A Mascot Marvel: The Phenomenon of the Philly Phanatic

On April twenty fifth, nineteen seventy eight, the Philadelphia Phillies get a surprise guest for the first time when the Philly Fanatic is in reduced as the new Phillies mascot, becoming one of the most iconic mascots of all time. And here's the history behind the Philly Fanatic today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to wrap a deep dive in sports history every day now. Mascots go back a long way back into the eighteen hundreds. What a little boy named Chick was the bat boy for local baseball teams and became known as the good luck charm for the teams. But in eighteen eighty the French opera La Mescote was released and brought the name mascote into the mainstream, which means good luck charm in French. Eventually the e got dropped off and we americanized it to being mascot. And we've had many versions of mascots. The first animal mascot was Handsome Dan the Yale bulldog who started in eighteen ninety two and Estelle mascot for Yale. But the first costume mascot was Mister Met of the New York Mets, who are a new franchise in nineteen sixty four, which was basically just a man wearing a giant baseball on his head, but helped lead the way to the mascots that we all know and love today. Now. In nineteen seventy six, the Philadelphia Affilies were looking to up their mascot game, especially after a few years previously. The San Diego Padres introduced the San Diego Chicken, who was the first fully costumed mascot, which actually started in San Diego as a TV commercial. Then a man actually put on a chicken suit going around to local places to help promote the radio station East Surrey Hunts. And the man in the chicken suit was ted Geo Nilius, who was a twenty year old journalism major at San Diego State University, and he actually took the chicken idea from the radio station and brought it to the San Diego Padres, mainly because he just wanted to get into games for free. Then Padres ran with it and allowed him to wander through the stands and he would actually lay an egg as a prize to patrons. All around the stadium and this became a staple and helped increase attendance at Padres games. And that's what it took notice from the Philadelphia Phillies. When in the Philadelphia Phillies promotion director Frank Sullivan thought they should have a similar mascot. He actually hired a team that had worked with the Jim Henson Company, mainly because Jim Henson turned him down when they offered him the chance, so they hired Harrison and Eckerson of New York. He had helped design Miss Piggy to design a new mascot for the Philadelphia Phillies, as they didn't have an easy mascot to think of. When you think of Phillies, there's not an animal or a person to really connect with. Although they did have two mascots, Philadelphia phil and Philadelphia Phillis, which were siblings dress up in revolutionary spirits from back in the seventeen sixties. But they wanted to revamp it and that's when they came up with the Philly Fanatic. Eckerson letter said that the Fanatic was just a fantasy animal. Then they threw everything that they thought would be fun onto them and they wanted it to look like nothing they had ever seen before, so that whenever anyone put it on, they had become the Fanatic. And Eckerson even created a backstory for the Fanatic, saying he evolved from the Galapikos and became an enormous baseball fit, and he thought Charles Starwin would be proud of the creature they create. Now, if you've never seen the Philly Fanatic, he's a giant green creature with a two blank nose and two giant star like eyes, who has a large round belly and is very furry and wears a jersey with a giant five pointed star on the bed. And on April twenty fifth, nineteen seventy eight, when the Phillies were facing off against the Chicago Cubs, he made his debut, but there was no promotion behind it. He just appeared to everyone in the fans. They had no idea there was going to be a new mascot, but fans quickly grew to love the mascot, and he was being portrayed by David Raymond, who was actually a summer intern in nineteen seventy six and seventy seven and wanted to stay with the team, so he decided he would portray the mascot that they were going to introduce, and he portrayed the mascot all the way until nineteen ninety three when Tom Burgoyne took over the Fanatic rule, which actually led to a major change for the character, as when Raymond Will as the Fanatic, he was left handed and Tom was right handed. But this little change didn't really stop the Fanatic from growing in popularity, and Tom actually has now has three backups to help him attend over eight hundred events a year across the country and has led the Philly Fanatic into the Hall of Fame for mascots, and it has been featured in multiple TV and film roles, as well as multiple promotions for Major League Baseball. But in twenty eighteen, Harrison and Eckerson, the creators of the Philly Fanatic costume, were suing the Philadelphia Phillies. See way back when the Phillies paid for the costume, they could pay five thousand and two hundred dollars for both the costume and the copyright ownership, or just three nine hundred dollars for just the costume. In Harrison Eckerson would retain the copyright. The Phillies decided to just pay the cheaper amounts it would pay a fee to license the character from Harrison Eckerson for the copy right, and they were arguing that the licensing agreement they had did not keep up with how much the Fanatic was worth, and they were owed millions of dollars and the Philadelphia Phillies actually counter suing, basically saying imminent domain that the Philly Fanatic belonged to the city. But eventually they did work out in agreement and they settled out of court. But the Philadelphia Phillies did change the look of the Fanatic a little bit to get out of their legal hot water with the designers, and the Philly Fanatic lives on forever in Philadelphia, and the Philly Fanatic just goes to show you how much we love our teams. We love our mascots, and they help us cheer for our teams. And even though we don't have a mask, we can cheer just like the Fanatic and have just as much fun at the gig because our fandom is all we need to root for our team. I need you to root for us by subscribing for our team. At Daily Sports. History went on