Everyone loves mascots.
You know, those cuddly cartoon characters with oversized heads that roam the sidelines
of sports events, cajoling fans to cheer at their nutty antics.
Yeah, they're great.
Except for the part where they're pretty much universally creepy beyond measure.
The giant eyes with their fixed stare.
The mouth, frozen in a psychotic smile, hungering for souls.
The fact that there's a living human being trapped inside.
It's almost like they're designed to terrify us.
"I am gonna stop pollution with my new lovable character, Gary the No-Trash Cougar.”
So which of these anthropomorphized hellspawn are the absolute worst of the worst?
Here's a look at some of the creepiest sports mascots of all time.
King Cake Baby
This abomination from the New Orleans Pelicans is so horrifying, even the team has embraced
its inherent creepiness.
"Hello darkness my old friend."
The Pelicans claimed this thing was created to celebrate a New Orleans tradition that
involves baking an effigy of a baby into a cake, which … is … weird.
It looks more like they were pitching ideas for next Exorcist sequel.
King Cake Baby is just so fundamentally wrong on every possible level, it makes you wonder
if sports are really worth it.
Hip Hop the Rabbit
It's hard to believe but, once upon a time, someone at the Philadelphia 76ers actually
said, out loud, some version of this sentence: "We should get a giant, muscular rabbit to
make our fans love us."
Because that always works!
Normally, someone would follow that up by saying, "put down the bottle, Bill."
But no.
Instead, the Sixers went for it and created Hip Hop, not to mention his sidekick, Lil'
Hip Hop.
Say what you will about the Sixers, but to their credit, at least they eventually decided
to kill off Hip Hop once and for all.
WuShock
We can't be the first to point out that the mascot for Wichita State University looks
suspiciously like Gordon Ramsay...with jaundice.
In reality, WuShock is meant to be a fighting mad shock of...wheat.
Which … same thing.
There have been several variations of WuShock since he first appeared in 1948, but they
share one defining trait: they're all insanely creepy.
Boltman
Maybe the creepiest thing about the San Diego Chargers' Boltman is the fact that he's not
even an official mascot.
That's right: a fan named Dan Jauregui actually decided to become his own nightmare by creating
a Boltman costume and wearing it to every game.
Things took a bizarre turn, though, when he signed a deal with the Chargers to become
their official mascot, only to sue them later for breach of contract when they didn't pay
him.
According to the lawsuit, the Boltman costume cost $15,000.
Here's a tip: next time, make sure your team actually wants your help before you blow your
life savings on a big yellow head.
Jünter
Jünter is the official mascot of the German soccer team Borussia Mönchengladbach, and
why any team would hand-pick a psychotic horse-thing to be their official mascot is anyone's guess.
He's named for one of the team's most beloved players, Günter Netzer.
Jünter also has his own column in the team's magazine, as well as a section on their homepage.
Look at all those kids, just...just loving Jünter.
Yup.
Suri
Here are the facts as we know them.
Suri — created for the 2011 Copa America soccer tournament in Argentina — is supposed
to be a rhea, which is a kind of flightless bird like an ostrich.
But while this is cute, this is more like Big Bird's sad, creepy cousin.
There's no logical way to explain the head and neck on this thing.
Not to mention the eyes.
And those eyebrows.
Let's...let's just move on.
Dandy
Let's learn the story of Dandy, which is what the New York Yankees named this thing.
Get it?
Yankee?
Dandy?
That's right: a hilarious "Yankee Doodle" joke.
The real joke was on the Yankees, though.
Back in 1978, owner George Steinbrenner found out that the Phillie Phanatic was making a
ton of money for the Phillies, so he decided to commission a mascot for the Yankees.
One problem: both Steinbrenner and everyone else associated with the team hated mascots.
As a result, despite signing Dandy to a two-year contract, New York only used him for a few
weeks, essentially paying him not to play for the rest of his deal.
Neve and Gliz
The Olympic Games have historically had some pretty weird mascots.
But few of them nail the concept of a child's innocence trapped forever in cartoon purgatory
quite like Neve and Gliz, the mascots for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.
[Laughter]
For the record, the designer of these two walking nightmares claims that they are a
humanized snowball and ice cube, who represent friendship and joy.
The concepts of friendship and joy must be very, very different in Italy, because these
two things look a whole lot like the animated ball of sadness in that antidepressant commercial.
But if you thought nothing could quite be as creepy as Italian Olympic mascots Neve
and Gliz, the 2012 London Games have something to say to you: "challenge accepted!"
Wenlock and Mandeville
Say hello to your new friends, Wenlock and Mandeville, which strongly resemble those
wriggly things you see in a drop of swamp water under a microscope.
Only huge and with one giant, horrific, ever-staring eyeball.
Wenlock and Mandeville starred in a series of animated cartoons and had their own theme
song titled "On a Rainbow."
You can even bring the nightmare home with you:
"With winning Wenlock!
And dance along to the beat of the mascot song!
Be part of it!"
Not coincidentally, British child therapists have Wenlock to thank for their huge surge
in business in 2012.
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