This pestilence began with that damn Mickey Mouse running around Disneyland and Disney World. "Why doesn't he talk?" millions of little tykes ask. "He's saving his voice for his next movie," reply millions of soon-to-be-broke-as-hell parents. Why doesn't Big Al talk? Why doesn't Aubie talk? Because they're just a couple of stupid college students in stupid costumes and they don't have anything to say.
KGB, the San Diego Chicken, was funny the first few hundred times I saw him. Then came the Phillie Phanatic, a horrific creation, then suddenly everybody had to have a mascot. Lest we forget, the whole idea of these mascots was something the boys in marketing came up with to put butts in seats. Distressed that the lucrative 3 to 7 year-old demographic might not be properly targeted, the boys in marketing decided that what every team needed was a mascot in a fuzzy costume.
Damn thing doesn't even have tusks. Pitiful.
Unbelievably, the University of Alabama copied an Auburn concept when they unveiled Big Al at the end of the 1979 season. It was in response to Aubie, himself (itself?) a marketing ploy launched during the Doug Barfield era, when Auburn couldn't sell a football ticket if it came with a free John Deere cap. Did Alabama really need a kid in an elephant suit to sell tickets? What were we thinking? Hell, Bama had just won two straight national titles and some geniuses decide we need a mascot, because Auburn has one? I think it snowed in hell that day.
You might reply -- but kids like mascots! What's wrong with mascots? Well, kids like Disney movies, too, but that ain't The Little Mermaid they're showing up there on the jumbotrons. That's an instant replay of Rolando McClain trying to put his headgear through Ryan Mallett's spinal column, that's what it is, and it ain't fit for little kids to see.
Here's the deal. When you have mascots, your little kids want to go to the game. So you take ‘em, because they’re little kids and they’ll cry if you don’t. When they get there, they want to go see Big Al or the other team’s mascot -- even better if they're rasslin' each other -- so you walk them down fifty rows to the fence and back up a couple of times -- and that's when they're not making you fetch cokes, hotdogs and those always-tasty stadium nachos topped with great gobs of nourishing pump cheese. Then you have to go with them to the bathroom about twelve times. Then they get hot and cranky and midway through the forth quarter of a tight ballgame you’ve got no choice but to leave early, try to beat the traffic and endure Eli Gold’s call of the final minutes. I blame all of this on mascots.
Now, a real elephant is out of the question. When Uga takes a dump over in Athens, some sideline attendant can take care of that with a zip-lock bag. If Bama had a real elephant on the sideline, well, the logistics get complicated. I remember when the DKEs were selling elephant rides a few years ago at homecoming (they said it was to raise money for the March of Dimes or somebody, but I know it was for drugs). Anyway, the whole campus smelled like elephant shit all day.
So to sum up... a real elephant won't work and we can do without a fuzzy sideline mascot. We can keep one of Big Al's heads so Lee Corso can make an ass out of himself on GameDay. Better still, that old buffoon can just pick the other team to win. I don't care.
This guy would kill Big Al, just to watch him die.
I like real mascots. As much as it pains me to say it, the eagle flight at Auburn is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And what about the Seminole brave who charges to midfield on his Appaloosa and then plants a flaming spear in the turf? Well, that’s more crowd-pleasing, emotion-charging and potentially intimidating than a sophomore in an elephant suit stomping on a stuffed tiger. I like the Sooner Schooner. I like Bevo. He’s a mean-looking steer. You don’t wanna step on nothin’ Bevo’s left behind. That Southern Cal Trojan Man? Get it? Hell, I even like ol’ Smokey and Uga. They’re real dogs. And I loved it when Uga went after that Aub’s crotch.
Good boy.
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