of old or tired or retired mascots, and I want to talk about one particular mascot. Back in the day when there was orange juice concentrate, you know

like the frozen orange juice that we drink now, it used to be crappy. Like, people used to not drink it. When I was a kid, it was bad even. So in those days, how to make orange juice concentrate is really they just boil out the water and then freeze it. A lot of people never really drink the orange juice because it tasted gross. They used to come in a, like, a crappy can. So it tastes like metal.

I remember, oh, I remember quite clearly, like after school when I was, as a kid like going over to friends houses and like it just it just tasted like i don't know like i was not so good like what you would get on an airplane or something you would have been that's what we had had we been in our house you would have been super disappointed had we been friends i liked making it i liked opening the can that was fun but even before we're kids can you imagine how even like worse that taste it was it was bland you oh yeah sure and the thing is when you're boiling the orange you boiled off yeah you boiled off a lot of the stuff yeah um and so in the 50s and 60s that's when they ramped up in technology and science, a bunch of scientists developed a process where

they mix that boiled down gross concentrate and they actually added real juice to it and added back vitamin C and like an orange oil and all that stuff that got boiled off. They added it back in. So now it actually tastes more like orange juice. And because they were under a lot of pressure, like we got to sell this. And people weren't drinking orange juice. How do we get people to drink more orange juice? Part of this big marketing and science push is, of course, from the Florida Citrus Commission.

Yeah, it makes sense that Florida would be motivated to make good juice available to the world. Yeah, grapefruit's orange. And I'm guessing it's easier to make orange juice concentrate in Florida and then ship that all over around the United States. Right, yeah. Make it a thing that, you know, every household would have. Of course, this leads to one of my favorite things to talk about, which is Disney. Disney. So the Florida Citrus Commission represented in the parks as Florida citrus growers, which sounds more homey.

It makes you picture of farmers instead of people in business suits. Exactly. And this is when a lot of the Disney theme park attractions, it was all very heavily kind of corporate sponsored, right? Yep. So a contract was signed on. October 22nd, 1969, formalizing the Florida Citrus Commission's underwriting of a, quote, Tropical Bird Show attraction at the cost of $3 million. This tropical bird show, us Californians or Disneyland goers, know it as the Tiki Room.

The Enchanted Tiki Room. It is renamed. Sponsored by Dole, right, here in California. Sponsored by Dole in Walt Disney World, when. they're debuting it, it was called the tropical serenade. All parts of the pineapples were removed and replaced with orange. I'm scandalized. He just like re-skinned it with different citrus.

They have, um, they have animatronic birds, uh, Clyde and I forgot, I mean, I can look it up, but, uh, it's okay, Karen, it's all right. Two animatronic birds outside as you're waiting for the attraction, they'll talk and they'll spit out jokes and they even like sneak in some orange, uh, some citrus like comedy lines in there. But the brilliance is, so there is a dedicated hut. It's like a snack stand.

Everything in there is citrus related. It's called the Sunshine Terrace. Not only that, the whole park, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, whatever, always has orange juice on the menu. They have other dishes that incorporate citrus. They don't really say, like, brought to you by this,

but they make sure it's in a lot of parts of the park. So, for example, some of the food, very outdated, Tandrine cheesecake, Fiji chicken with orange chunks, specialty hamburger plate with Florida citrus jello. There is a cottage cheese jubilee salad consisting of cottage cheese mix in with tiny bits of oranges. That sounds so 70s.

It is. This is totally 70s. And at the Sunshine Terrace, which is the citrus-centric snack stand, there is a special item it is called the citrus swirl and what it is it's soft serve half of it is vanilla half of it is like like frozen like an orange sherbert type thing yeah okay and then it's swirled and you eat it so it's creamy and it's tangy so they don't they don't have the doll whip yeah they still they still have do but somewhere else somewhere else okay but this is the dead but this is the the special disney world thing yeah citrus swirl you can't get in disney way just

They're trying to indoctrinate their visitors into a world of citrus. It's part of the deal. Part of this deal. WED, now is, I guess, imaginering. They had to make Pluto orange. They had to design a character. Oh. A mascot for Go Orange, I guess.

It has a pro-orange agenda. I vaguely know this because this is like your favorite Disney character. Okay, I'm going to show you guys. Some designer got some notes. We need orange. but edgy cute We need orange Make it cute

Make it Disney I'm going to show you a picture Of this character Just tell me what you see Orange bird It's called an orange bird Oh okay That's his name

It's orange bird So they didn't spend a lot of time on this It's insane No it's perfect It is pretty great It makes everybody be like Oh it's a bird But it has an orange head

It's an orange bird Yep The little leaves are coming out of his head And then the leaves are his arms Or his wings, rather, because birds don't have arms. It's really good. They really well designed. It's very cute.

He's very cute. I personally love this character. I think it's simple. I think it's to the point. I think it's minimalistic. It doesn't have a lot of like bells and whistles. Kind of looks like Huey Dewey and Louie got men and shyness. Johnness.

And then both. And then both. You're right. Yeah. So Orange Bird debuted. And of course, Orange Word has to have a backstory. and have to have song and dance. So they've been listed the Sherman brothers

who are famous for writing all the Disney, classic Disney hits, all the songs from Mary Poppins. And they even have the Orange Bird, the story of the Orange Bird songs. Not only is this a Disney character, this is also the Florida Citrus Commission character as well. So now Orange Bird is now on a lot of the print ads,

the TV ads. Oh, so they're allowed to use him in their own stuff. Basically, that was part of the deal. Interesting. And so is this character still used? So the Florida Citrus Commission also had another spokesperson. Her name is Anita Bryant, and she was a singer. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, both Anita Bryant and Orange Bird would be together in ads. They were kind of packaged together. Like Paula Abdul and the cat? Yes. Oh, okay, great. Like the opposite's a track cat. He had a name. MCCat Cat Cat.

Wow. All right. Good night, everyone. We're going home. Yeah, that was peak trivia for the episode right there. M.C. Stat Cat, awesome. Wow. Okay.

Anita Bryant had a little bit of controversy because she is openly very anti-LGB. Okay. And very outspoken about it, which caused a lot of people to boycott orange juice. In the 70s. So a lot of people are like, because you're against this and you're this spokesman for orange juice. We're going to register our discontent by not buying orange juice. Actually, gay bars

all over the states stopped serving screwdrivers. Stop serving screwdrivers. Oh, my God. And replace them with vodka and apple juice, which is named the Anita Bryant. Oh.

So her own music career and popularity declined because of this. So did, you know, orange hoopla, all this like partnership kind of died in popularity. Oh, so Orange Bird. Oh, no.

Orange Bird. Oh, no. Orange Bird didn't ask for any of this. No. Poor old Orange Bird. Orange Bird was retired. And the thing is, outside of Florida or outside of Disney World, no one really knew about Orange Bird because it's not like he's in a cartoon or anything.

Yeah. And then, like, 20 years later, there is a weird resurgence. There are two parts of this resurgence. It's so strange. I remember, Chris, you talked about Delta debuting song airline, which is their, quote, women targeted to women airline. In their in-flight entertainment system, in the music system, there was like a Disney classics playlist. One of the songs was the Orange Bird song.

And people were like, oh, what is this? The other thing is, in Japan, there is a holiday known as Orange Day. And that's you, like a custom where you give your, kind of like a, kind of like a Valentine's thing, like you give someone you like an orange. Okay. With Disney merchandise, you can see a lot of some orange bird floating around in the merchandise stuff, even though he's retired, but no one knows who he is. Somehow the Japanese latched onto it. And they started producing orange bird merchandise without really knowing any of the full Florida story because he's so cute. Like, he's like, you know, he's like a character. Because of a lot of these weird kind of Orange Bird cameos throughout the years.

Finally, Orange Bird returns to the Sunshine Tree Terrace on April 17, 2012. Oh, wow. And he's back. And so is the citrus swirl. So are all the orange treats. One of the greatest days of my life. It went away for a while, the citrus swirl? Yep.

I would try that Okay Well As with Colin Who heard the title of this episode And was like Well I guess I'm doing sports I have prepared

The obligatory Video game mascot Quiz Please please be gentle with us Chris No I shan't However Denied

So I'm sort of varying up The ways in which I ask these questions All right. Are we buzzing in? You are buzzing in. Okay, man. And buzz in with pride, if you know these answers. All right, here we go. Wow.

Okay. Oh, man. The mascot of the video game company Accolade is this kind of real-life big cat, whose Latin name is Lynx Rufus. Lynx Rufus. Colin. Is it a mountain lion? It's not a mountain lion.

Well, isn't Mountain Lion Puma? I'm just looking for the type of... Yeah, Bobcat, Matt. Hmm. Okay. Karen. Panther. Not Panther. Mentioned by Karen earlier in the show.

It's Bubsy the Bobcat. Oh, I thought you meant the company. Oh, no, just the... The mascot is this kind of real-life Big Cat. Latin name is Link's Rufus. I was like thinking the logo. I was like, oh, what's that you know what I mean of the company? Yeah, sorry.

What we're talking about here are not... necessarily just main characters in a video game, but characters that have, maybe they were main characters in a video game, but the company tried to make them emblematic of that company. They're in some way elevated

beyond a single video game into being emblematic of the representative of that company. Bubsy the bobcat. Yeah, man, that game is terrible. Pretty bad. That was the era, and I'm not going to ask about a lot of these, because that was the era of many, many, many animals.

mascots. There was awesome possum, rocky raccoon, zero the kamikaze squirrel. Everybody was trying to do something. Didn't work out. Okay. The game company, Asmic, had a pink dinosaur for a mascot. In Japan, he was called Asmic Coon. They were like, Mr. Asmick. This would not fly in the U.S. They had a contest to name him. And the winning name was a name that was shared by Herbert Jefferson's Character on Battlestar Galactica. Who did Herbert Jefferson play? Karen. Apollo.

Not Apollo. Starbuck. The role was later played by Grace Park. Boomer. Boomer. Boomer. Boomer. Nintendo's longtime mascot, Mario.

Mario. Mario. Mario. Was named after a real-life person named Mario. Yes. What relationship did that person have with Nintendo of America? Karen. He was the super of the building that Nintendo America was, the offices were in New York.

Yeah, basically. He was the landlord of their first business park. Yes, Mario Seagali. This gaming mascot's original name was Mr. Needle Mouse. Dana. Sonic the Hedgehog. Hedgehog in Japanese is actually Huddinezumi, which means needle mouse. Needle, needle, rodent, needle mouse.

I can do that. Gex. GEX, the would-be mascot of the failed 3DO gaming system, was this sort of animal, who would later become the long-running mascot of an insurance company.

I knew. Geico. Gecko. Gecko. And he had his own game, right? Or, I mean, it was... Yeah. Yeah, he had a game. Okay.

Had a game. The musical duo, Buckner and Garcia, had a top ten hit single in 1982 that they wrote about this gaming company mascot. God, that's not Pac-Man Fever. Yeah, Pac-Man.

Colin? Is it Pac-Man Fever? It's Pac-Man Fever. Oh, okay. It's 182. I didn't know he was the company mascot, but, okay. Yeah.

He is the company mascot of Cobbondi games. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, hit number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1982, Pac-Man Fever. Can you imagine today's song, I mean.

Well, Angry Birds, Fever. You know what, maybe it's not so ridiculous. Yeah, candy crush here. I got a candy crush on you. Oh, it writes itself. Oh, my God. All right. This popular character, absolutely emblematic of the game console on which he appears, by the way.

This popular character is an anagram of cream fetish. Oh. Just wanted to say Cream Fetish Fetish Fetish Cream Master Chief Wow

Halos Sorry, halos Master Chief Cream Fetish Cream Fetish The name of Sony's erstwhile mascot character is one of a

species of small marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea Colin Crash Bandicoot Crash Bandicoot Yes Like many marsupials Bandicoots have

A bifurcated penis Oh okay The tag teaming penis right Like the double-headed Yeah I don't recall I seen too much of those in the video game I mean

Yeah it's like What's that in the video? Yeah you play the games a lot deeper than I do though So it's possible Yeah the ratings board Cut those out Yeah what's the rating sticker For bifurcated penis

BP, actually. Yeah, and you hardly ever see that on the game boxes. Yeah, yeah. But Crash Bandicoot was not the first mascot on the PlayStation. The first mascot for the PlayStation brand was a character based on a, he was based on a thing. He was sort of based on a concept. And that concept, the word for that concept is derived from the Greek words for many and

Corners. Polygon. Polygon. Yes. Polygon man. It is a purple man's head telling you that you are not ready to play the PlayStation. Like the dude in Star Fox. Yeah.

It was like a disembodied head. They got rid of him pretty fast. Because it's pretty creepy. Because it's pretty bad. Yep. Nice. Yeah. And that's that.

Cool. There are really many. reasons to listen to our podcast, Big Picture Science. It's kind of a challenge to summarize them all, Molly. Okay. Here's a reason to listen to our show, Big Picture Science, because you love to be surprised by science news. We love to be surprised by science news. So, for instance, I learned on our own show that I had been driving around with precious metals in my truck before it was stolen. That was brought up in our show about precious metals and also rare metals, like most of the things in your catalytic converter, I was surprised to learn that we may begin naming heat waves

like we do hurricanes. You know, prepare yourself for heatwave Lucifer. I don't think I can prepare myself for that. Look, we like surprising our listeners. We like surprising ourselves by reporting new developments in science. And while asking the big picture questions about why they matter and how they will affect our lives today and in the future. Well, we can't affect lives in the past, right? No, I guess that's a point. So the podcast is called Big Picture Science, and you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts. We are the host. Seth is a scientist.

I'm a science journalist, and we talk to people smarter than us. We hope you'll take a listen. All right. And we have one last segment. I'm going to wrap it up where we started, which is, again, with sports, mascots. All right. And I had alluded to the sort of the glory days of the late 70s and early 80s. I want to tell you guys about Yupy.

You guys know who, Y-O-U-P-I-P-I-E-I-Xclamation point. U-P-E. Was this, this has got to be some terrible idea for like an Olympic mascot or World Cup mascot. It doesn't seem like it's U.S. Yeah. Wow, you guys are all just dancing right around. Yeah, UP is French. Okay.

U.P. was the mascot for the Montreal Expos baseball team. Oh, okay, okay. And Yuppie is like French for Yippee. So Yipi. That's how I thought it wasn't going to be, but I was like, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yupi is a groundbreaking pro sports mascot.

And I'm just going to tease it with that. And we will wind up there and I'll find out how he was groundbreaking. Do you mean like they dug a hole in the ground? Yeah, yeah. The 70s were funny. Like, you know, like there were mascots for pro teams before the 70s. You know, I mean, like, Mr. the mascot for the Mets, New York Mets baseball team, who's like basically just a guy with a giant

baseball head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he dates back to the early 60s. And, you know, so that wasn't a new idea. But the costume mascots that kind of fell out of favor, you know, just generally toward the end of the 60s. And I don't know if it's because they were maybe a little too corny, a little too earnest. The late 70s in America, it was kind of like this resurgence, though, of like, how do we get mascots on pro sports teams and have them be interesting and cool. So they're kind of like three, sort of like the big three of that era were the San Diego chicken, the Phoenix Sun's gorilla, and the Philly Fanatic.

That's Fanatic with the pH. Now out of those, yeah, yeah, I can see you guys kind of nodding with some recognition. You may have seen the Philly Fanatic, who's just sort of this big, sort of not really human, but humanoid, hairy, green, yeah, weird, weird sort of. mouth, nose extrusion on his face. And sort of in order, the San Diego chicken came along in the 1970s.

Wait, which the baseball? So the San Diego chicken was unofficially a mascot of the Padres. And I mean, it sounds crazy to say it, but he was sort of like a local celebrity chicken, if you will. Oh, a real chicken. In San Diego. No, no, he was a guy in a chicken suit. But, you know, he was a cartoon and he was sort of

created in San Diego, started attending Padres games as part of marketing stunts, basically, and sort of sort of just became popular with the fans, with it show them on TV. People would sort of recognize, like, oh, hey, there's the San Diego chicken. You know, you couldn't have predicted this.

Like, and it kind of had to happen organically. Sort of the same thing with the Phoenix Suns gorilla. Like, to make a very long story short, this is, I'm not making this up. One night, a guy showed up with a Phoenix Sun's game. He had been sent as a singing telegram wearing a gorilla suit. Like a fan of the team had sent like, hey, you know, kind of as like a prank or a joke, go to the arena.

So the guy shows up. and sort of the security crew at the arena is like, you know, you should hang out and sort of just you just sort of caper a little bit under the, under the hoops like, during breaks in the action, you know. Just hijinks. Yeah, just hijinks for the crowd. And yeah, and he proved to be a hit. Oh, of course. Long story short, the gorilla became an official part of the Phoenix Suns basketball team.

That's kind of cool. Yeah, he's one of the more well-known ones. But those were really just literally people in suits who got turned into masks. guts. The Philly fanatic was commissioned by the Philadelphia Phillies. They sort of saw the success of the chicken. They're like, so this is, this is, you know, only pro sports. Only pro sports, people, right.

They just saw how well this chicken was doing. So, God, this chicken just has an it factor. We can't put our finger on it. But in 1977, the Phillies commissioned the Harrison-Erickson firm. which was basically a firm that spun out of the Jim Henson days. Oh, I was just going to say it looks like a Muppet. Absolutely. The Philly Fanatic is very Muppet-like because he was made by people who came out of the Muppet, you know, sort of studios.

Yeah, exactly. That's right. And they specifically wanted something that was going to bring families to the ballpark. And this was sort of novel. Like they committed, they wanted a mascot that wasn't directly tied to the sport. You know what I mean? Like they didn't want a guy with a baseball. baseball for a head. They wanted something just goofy and fun. And you know why? Because if he's a hit,

then they can make him wear different things. Absolutely. Be a spokesperson for the city or for, yeah. And he was a hit. People love the Philly Fanatic. All right. So successful was the Philly Fanatic that two years later, the Montreal Expos in 1979. Yes, we're coming back to UPI. They said, basically, they said, we want a Philly Fanatic of our own. And so they commissioned the same firm. They commissioned Harrison Erickson said, make us a mascot basically in the same style as the Philly Fanatic. So they made Yupi. Yupi is a little more humanoid. Like he kind of looks like a like a fairy fantasy creature.

So the Expos had been in Montreal since 1969. They were named after Expo 67, yet another thing on the show named after a World Fair. Right. And they had been having losing season after losing season after losing season. Yupy comes along in 1979, first winning season. season for the Montreal Expos. So now, after the 2004 season, the Expos moved. They left Montreal.

Yeah. And they are the team that's now the Washington Nationals. So they, you know, as teams often do, they relocate. And when they relocate, they will change their name. So when you, the Washington Nationals basically inherited kind of the history of the Montreal Expos, but not the name. And the fate of U.P. It was kind of up in the air. Right.

Now, after, after, after many years. years there at the end of decidedly average and Americans, you know, yeah, across the country. Yeah. They're not going to necessarily have an affinity with Yupi. Right. So the Expos had not been great in their final years in Montreal. I mean, records were again kind of back to average, below average. And I think it's fair to say that a lot of-

The UPy bump was over basically. Yeah, the Yupy bump had dropped, right. And then things got serious. Other teams in Montreal started bidding. They're like, we want to keep Yupy. Like, you can take the team with you, but we want to keep Yupi's Montreal-born, Montreal Brandy's French. Triumphantly in September 2005, the Montreal Canadiens. Oh, the Hads?

The hockey team, the Canadian, right? They announced that they had won the rights to Yupi. So here is where Yupi is breaking ground. Yupi is the first mascot to be traded or sold, depending on how one of your own. how to look at it, not just from one team to another, but crossing sports. Cross over. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

So, Yupi is now proudly still in Montreal, proudly sports Canadians' sweaters instead of Expo's jerseys when he appears. Wow. And he's a lot more violent. And they, yeah, yeah, he gets penalty minutes on a regular basis now. So he's a hockey mascot now. And here again, where the genius of not making him sports specific work. Because it's not like the New York Rangers could take Mr. Met, you know what I mean?

It's like, oh, he's hockey now. It's like, well, Weiss has had a baseball. Right. Yeah, the fact that he's so completely removed and abstract from everything. Yeah, it worked out perfectly. It made his sport agnostic. So that's the tale of Yupi, the Montreal-bound mascot. He has like a Cheetos color.

He's very furry, orange furry, but he has white part in his face. It looks like an upside-down ovary. That's what it looks like. Oh, yeah, it does. It's like a guy with the beard. It looks like a big Cheeto. But again, you're right, it looks like a cross-section diagram. Upside down ovary.

Yep. Of the uterus. Yep. We took Garfield and the female reproductive system and combined them. It's outstrat. All right, and that is our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learned a lot of stuff about product mascots, video game mascots,

orange bird. I want some orange swirle. Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry. I'm ignorant. It is so delicious. Like, I eat it every time I'm there. And you can, of course, find our show on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and on our website, good job,brain.com.

Thanks for our sponsor, Harries, and we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Have you ever wondered how inbred the Habsburgs really were? What women in the past used for birth control or what Queen Victoria's nine children got up to. On the History Tea Time podcast, I profile remarkable queens and LGBTQ plus royals, explore royal family trees, and delve into women's medical history and other fascinating topics. Join me every Tuesday for History Tea Time, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed.