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Monday, July 29: The Sports Lunatics -The Mascot Show
This is San Diego's mascot. The man in the bag is Ted Gianolas. On his way to court. Before being forced to become the unknown mascot, Ted Gianolas was known as the KGB Chicken, the big bird of baseball. Fans flocked to the stadium to cheer the chicken, even when the San Diego Padres were laying eggs. There's a gentleman dressed in a warm-up of supeciutae layouts from Eastern Conference. What the f*ck are you trying to call? Who do you think you are? Did you ever hear of the great impostor? Was it impostor? The great sports impostor. Who the hell is he? S.J. Sharkey, the shark's popular mascot in an effort to try and bungee from the ceiling of the arena during the pregame introductions got stuck. But right now he's kind of stuck in, well not no man's land, no shark's land. He's like a fish out of water and I guess that's what they mean. And you come out and have a good time and the fans are under the direction of crazy Georgia. You're having themselves a good, good evening and enjoying baseball, enjoying the Coliseum and not hurting anybody. And third base vampire Bob Davidson is throwing Yupi out of the ballgame. He wants him off the Dodger dugout. Tommy LaSorda has put up a complaint. This will draw the ire of the fans. That is pretty. Who had quite an introduction the other night. Seven feet tall, yes. Googly eyes, they say. A squeaky belly button. Haven't been able to see that yet. And he can blow smoke out of his ears. These guys are sports lunatic. This is the sports lunatic show. Welcome to another edition of the sports lunatics. Who are the sports lunatics? Well, we're just two regular guys who love sports history. Hi, I'm Shalavina Halifax, Nova Scotia. And I'm Howie Mooney in Barrie, Ontario. And you are watching or listening to the sports lunatics on YouTube, the sports lunatics, or on your favorite audio platform, and Howie. In Ottawa. Oh, yes, CKDJ 107.9 FM every Sunday at noon. If you're in Ottawa, if you're not in Ottawa, you can still listen to the show CKDJ.net. Howie, we're going to have a little fun. We're in the summertime. A lot of major sports have ended. But we thought we'd have a little fun on this edition of the sports lunatics. Mascots. Love the mascots. We actually, in our four years of doing this show, we have never talked about mascots the way we're going to today. Well, this came to me as an idea based on a little video that I saw, it was put up last week. And it was the anniversary of the grand hatching of the San Diego chicken in 1979. And, I mean, that's a story in itself right there. Ted Gianulus, who played the San Diego chicken. He worked for a radio station in San Diego, KGB FM. He went around as a chicken for different events in San Diego and then got into a problem with them over money. And then he approached the Padres because he wanted a way to get into games free. And he said, I'll be the chicken for the San Diego Padres. And they bit. And so the grand hatching, he was in a giant egg. And it was rolling around the grass at Jack Murphy Stadium. And they did it to the music of 2001, the space odyssey, and also Sprak there, Zarathustra. And when it went, and he emerged from the egg. And the San Diego chicken was born or hatched. Or whatever, however you want to say it. Now, there may be mascots, howie, that actually are listening to this podcast. And if we say stuff that might not be complimentary, it's not that we're making fun, we're mocking. Number one, you got to be creative. You got to be talented. You got to be fit. And, of course, you got to captivate an audience. So it is, it is, you have to be a creative mind and genius in some aspects to pull off some of the antics. And that's what we're going to get into. We're going to talk about some of our favorites. Some of our not so favorites, a little bit of history of mascots in professional sports. But the San Diego chicken to me growing up, you know, again, 10 years difference. So in '79, I was 10. Yeah. So, you know, it captivated me when I saw it on the highlights for the very first time. This grown-ass individual parading around. And I'm like, is that chicken naked? Is that like what? Well, he had some kind of, I think he had some kind of shirt on or something. Oh, yes. Yeah, I know it was covered, but again, you're like, is that what a chicken looks like? Really? Not what they look like on the far more I'm where I'm at right now. Oh, you know, that's not a chicken. What is that? Now, the San Diego chicken wasn't the first mascot. No, no, actually the history of mascots really date back into in terms of American professional sports back in like the 1880s. Oh, oh, yeah, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid to ask what the first 1880s mascot might have looked like though. Well, in terms of baseball, 1983 issue of sporting life about a boy named Czech, but it's or chic, you know, the freak. Yes. Well, it's it's spelled C H I C who carried bats and ran errands for the players and beyond his practical usefulness, the players also considered him a good luck charm. So that was for that was actually according to the Dixon baseball dictionary. And this was back in the 1880s. Wow. And then the first professional, maybe baseball team. You know, Cincinnati had a animal goat. That was their good luck charm. And that was in the 1980 or sorry, 1884 edition of the Cincinnati Inquirer that it dates back. And it was like, how would you pronounce this? I don't know. Seriously. The mascot. The mascot. However, the first mascot in American sports history that we know it was handsome Dan, which was Yale's Bulldog in 1892. And handsome Dan attended every football game with a winning spirit, especially against their arch rival, Harvard. Good heavens. Love you. Yale men. Now professional sports as we know it. Now there were, look, if you watch Ken Burns baseball, if you watch some other baseball documentaries, Max Packen was known as the clown prints of baseball do tricks and just entertain audiences. He was known as a mascot, but he would travel all around to different ballparks around America, whether it was professional, whether it was amateur and put on a show. The actual first modern mascot of a major league team was Mr. Matt, which was found in the programs in print in 1963 and made his first live appearance, of course, when the Mets began to play. In 1964. So, I'll be honest, I don't even know what the first official mascot is, but in terms of the mascots that you and I know, I would say Mr. Matt might be the first one. Well, the Reds, the Reds had a similar guy to Mr. Matt in that he had a giant baseball head. Right. And, and, and he, you know, he, he was, was a running person. And that was, that was on their logo, you know, the Cincinnati Reds logo for a long time with either the corporate logo or their, or their game logo. Mr. Matt, you're right. When I looked up things, he was the first actual kind of mascoty mascot that we, that we think of today as a mascot. Although Handsome Dan was a good boy for Yale, but then there was the chicken, Philadelphia had the fanatic. It spawned the chicken was the first one of these kind of furry mascots that, that, that started running around stadiums all over, all over North America. Okay, I was going to say, would you say the San Diego chicken would be the first crossover super mascot? Oh, I didn't know we were going into super mascot mascot. I'm getting very deep on this subject. I know. But no, like you would see the San Diego chicken at major events. Yes, yes. Yeah, award events, you know, because it was part of, it was, it seemed to cross over that mascot seemed to cross over. It wasn't just San Diego. It was across America. Right. That everybody knew, and North America, that everybody knew who the San Diego chicken was. Well, the Houston Astros paid him $100,000 to come out there for one game to Houston. Right. And perform at the Astros. Exactly. So that's why I'm saying I feel like in the modern baseball world, that mascot was the first crossover. Now, if I'm a Philadelphia fan, I'm sure they're very upset with us right now. Yes. Yes. I'm sure if you're in Montreal, you would go, Hey, you be owns a country and we'll get into the upster. So, yeah. But all of these other ones, all these other furry mascots came about after the chicken. You know, he wasn't the San Diego chicken, then he was the KGBFM chicken at first, but he went to Padres games and performed as the chicken. But once he got let go from KGBFM, he negotiated his deal with the Padres and he became the San Diego chicken that we know and love today. I believe even the San Diego chicken showed up at a WrestleMania. Oh, at some point. Yeah. And that's when you know you've crossed over. He also was part of a show that was hosted by Johnny Bench was a kids baseball kind of show. Yes. The baseball bunch. Right. I just saw one recently with Barry Carter and the chicken. It's on YouTube. What was the one with Bob Euchar? The Bob Euchar show that used to be on on Saturday afternoons. With with with with gnarly Toby Wilson. And I'm going by memory here. And it was something about baseball as well, but Bob Euchar had a show that was that was kind of big for maybe five minutes. Right. Right. The chicken did appear on the tonight show with Johnny Carson. This is what I mean. It crossed that character crossed over. Now, of course, being in San Diego, you're close to LA. So you can make a bunch of appearances, right? But I'm telling you, the San Diego chicken still lives on to this day in my memory as being the first crossover mascot star. Very few have done it. Oh, what? Yeah. When you go, you go. I mean, you mentioned Max Patkin, but I can remember in Ottawa with the Ottawa links. They had Lenny the links. And I don't know if you ever watched that uniform that he wore, but geez. You got to wonder, right? Like you're you are wearing that, especially in baseball. You're wearing for 81 dates. Please say you wash it once. What do you do with the all star break? Yeah, you finally take it to the cleaners. What? Lenny the links. We had a giant links head that that and people in Ottawa will remember. I hope they remember Lenny the links, but I know they said bad things about them, but. Oh, geez. Well, I will tell you a story. So I think it was the whenever the NHL star game was in Carolina. And we went to. There was an event for media. Anyways, there was a table full of mascots. They weren't actually in their garb. And I was like, wow. Wouldn't even like they were like, Oh, yeah, there's the mascot table over there. That's seriously you go eat at the mascot table. Yeah. Yeah. You've been relegated to the mascot table. Actually, they were a very fun. They look like they were having a very good time. I'm sure they may have been fortified by a couple of drinks or two. I actually would love for a mascot. Anybody that's actually been a mascot at a minor league or a pro event. How many steps do you think they would they would do in a game? Like it would be insane. As somebody who counts by steps. Yeah, I would. I would be curious to know that too. But you remember the time, Shawnee, when was it the San Jose Sharks mascot got caught up in the rafters. Yes. Yeah. That was actually very scary. Yes, it was because it was funny video. But everybody was wondering how the hell do you get him down. But he passed out in his costume, didn't he? It might have been. Let me look that up. My son was telling me this yesterday because I was telling him we were going to talk about mascots and he said, yeah, you got to talk about the San Jose Sharks mascot who passed out in his costume. Wow. Really? Yeah. That's what that's what my according to my son anyway. So I will have to look that up. Howie. Yeah. S. J. Sharkey. S. J. Sharkey. Yeah. And he got caught up in the rafters. 40 feet above the ice. No, it does not say that he passed out. He was just attempting a stunt and he got caught. Obviously, every game he would rise down from the rafters. It did not repel. Now you're using big words in this podcast. It happened on March 12, 1999. And it just said that he was coming down and he got entangled in the rope. Oh, and he was left hanging for 40, approximately 40 feet above the ice. He remained there while the starting lineups were announced during the singing of the national anthem. The beginning of the game was delayed 20 minutes while crews tried to rescue him. Wow. He was eventually hoisted upward to a catwalk using a secondary rope. That would be because what if I'm in that suit, I'm thinking, what happens if somehow I get detached or a rope comes loose or you have no idea, right? You have no idea what can be waiting for you. Well, you're trusting a lot of things and people. You certainly are. But S. J. Sharkey was saved. Thank God for that. I mentioned UP or otherwise known as my twin brother and that same all-star game in Raleigh. Of course, they had fanfasts. So all the mascots of all the teams in the NHL would come. So they're walking around and they'll take pictures with anybody. So I had pictures with about half of the NHL mascots somewhere on my laptop. I remember those days. I remember you posting those pictures. Well, yeah, like I had, but UP was an idol to any Canadian kid. Well, UP was probably loved by everybody except Tom Lassorda. He was the only mascot to my knowledge ever to be ejected from a game. It was a, there were into a lot of extra innings. And UP got dressed as if he was going to bed. He had the night gown and the night hat and he had a pillow and he was resting on above on the roof of the Los Angeles Dodgers dugout. And I guess he was making noise up there or something because Tom Lassorda came out of the dugout and wanted him ejected. Well, I'll be honest at first when you see the video and they post it every year on the anniversary. They put MLB post that video every year. And it's like, you're going, okay, is this like a joke? Because Lassorda could be, he was a different cat, right? Like, yeah, but he was also, he was a bit of a ham as well. And he's done tons of other videos with the fanatic and other mascots. Well, there's the one in Pittsburgh, the pirate, the parrot. And he's, you know, he's had fun with those guys. But that night, UP pirate parrot, UP literally pissed off the, I don't know if it was just having a bad night. I don't know what was going on, why he would have UP ejected, but it was one of the great videos. It is on YouTube. Check it out. Audio does not do it justice, even though the announcer's like, they just ejected UP. Who would have thought? And it literally, he had to go. Yeah. But he hammed it up. It was great. And the crowd, of course, turned on Lassorda. It was, it was fun video to watch. Well, the thing about UP too, is that, you know, even though the expos no longer exist, UP still is around. And he's working for the Montreal Canadiens now. Well, and actually one of the poignant, I believe one of the poignant moments that I remember was when Gary Carter passed. And the next home game that the Canadiens had, UP was part of, and it was actually very, it was well done. It was well done. You can find it on YouTube. But of course, UP having that connection with the expos. Gary Carter being one of the greatest expos of all time. And Carter was just, there was nobody bigger at that time in sports in Montreal. Carter was a huge, huge personality for the city ambassador. You know, and it was very, it was very well done. Very, you know, I remember I was a little emotional because Carter was my favorite player. And I just thought the video was, they did a great job with it. But UP was part of that. So there are some tender moments where mascots actually play a role as well. And that was one of them that I remember. But yeah, a lot of fun. And if you were a Canadian kid, BJ Bertie never, never worked for me. I, I, yeah. Seeing in my J's games, I was never a big fan. I've never, I never got into BJ Bertie. But isn't the mascot now for the Blue Jays, isn't it ace or something like that? Yeah, now it's ace. But wasn't it BJ Bertie when we grew up? Oh, yeah, for sure. It definitely was. Yeah, for sure. So there's a lot of, there was a lot of, yeah, no one could replace UP. Because that was a big controversy at the time, I remember, right? How is that when they announced the Montreal was moving to Washington? Yes. What happens to UP? That was actually a sports radio topic. What are they going to do with UP? So it was very good that the Canadians adopted him as their own for sure. Some of the other mascots that come to mind, you know, in baseball, I was, well, actually basketball. There's Go the Gorilla for Phoenix. Okay, yes. Where they do the trampoline and he does the slam dunks and all that. Go has been around quite a bit and very entertaining as well. Made a lot of the plays of the week with some of his antics. Well, yeah, because he was one of the original basketball mascots, wasn't he? He was. Absolutely. I think it's Benny the Bull has been around since 1969 in Chicago. So of course, he was a big part of the Bulls dynasty years and he was another one that was very entertaining and is well known in the NBA circles. He lasted from 69 to 94. Wow. So he's one of the longest tenured mascots in history. Well, the Raptors, the Raptors Raptor, he does a good job. The Raptors Raptor does do a good job. I agree with you on that. As I said, this whole idea for this topic came to me when I saw a video yesterday of the grand hatching of the San Diego chicken. And I thought, this is hilarious, especially with the music going on, you know, from 2001, space odyssey, and he comes out and he's triumphant, even though he's just been hatched. He's a baby, I guess, allegedly, but he, you know, he is, he is the chicken. And somebody mentioned somebody mentioned to me or messaged me and said, do you remember when the San Diego chicken came to Ottawa and he was at a 67's game? And I didn't remember that. But what came to mind when I thought of that was, you remember Crazy George? Yes. Crazy George. The first time he came into my mind anyway, he was at a BC Lions game, a football game. But wasn't he a regular there? I thought Crazy George was a regular, because he was the first CFL mascot or, I guess, what do they, because he wasn't really, was he a mascot? I don't think he was a mascot, but he was like, I thought it more of him as a cheerleader. Right. But I saw him at a BC Lions game, and then I started seeing him everywhere. He was all over the place after that. I saw him in the States at different things, and I saw him in Canada at different things. But I think he was an American, and I could be mistaken about that. But Crazy George was a guy who got people riled up with his drum, and he would go from section to section, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and get people going that way. I thought he was great, and I think he was in Ottawa at a rough riders game in the 90s. He was considered one of the first professional sports cheerleaders, and he did it for over 50 years. He performed, and this is coring to his bio, in front of 25 million fans, live, and hundreds of millions on TV. On October 15, 1981, at an A's Yankees playoff game, he invented the wave. And this is so ironic, because there was a soccer game, and it might have been Uruguay, Brazil, at the Copa Americas, and they did the wave, and I'm like, number one, I know they still do the wave. And it was big, anytime I would go to an event, it was like in the 80s and the 90s, by the 2000s, you're like, I'm getting too old for this crap. I'm just going to, like, sit in my seat, put my hands up, and there we go. But Crazy George is credited with inventing the wave at an A's Yankees playoff game in 1981. I'm thinking, 81, that's wild. I remember in Ottawa, and we would drink at the football games in Ottawa back then. And I think we got the wave going in Ottawa for the first time, and I shouldn't be saying that because it's probably wrong, but I remember my buddy saying, we got the wave going, we got the wave going. You know, and I mean, yeah, Crazy George was that wave guy. Well, I'm going to tell you the history of Crazy George. So we started as a fan in the stands for his alma mater, San Jose State University in 1968. He started getting this persona in the San Francisco Bay area. Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and, of course, the American Football League, brought him in for a Chiefs game. He got the crowd so riled up that Mr. Hunt hired him full time between 1975 and 1979, and that's when his career started, was as the cheerleader for the Kansas City Chiefs. And he is considered the first professional cheerleader ever. And then he then he went on TV programs, Hollywood squares to tell the truth. He was featured in People magazine. He was big. He was big. He was like the chicken where he had this crossover effect, and he wrote his own memoir. He really made a career out of it. And again, I can only imagine how many games he got to go to. He got to go to being a cheerleader. Well, there's a guy in Ottawa or from Ottawa, from Ottawa, Cameron Hughes, who has made that his life, his profession. And he has been the he is a cheerleader guy. He's known for dancing in the aisles of the of the arenas and taking off his T-shirts, multiple T-shirts. And he's going, he goes around to stadiums all over North America now, and her and arenas all over North America now. And I think we would be remiss if we didn't mention Cameron Hughes. So he actually got in trouble with Chuck Knoll, the legendary Pittsburgh Steelers coach, because he was banging the drums so hard and so loud. It was making life difficult in a game against Houston that the commissioner had to step in and tell him to tone it down. The Vikings contacted the Oilers to make sure because they lost a game against Houston and they actually lodged an objection claiming the cheering inspired George disrupted the signal calling of their quarterback. Wow. And Tommy Kramer could not get his instructions out to his receivers because of the crowd noise caused by crazy George. Well, it's not like a crowd would ever do that to a opposing quarterback ever. No, no. And like I said, in a nationally televised game in 1981 between the A's and the Yankees, he got the crowd going. And that was on October 15, 1981. And that was the way he did the wave or that the way he was going. That was the first time the wave was ever done at a professional sporting event. It's insane. Yeah. And then he brought it. So he actually, he did that. He went to Mc Nichols sports arena in Denver for a national hockey league game. He actually claims he started it at this game in 1980 for the Colorado Rockies. Ah. But it. And they started doing it. He got asked to come to a game at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. And he did it with Gretzky and they did a post game locker room and, you know, meet and greet with Gretzky and George. So technically it was on the world stage during this 81 baseball game, but he says it actually started and was inspired by accident when he was doing cheers at a Colorado Rockies game. Wow. In 1980. Does it say when this, when the wave got stale? Ah, likely 1983. No, actually, I remember I went to a J's game at exhibition stadium and I think it was 84. And the whole stadium did it. Like it was nice. And actually, you know, I'm still impressionable. So it actually was like, it was pretty cool. Oh, yeah. No, the first time it happens, it's, it is cool. But I will say this, how it's a big difference when you're 14 and 44 trying to do it. You're like, really? Do we have to do it again? Or you're like either the section that starts it. Or the section that finishes it. You're like, okay, enough, enough. And then if you're like, you stop, then you get booed. Everybody booed you. See, these are the things we start talking about, crazy George. And now we talk about getting booed out of games. It's fantastic. Sure. Sure. The list of teams that he worked for actually was insane. The amount of events that he did. Unbelievable. Yeah. That's a great one, actually. So we've talked about crazy George, Howie. But you have somebody that came to mind as another. I guess in the term of the 70s might have been a cheerleader, but he had a unique style. Yeah. 70s and 80s. Barry Bremen was the sports imposter or the great imposter. And he would work his way into everything. I think the first thing that he did was he put on a Kansas City Kings uniform. When the Kings were still in Kansas City and walked onto the floor for warmups. One of the players, Otis Birdsong, saw him and said, "You don't play for this team. What are you doing here?" And, you know, he eventually got ushered out. But that's how he got started. But he impersonated so many, an umpire in the World Series. He got on the field and stood with umpires. He stood with, you got on the floor and stood with the referees at a basketball game. But just so many different things. So would he just sneak into games? Yeah. He would just sneak in. He was six foot four, so he could kind of blend in with the athletes in that way. But he would just kind of worm his way into things. He did basketball games. He snuck out of the field in it. Yank, he's uniformed during the All-Star game and kind of infiltrated the players that way. But eventually he'd always get found out and have to, you know, but yeah. He was a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Yes. Yes. Wow. An NHL official. He got, he had the NHL's referees jersey on. So he actually grew up in Detroit and that's when he made his debut at the NBA All-Star game. Yeah. This is wild. Well, there was an ESPN, wasn't there an ESPN 30 for 30 on here? There was, there was like a, or an E 60 documentary on his antics. Yeah. He did layups with Kareem and Dr. J. Yes, at an All-Star game. That is nuts. He snuck into multiple events from 1979 to 1987. His only regret was when he gave an acceptance speech on Betty Thomas' behalf at the 1985 Emmys. It was her first Emmy after receiving multiple nominations in recent years. And he had to pay $100.50 fine according to the New York Times. Sadly, he died of cancer in 2011 at the age of 64. But I got a check of the documentary, Howie. I did not know. I vaguely remember hearing about him, but he didn't show up on a lot of highlight packages. Well, you can find a whole bunch of things about him on YouTube, definitely. But his wife crafted a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader outfit for him. It's crazy. And he got on the field and he was, he was doing, working with the cheerleaders and the Cowboys, they filed a $5,000 lawsuit for trespassing and creating a nuisance. And they petitioned to have him banned from cowboy games for life. He snuck on the field in '79 at the MLB All-Star Game. I think that was the one in Seattle as a Yankee, as a Yankee. Yeah, yeah. And he played a practice round at the US Open. Yes, he did. That's right. He was, yeah. Just walked on to the course. This is awesome. The greatest imposter in the history of sports. In 1981, he posed as a line judge like an official at Super Bowl 25 or 15, sorry, at the Super Dome in New Orleans. In '82, he dressed as the San Diego chicken and was stopped from entering the Super Bowl 16 at the Silver Dome. This is insane. Yeah. How was he not banned from like everything? Everything. Everything. At the US Open golf tournament in '79, he snuck on to Inverness and play in Toledo and played a practice round with Wayne Levy and Jerry Pate. In 1980, he was at Baltis Roll and he played so poorly in a practice round that a spectator asked the USGA chairman how such a lousy golfer made it through qualifying. Oh my god. Too funny. If anybody's wondering who Betty Thomas was, she was up for the Best Supporting Actors Award for Hill Street Blues. Hill Street Blues, yes, which was a famous series in the 80s. So oh my god. Good one, Howie. Because the one I was thinking of was she wasn't actually a quote unquote mascot, but she would show up at sporting events all over North America. And that of course was Morgana, the kissing bandit. Yes, yes. And she got her start on a dare. So what she would do if you aren't familiar, she would run on to the field at some point in a game and would kiss her favorite baseball player or other athlete or umpire or whatever event she was at, but she was mainly known for baseball, that she would sneak up. And the list of people that she she got were like a who's who a baseball, Nola Ryan, Pete Rose, Cal Ripken Jr, Steve Carlton, Steve Garvey, like it was a who's who of who she would kiss during her career. And it was started on a dare in 1969 at a Reds game. And Pete Rose got incensed because again, it's a fan coming out of the stands and Pete Rose might have been an intense guy from what we hear was not happy. Well, he said they would run through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball. Well, I think he may have shown a little hellish side to Morgana that day because he berated her with abusive language. Yes. But then the following day after it was, he realized that she was no threat, contacted her and offered her flowers as a response. And her persona took off like it was again, crossover. She was on the tonight show. She was, you knew who she was. She was Morgana, the kissing bandit. Yeah. And had a great career. '77, Howie, wow, if that doesn't make you feel old, I don't know what will. But she was, it was very entertaining and she'd pick her spots. And guys, and some guys were really, they would actually be fun. She got George Brett twice. So obviously he must have been a fan, a favorite of hers, but yeah, Morgana, the kissing bandit. She kissed George Brett. You said twice, I think. Yes. She was, as Krista Berg would have said, not only a singer, she also removed all her clothing at certain times in her, in her career. But George Brett, three weeks after she kissed him, he found her on a stage and walked up on stage and kissed her. That's funny. It is. She was also compared to Dolly Parton a lot for certain parts of her chest, that we say. But there was a time in Cincinnati, though, where she jumped onto the field and security people beat her up. Yeah. Beat her up bad. Yeah, it wasn't an easy life. No, it was not an easy life for her. But in terms of a crossover star, like again, I always look at, I go, what would these people be like today? Like how would social media impact them today? Would they be just a flash in the pan? Because this went off for years. It wasn't like it was an overnight, you know, sensation. She would go, I think, by 1990, so she's 30 years she was, she was running onto fields. So she kissed 37 Major League Baseball players, 12 NBA players. She hit a lot of dozens of minor league baseball players and parks and hockey players. So, and she kissed the San Diego chicken. So there's the tie in how you started the show, we're about to end it. This is how we tie it together, folks. This is how we do our shows. Oh my God. But like I said, a lot of players played along with it. You know, she was a big fan favorite in Ohio because that's where she, you know, she was from Kentucky, but I think she was based a lot in Ohio, so she, that was sort of where she got a lot of these players and attending games. She was jailed briefly once in Anaheim, California. She stood trial in Houston, Texas, you know, for her antics, but she was a superstar for sure. People knew who she was. And that was the Morgana kissing bandit. Oh, the good old days, the good old days. Howie. She actually was part of an E 60 bio pick documentary Morgana, the kissing bandit Wow. And it aired in 2014. So chances are you can find a lot of this stuff on YouTube. She was actually part of Kingpin, the Farley brothers feature film. Buddy Carlson was in that in 1996. She appeared as herself. I think she did a lot of bit roles as well. She was on Letterman. She was on Johnny Carson show. She was part of to tell the truth, which was a big show in the 70s. So yeah, it was a good times, good times. There's so many there actually, if you really do a deep dive, we could likely do a 10 part series on that. We haven't even talked about gritty. No, that's right. Yeah. That's right. So gritty. So that was the new wave. Great. That was the new wave. Well, the epic was the stand or the all star picture where they had all the mascots. I forget which where they were. And you P was depressed because now gritty was on the scene and gritty was the center of the picture. And the UP looks like I just got replaced. I'm going to have to find it and post it on our website, the sports lunatics.com because it was one of the all time classics. It's like, yeah, UP seems impressed. There's a new kid on the block. Well, gritty is the new wave of obnoxious mascots. Well, it was, yeah, but the way it was marketed because the day it happened, I was producing with Scott MacArthur and it started to break in the morning that the flyers had this new mascot. Everybody was talking about it. Gritty started to trend on social media. So of course we had to talk about it more like, what the hell is this thing? And then honestly, they did such a brilliant job rolling because he was the most hated hat mascot when it when it was debuted and then became into the most beloved within the first month of the season because it was it was unveiled, I believe, in the summer. Yes. And then and then when they rolled out gritty, the social media behind his persona and just what he was about and how entertaining he was. And they would just do these constant barrage of posts. He became the number one mascot in the National Hockey League within a month, maybe two. Yeah. And to this day is beloved. So how he just goes to show if you have a strong marketing background, especially social media presence, you know, how quickly you can go from literally you can go from people hating you or hating the concept of the mascot to being the most beloved in literally a couple of months. It was incredible to follow the story. We I remember we booked business guests on to talk about what an unbelievable marketing strategy and plan and social media rollout they had for gritty. And again, the character just how beloved it became. Yeah. And it wasn't just in the in the arenas or, you know, in the venues. It was all over, it was on all over television, all over every media that you could find. Absolutely. And still to this day, gritty is everywhere, you know, and it became actually a big part of the NHL marketing, you know, on the websites and all of that as well. It was it was it was a big, big debut for gritty. And it was actually one of the ones that, you know, usually if people hate it, they will continue to hate it and bash it in this society that we live in it seems. But gritty turned the tables quickly, which was fantastic. So another one I actually thought of had a big role in a movie. Do you remember the penguins old mascot iceberg very, very did you ever see sudden death? I was going to say sudden death was Jean Claude Van Dam. Yes, yes, where the mascot got it. It was it was not good. It was not good. Not pretty. It was not pretty. Not the best. Not the best. But that was another one that came to mind when I was thinking of mascots. I'm like, wasn't one killed in a movie? There were some good ones, there were some good ones, the poor penguin, the poor penguin got it. Yeah. Big fight. Oh, any any other mascots that stick out to you, not off the top of my head. I mean, something will come to me tomorrow or something while I'm while I'm driving my car somewhere. And I'll think of, oh, we should have talked about this guy or that guy, but it's funny how we start off with Mr. Met, a giant baseball head, who eventually got disciplined because he gave the crowd the finger, somebody in the crowd the finger, and he only had three fingers. So he gave one of them to a fan that he didn't like. But I felt terribly for Mrs. Met and the Metlets, you know, when poor Mr. Met got disciplined for that. Oh, my God, I will say the NBA, I know we haven't really talked with the NBA a lot, but it's pretty. The worst teams in the league seem to have the better mascots for whatever reason. Gee whiz, the wizard's mascots pretty cool, you know, the heater, a good team, Bernie, you know, which sort of is Bernie seems like a rip off of U P, except he got a haircut. If you check them out, then you've got what was the other one I was I was thinking of recently. Oh, stuff, the magic dragon Orlando, magic. That was a pretty good one too. Oh, there were some good ones. NFL, Jackson, the bill, the Jaguars again, teams that aren't that great or haven't had a huge success, but they have good mascots. And I think, does Lanny dolphins have a mascot? Did them while they used to have the member, they used to have the fish tank in the yes, though. Yes, they did. Well, remember the Cincinnati Bengals had an actual tiger on the sidelines. Right. Well, that's the thing. College programs used to have a lot of, yeah, the bulldog get down it down in Georgia. Was it Georgia? Georgia. They still do. Oh, yeah, they have their traditions where they have animals as mascots. Yeah. And the CFL wasn't a, was a Calgary that had the, every time it was sort of touched down, they would do the horse. The white horse. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that horse, but not that horse, not specifically, but I mean, the Calgary Stampedters are famous for, for bringing the white horse everywhere they go. I mean, in the forties during a great cup game in Toronto or before a great cup came in Toronto, somebody rode the horse into the lobby of the Royal York Hotel, which, which is a like a five star hotel in Toronto and, and, and was, was, you know, we cannot have this here. Good heavens. We cannot have this here. Well, I almost got trampled to death of the 100th anniversary week when they tried to do the same thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And did not go well. Yeah. It did not go well. They could not get the horse into the lobby. They tried. There's these things of, you know, the circular doors now, like, yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of difficult to get them in. They actually do have other mascots that Charlie the horse, which is the Denver Broncos do the same thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I'm saying there's lots of college teams that do it too. In the US, they have horses as their mascots. So I don't know if people are still listening to this how we, I have no idea. I've enjoyed remembering some of the mascots that I was entertained by. But like I said, there are a lot of ugly ones as well, mostly in college sports, by the way, some of the schools, what they, you can tell they might have been on something when they created these mascots. Well, I would be remiss to Sean. If I didn't mention my, my first sports love, the Ottawa Rough Riders, they had Ruffy the Rider. Ruffy the Rider. Yes. Ruffy the Rider. He was a raccoon. A raccoon. Yeah. Seriously? It made no sense. It made no sense. You can't even find it on Google, how? No, of course not, because, because it was, he was, he was not a good man. Ruffy the Rider. Ruffy the Rider. Yeah. He'd run around. He'd run around with the cheerleaders. He'd run around the stadium. It was, it was, it was not good. And, and when was this? This was in the 80s, when a lot of substances were consumed. I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. Ruffy the Rider. Yeah. All right. Yeah. You'll just have to take my word for it. I will. I will. I'm trying to actually find information on Ruffy the Rider, and I cannot find it anywhere. That's okay. But I'll take your word for it if you don't want to. If you saw it with your own eyes, yes, and, and it was before I was even, it had a few beers. Wow. Crazy. And that is the perfect or imperfect way to end this edition of the sports lunatics. Please let us know what your favorite mascot is of all time, or what your current favorite we'd love to hear from you as well. Check us out at the sports lunatics.com. I'm Sean Levine from Halifax, Nova Scotia. I'm Howie Mooney in Barry, Ontario, and you have been listening or watching the sports lunatics on YouTube at the sports lunatics, also on your favorite audio platform and Howie in Ottawa, CKDJ, 107.9 FM, every Sunday at noon. Have a great sports day, everybody. [music] [music] [BLANK_AUDIO]