So today's was an easy topic to pick out. We actually were putting up some cool things we had around our respective places into the FTTW Headquarters, trying to make our own side look cooler then the other's (my side is still way cooler, by the way) and Michele pulled out an old bobble head mascot. For something called "Mr. Softee". I'd never heard of it or him, so we went with the idea.

In no particular order, here are the coolest mascots ever. Or ones that we just felt like writing about.

We are a pretty decisive lot around these parts.

Like you hadn't noticed.

Ready?

Michele heard it through the grapevine:

I don't like mascots as a general rule. Sports, department stores, fast food...whatever. Mascots are freaky, scary, unecessary and just creepy. Yes, all of them. Especially when a grown up adult type person dresses up in one of these mascot costumes. Dude, get a real job, k? Because you are about one step away from being a furry. And homie don't play that.

So I'm not going to be writing anything about how cute and cuddly and charming mascots are.

Let's start with The California Raisins. These guys fall into the same category as the M&M dudes. They are things that are meant to be eaten. Basically, they are encouraging human beings to eat them. Of course, they never get eaten. No. See, those four California Raisins that you saw on commercials sold out their brethren. That's right. They chose the lure of the filthy lucre over their loyalty to their own people. Errr...raisins. They signed a contract with their agent that said, in essence "we will allow you to exploit our musical talent, our dancing abilities and our acting skills by marketing us and our likeness in any way possible, be that records or holiday specials or pillow cases or cartoon shows or however you can possibly exploit a raisin and, in turn, you will see to it that we four, out of all the raisins in the world, will not be devoured by human beings." See what they did there? I wonder how they are looked upon the raisin community. I bet they are loathed. Hated. Villified. They go on tv and talk about the wonders and nutrients of the raisin and raisin products, and they never have to worry about being eaten because their talent agency hired some goon - probably a pickle or a banana - to act as a bodyguard for them. DO NOT EAT THIS HERE RAISIN. HE IS A MUSICIAN, NOT A FOOD PRODUCT!

Same goes for M&M's. They fucking sold their brothers out, man. I hope they get caught out in the sun some day and melt all over the damn sidewalk. Melt in your mouth, not in your hands? Bullshit. My hands have turned a few shades of M&M in their time. So not only are you shallow, vain creatures who encourage others to eat your family (because we are all brothers and sisters in God's eye, even candy people), but your advertising is false.

Now. Let's talk about Mayor McCheese. Dude. Your mouth is made of meat and cheese? Doesn't anyone else find that a little offputting? Does the cheese ever get moldy? Does the meat ever go rancid? Is that bun head of his stale at this point? And how does one grow a hamburger head on a semi-regular body anyhow? What are his parents like? Did a woman fuck a cow and that's what happened? And how does that hat stay on his head anyhow? And how the fuck did a guy with ground beef for brains get to be Mayor, anyhow?

Next. Lucky the leprechaun of Lucky Charms fame.

Everything I know about leprechauns, I learned from three sources: Lucky Charms, the Leprechaun movies, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Mothers, a word of warning about this guy.

See, when my sister was about seven years old, she had a thing for Lucky Charms. She ate them every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner (my mother was too busy playing Yahtzee with the neighbors to notice). At some point, I noticed that her skin was turning a greenish hue. I monitored the situation closely for a few days, until it became apparent that we had a major crisis on our hands. Not only was her skin turning a sort of emerald color, but her feet started to curl up and she shrunk about five inches.

She was possessed by Lucky the Leprechaun. For five crazy days, she held us hostage in our own home. It wasn't until our neighbor heard our cries for help and went to the local pub to find an Irish priest who would perform an exorcism. It was ugly. For three hours, my sister/Leprechaun vomited a steady stream of pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers. When it was all over, our dog was shitting gold pieces and my mother had turned into a sack of potatoes, but at least I had my sister back. Later, we left the gold pieces under a marked rock in the forest and my mother reverted back to her normal self. She never played Yahtzee again.

Really. Leprechauns are evil.

That's from the ATHF episode Escape From Leprauchpolis in which leprauchauns use Dr. Weird's Rainbow Machine to mug people from afar, apparently for shoes. Altough they don't end up with anything more than a gold chain, a Banarama tape with no case, and rollerskates.

Carl: Yeah, here come the gold! Aw, look at this now, I don't see crap in there. I know this game. This is how they get you. (gets sucked up in the rainbow)
Leprechaun 1: Yes, fat man, this IS how we get you!
Carl: Hey there, where's the gold there?
Leprechaun 1: Flip-flops? What is this!?
Leprechaun 2: What did I say? No money, no job, no taste.
Carl: How ya doin there, bozo. Give me the gold. (Leprechauns start beating Carl)
Leprechaun 1 : Next time you come to the park, fat man, you wear your good shoes!

See? This is why a leprechaun never makes for a good mascot. And it's why I will not allow Lucky Charms cereal in my home. -M

Turtle visits the land of sky blue water. With a Kool cigarette. And maybe a hooker.

Kool cigarettes - Willie the Kool penguin

Ok, I'll admit I had never seen this character before today, but damn this is funny. Seems you can heal the world as long as you have a few hits of that Kool mentholated smoke in your lungs. See, Willie looks like someone who cares about you. He looks like he would take some time out of his busy day and ask you how your kids are doing or if you wanted to shoot some pool. He was cool. From the pics I have of him, he seems to be an accountant. Or something that requires you to wear a monocle. And some kind of gold chain.

From what I can see, after WW2, he became some kind of doctor. Dr. Kool, the cigarette-prescribing penguin physician, complete with a white lab coat, stethescope, a medical bag, prescription pad, and of course his pack of Kools. See, this is what lacks in advertisement today. We need someone to come up with an ad campaign for liquor being able to help stop those pesky shakes you get in the morning. Or its healing power over that pain in your gut that always comes back throbbing when Dr. Booze isn't around. Something that is so wrong, it is right.

While Dr. Booze does not have the power to shut your wife up, Dr. Booze does have the power to make you stop caring anymore. The ad campaign would be cool too. A big bottle of Vodka with a concerned look on his face as he stares at you with your pants half down, covered in your own vomit cause you couldn't make it to the shitter in time.

Dr. Booze would whip out a few shot glasses and Dr. Kool would hand you a smoke. Sit you back against the wall and help you pull your pants back up.

That would be a fucking brilliant ad campaign.

Happy Steak - The Happy Fucking Steak, what else, man?

Cannibalism has always played a big role in food spots. I have no idea why the hell any food product would sell out his own race of food stuff. Maybe because he didn't want to be eaten. It's a tough world. Sometimes you got to sell out to survive and if that means Major McCheese killin' off a few of his own to keep his ass of the flames for four more years, your cheeseburger ass is gonna go down. Never quite figured out what the hell Grimace was. I mean his fucking name was Grimace. You know what I think of when I hear "grimace"? Anal sex. I'm sorry. It just happens. I sure whoever decided to call him Grimace was not thinking about anal sex at the time, but, you never know....

Anyways, I'm here to talk about a personal favorite of mine. The Happy Steak. Most of you will not remember these guys. Road stops in Northern California seemed to be where they flourished the most. I remember stopping at these truck stops in the 70's when I was a kid, and seeing tons of truckers and hookers there. I mean, if a kid can recognize prostitutes and methed out truckers, this place will not be long for Mr. Steak. What once held houses of home fries and hookers would be shut down soon into the 80's.

But, I had a soft place in my heart for this little guy. The Happy Steak. So much so, that when I heard the last one was closing down, a tear welled up in my eye. The news was proudly displaying that a California trademark of trucking excesses would finally be shut down. Now I don't know about you, but after coming off the road for a week, I can understand these truckers' need for a little bit of lovin' and a snootful of speed. The gubment couldn't take this once proud legacy away from them without a fight. Or at least some outright act of stupidity on my behalf.

A plan was made and an engine started. We were going to grab that last sign on the roof of the building that night. Happy Steak might be gone, but it will never be forgotten. Not if we had any say in it. Loading up the car with the proper tools, we set out on our journey. "Do it for the truckers, man! The fucking truckers!"

Well, by the time we got there, most of the place was already done in by a wrecking ball. You see, it was about six hours away and we were well known procrastinators, so pretty much all that was left was crap. Broken pieces of a lost destiny.

But I did snag a pretty cool plate!

Walking around the mounds of wreckage, I had found a survivor.

Never to be eaten off of again, it now sits in New York, proudly displaying the remnants of California's sped out hookers and trucker lifestyle.

Bon voyage, mein steak!

Hamms Beer - The Hamms Bear

Like he wasn't going to make it in here. Even though the marketing was probably invented by some drunk guy slurring his words at a Hamms company picnic one day, it stuck with us. I think one of the reasons this bear is so stuck in my head is just the general lack of any kind rational thought in creating this bear. A dumb cartoon bear.

Now, the reason I bring this bear up is because the Miller Company bought out the Hamms and Pabst Breweries. Distribution of these beers seems to be very limited for it seems people on the East Coast can't answer a simple question.

"You've heard of Hamms Dark, right?"

"What's Hamms?

"What???"

"Never heard of Hamms."

Well shit. I guess that means you don't know who the fuck the bear is then. So anyways, back to why I bring this up, the Hamms Dark part. One of the writers on FTTW comes from a place I used to live at along time ago. You know who you are. There is a bar right by the Zebra. Now you have to know who you are. Go to the Tavern. Order a Hamms Dark for a buck. Then report back if this product exists or not. I guess it really doesn't matter to me if it does or not, but if it doesn't exist, I sure want to know what the fuck I had been drinking there for three years. But dammit, I know it exists. But no other town I've been in has it. Don't ask me.

It might just be week old Pabst.

But, it was just a buck. A fucking buck, man! I mean you had to drink a lot to do damage, but fuck, that's what the liquor store around the corner was for. A bottle of vodka and few friends in the alleyway and we were back inside for more Hamms Dark.

Cause it existed, dammit.

But, back to the bear. Fuzzy, cuddly, drunken bear. Sounds like my weird Uncle Harold when my parents would leave me with him for the weekend. Having fun in the land of sky blue waters. Some rabbits trying to steal his beer all the time. Now see, this is when the average person would say "this is mighty fine LSD", but no my friend, no. This was beer. Evidently, if you drank enough of it, you started to hallucinate. These are the kind of ad campaigns I like. The ones that make you think that whoever designed it really was trying to sell you a Thai Stick out back of the bar instead of beer. Cause he was cool. Dope selling bear.

Cause only the cool bears could get you so high that you thought drinking this shit actually tasted good.

And he was from the land of sky blue waters.

I think that's somewhere near Oregon. - T

So those were ours. Pretty simple. I was going to go with the Marlboro man but he died of lung cancer.

And lung cancer, no matter how you spell it, is a comedy killer.

So what are your favorites?

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