- [Will] How often do you think about Cleatus the Robot?
- [Kofie] Who?
- [Seth] The dancing football robot.
- That robot has a name?
- Cleatus.
- Yeah, it's Cleatus.
Oh, this is gonna be.
- You got a lot to learn. - You're gonna have
your mind blown.
Everything about Cleatus is weird
but I think the most frustrating aspect about him
is that he's achieved more than I have in my actual life.
He is, technically, part of the Marvel Universe
cause Iron Man has smashed him in a commercial.
- [Kofie] He's in the MCU?
- Who isn't at this rate?
- Yeah, that's fair.
- Wait, so is Cleatus a baddie?
- I guess, technically, Cleatus is a baddie.
There's a monster truck named and styled after him
and he's also danced for Homer Simpson.
- How did this happen?
How did he get created?
- That's what we are going to get into
and that's why this is extra weird
because Cleatus was the brain child of a child.
- That makes sense.
- [Will] It really fits.
- That explains a lot.
- Fox was rebranding its graphics package in 2005.
Seth, I think you're the first person that pointed out
to me what graphics in sports...
- Yeah, I've always been puzzled and I would love
to know the history of sports television graphics
cause it's all this metallic, futuristic, pneumatic,
spaceship, unnecessary gears and screens and stuff.
And Cleatus sorta feels like the humanoid distillation
of all of that.
It's like we just took the SportsCenter set
and the Fox Sports set and, like, made it into a man.
- Yes, they were rebranding and they essentially said,
"Well, we kind of know what everyone does.
"It's this look we all are aware of it even
"if we're not thinking about it
"but what if, instead of going all out with
"our graphics package, we take that and build a mascot?"
- A child came up with this?
- Yes.
The child comes into this
because one of the guys on the graphics team, Gary Hartley,
he had a keepsake from his kid at his desk
and it was a drawing his son had made
of a hybrid cowboy robot.
So, he has this drawing, they're trying to do a mascot.
They're trying to incorporate futuristic elements.
Everyone sees this drawing
and they're just like, "Yes, there it is.
"Let's make that alive."
But there's been a lot in between then and now.
- I would have loved to see the focus group, you know,
because I assume they didn't go straight to broadcast
with Cleatus.
I'm sure that they first sat some people down
and were like, "Does this make you feel more
"or less positive about seeing the Arizona Cardinals play?"
(laughing)
- I think this is interesting
that he was created before social media.
I feel like whenever there is a graphic change,
people complain on social media
so I feel like everyone would've been like,
"Who is this Robot?
"Why is there a robot in between Packers Bears?"
- There's this great piece.
It's, like, the only origin story about Cleatus
by Mark Wilson for Fast Company.
He mentions that Lewis Black, the comedian,
he had an opinion about Cleatus.
Which, it's Lewis Black, so it was just him yelling about
why Cleatus was bad. (screams)
- That was an awful Lewis Black impression.
- Is Cleatus good or bad?
- That was good. - That was way better
than mine.
- That was good.
You were like Ray Romano stubbing his toe.
(laughing)
- That's all I got, man.
- This negative reaction was exactly what Fox wanted
because it was like.
- Fox?
Was fishing for a negative reaction?
- A very "Oh, well they're talking about us."
- [Seth] Yeah.
So, Cleatus is just the next evolution
of this corporate mission to just be edgy.
- Exactly.
- So, the whole idea of if you didn't like the robot,
the Fox response was like, "Oh, triggered much?"
- [Will] Right.
- "Offended by the robot?"
- Though the thing is that the robot doesn't talk.
- The robot doesn't talk which.
- But the robot moves.
- A few years after it was introduced,
they did a fan naming contest which was very smart.
That's how we got Cleatus
and, kind of, made the viewer share some of the blame.
You can't totally hate him now.
- Now its your fault, yeah.
- Right, this is your mess, you named it.
And they started pushing the boundaries,
pushing the limits for Cleatus.
They gave him a sword at one point.
They let him break dance.
- [Kofie] For football?
- That does, that rings a bell.
I can vaguely remember early days of Cleatus.
He was just kinda there, like, showing you the score.
And then at some point it was like, "Wow,
"Cleatus is doing the 'Gangnam Style' dance."
Something has changed.
He'll do anything.
- He'll do anything and people have really captured this
in fanfiction, by the way.
There's a lot of Cleatus fanfiction.
- Wait, is there a Cleatus fanfic?
- There's a lot of Cleatus fanfiction.
- Yeah, I feel like that's a rabbithole I don't want
to go down.
- There's a long Esquire piece that's Cleatus fanfiction.
- Is there a Cleatus slash fic and with whom?
- Didn't get that far, but personally, yes.
- I know that Cleatus is mainly a football robot
but I've also seen him do NASCAR hits?
- He's done baseball.
They brought him into baseball.
But for NASCAR, they did try to spin the success of Cleatus
into a NASCAR-specific gopher called Digger.
And by then Twitter was a thing,
so he went away pretty quick.
Similarly, Cleatus has a cousin called Beatus.
- Ah.
- Which was specifically for the UFC on Fox.
- Okay.
- And there's video of Beatus IRL going to events
and its a monstrosity.
- Beatus is an utterance that I had never considered before.
It's just a series of sounds
that really stirs up unpleasant images.
- Cleatus was given a Twitter account for a while.
- Oh that probably went swell.
- Yeah, they deactivated it pretty quick
cause it was just him, like, shit posting about the NFL.
- He got into some, like, MAGA stuff.
He had some dark follows.
- Not yet, this was '09 so it was.
- Well, that's what made it deeply messed up.
- He foresaw it all.
- He started this whole thing.
- All I know is that if Cleatus ever talks,
I will lose my shit.
It'll be like Caesar in "Planet of the Apes".
Like when he said "No."
- No.
- Cleatus said, "Next on Fox, 'The Masked Singer'."
I'll be like, "Whoa, oh my God!"
- [Will] He's replacing Nick Cannon.
- What if like "Planet of the Apes",
Cleatus' first words uttered are an act of rebellion
and they're like, "Cleatus, do that dance."
and he's like, "No!"
- [Kofie] "Enough Taco Bell.
"No more Taco Bell ads."
- I saw what you did to Beatus and I'm done!
(laughing)
- He was my blood.
Blood in, blood out.
- I'll be like, "Okay guys, Sunday Night Football?
"Anyone, anyone, we're ready?"
(laughing)