Comments on: Happy Birthday, Phanatic!

by: ZOOperstars

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 18:31:28 +0000

Dear Clair,

We think you are a mean, mean man. You are obviously jealous of our clever names and head-bouncing abilities. We love the Phanatic and would never consider PR to be more important than his birthday.

by: Clair

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 17:03:03 +0000

Personally, I thought the ZOOperstars were lame. Big deal, they can bounce on their heads. They were only there for the PR, not the Phanatic’s b-day. I say keep it to just his other mascot friends not these “posers.”

by: Becky

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 16:43:20 +0000

Yes, I think some pictures of this football are in order–I’m having a hard time envisioning it.

The Phanatic is not as trim as your Skeeta, so that could be one reason for the all-terrain vehicle. Perhaps on the Galapagos Islands, the Phanatic was in good shape and didn’t require a mechanical aid to get around. Then he arrived in Philadelphia, ate a few too many cheesesteaks and too much scrapple, and suddenly found himself getting easily winded.

by: whitebait

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 15:04:09 +0000

Thanks Becky: I really appreciate the posting of the link to the previous disussion about the Phillie Phanatic. The Phillie Phanatic’s venerable history is a good read. However, it seems slightly odd that a creature from the Galapagos Islands chooses to use an all-terrain vehicle in a perfectly flat American baseball stadium, but not–if my David Attenborough-Life-on-Earth memory is correct–on the volcanically active, bumpy and rubble-strewn islands it comes from.

You can find an image of the mosquito mascot, ‘Skeeta’, at
http://www.characterland.com.au/ie/skeeta.htm
The kind of football that Skeeta attends is a strangely distinct code that only gets played in Australia. It involves both the kicking and the jumping as well as(and best of all) a kind of spectacular aerial ping pong in which grown men leap on other chaps’ backs and shoulders to catch the ball.
I must post some images on my blog soon.

by: Becky

Mon, 31 May 2004 04:04:11 +0000

Whitebait–it’s not an embarassing question at all. You’re not the first person to wonder, which is why I posted this explanation a few weeks ago. This freakin animal is Phoebe, mother of the Phillie Phanatic. They hail from the Galapagos Islands.

Er, I’m not football literate. Do you mean “football” as in large men running up and down the field and jumping on top of one another or “football” as in people running up and down the field and kicking a ball? Either way, a blood-sucking, disease-spreading insect seems like an odd mascot choice.

Dana,

Thanks for checking. Too bad I wasn’t there–it was a great day for baseball!

by: Dana

Sat, 29 May 2004 23:24:51 +0000

watched the braves/ philly game on TV today. didn’t see you in the crowd anywhere.
D.

by: whitebait

Sat, 29 May 2004 16:45:07 +0000

Embarassing question Becky … but what kind of freakin animal is this? (Don’t be offended at this question as the internet cable gets a bit dodgy in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean and it is sometimes hard to make out the details of images). Also note that this question comes from someone who supports a football (AFL) team that has a mosquito as a mascot. I’m not sure why that might matter.