10 Interesting Stories Behind Mascots

by Unbelievable Facts6 years ago

6 Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, chose a donkey as his party’s mascot because his enemies called him a “jackass.”

Andrew Jackson, donkey as his party’s mascot
Image credits: Thomas Sully/Wikimedia, Steven Braeger/Wikipedia

In the United States, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are the two major political parties. The modern-day Democratic Party was founded by the supporters of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States. It was formed around 1828 and has attained the status of being the oldest political party in the world.

When it comes to the mascot for the party, the donkey or the jackass has been the most famous and most common symbol. It so happened that Andrew Jackson’s opponents used to call him “jackass” to ridicule him. They compared him to a stupid and stubborn animal. But the party members liked the inference made to the common man and took it up as the party symbol.

Even though the donkey symbol never became the official logo of the party, it is still one of the most popular political symbols. (source)

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7 Willard Scott was the first to portray Ronald McDonald, the mascot for McDonald’s, but he was dropped for being too heavy to play the part of the “active” Ronald.

Willard Scott, Ronald mcdonald mascot
Image credits: Alan Light/Wikimedia, ChrisO/Wikimedia

The McDonald’s mascot is one of the most famous mascots in the world. The mascot is known by the name of Ronald McDonald. In his book,

The Joy of Living, Willard Scott, a legendary TV personality and American weather presenter, claimed that he was the one to create the character at the request of the food chain brand. He even portrayed the role regularly from 1963 to 1966 and after that occasionally until 1971.

But later, he was replaced as McDonald’s was worried that Scott being heavy would hurt the image of the brand. (source)

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8 Tux, the penguin, became a mascot for the Linux OS as a result of a joke made by the founder about contracting a disease called “penguinitis” after being bitten by a penguin.

Larry ewing, Tux the penguin
Image credits: Sebastian Lammermann/Wikimedia, lewing@isc.tamu.edu Larry Ewing and The GIMP/Wikimedia

Whenever anyone talks about Linux OS, the image of a penguin comes instantly to mind. This penguin, Tux, is the mascot for the renowned operating system. The concept was introduced by Linus Torvalds, the creator and founder of Linux.

Torvalds is known to have a fascination towards penguins. Once he joked about being bitten by a penguin and said that he had contracted “penguinitis” as a result of the bite. He even added that this disease makes a person stay awake at night and feel great love towards penguins.

This gave Larry Ewing the idea to create Tux as the brand mascot. The name Tux was first used by James Hughes who said that it was an abbreviation for (T)orvalds (U)ni(X). (source)

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9 The real name of the Michelin Man, the mascot for Michelin Tyres, is Bibendum, and he’s white because originally tires were gray-white or light in color. It was only after 1912 that tires became black when carbon was added as a preservative and strengthening material to rubber.

Michelin Poster 1898, Michelin Mascot
Image credits: APPER/Wikimedia, Rico Shen/Wikimedia

We are all familiar with the white mascot, Michelin Man, of the Michelin tire company. Unknown to many, the real name of the Michelin Man is Bibendum. He is also called Bib in short.

Once the founders of the tire company, Édouard and André Michelin, came upon a stack of bicycle tires that had the impression of a man. The only thing missing was a pair of arms. Years later, a French cartoonist showed the founders an image of a king drinking that he had created for a brewery.

Seeing the image, the founders asked the cartoonist, Marius Rossillon, to replace the image of the king with a man-made of tires. Rassilon came up with a poster in which Bibendum was toasting with a drink while his competitors were destroyed by the problems encountered on road. The poster had the quote, “Now is the time to drink … That is to say, to your health. The Michelin tire drinks up obstacles.”

Bibendum was kept white in color because, at that time, all tires were white. It’s only in the early 20th century, around 1912, that carbon began to be added to the rubber that is used as a raw material for the production of the tires for preservation and strengthening purposes. (source)

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10 The alien mascot for Reddit is called “Snoo.” Originally the creators of Reddit wanted their site to be called Snoo as in “What’s New?,” but due to the unavailability of the domain, they had to compromise by calling the mascot Snoo.

Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, Snoo mascot
Image credits: Steve Huffman via nymag.com, Reddit, Inc/Wikipedia

In 2005, the co-founders of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, and Steve Huffman, created an online food-ordering service business. They named it MyMobileMenu. They went ahead to pitch the idea to Paul Graham, the co-founder of Y Combinator. But unfortunately, they were rejected.

Dejected, the duo prepared to get back home the next morning. When they were on the train, they received a call from Paul Graham. He told them that even though he didn’t like their food-ordering service idea much, he liked both Ohanian and Huffman. He also urged them to build “the front page of the Internet” together.

Inspired by his words, the duo wrote the code for Reddit in only three weeks. Ohanian wished to call the website “Snoo” which is the short form for “What’s New?,” but the Snoo domain name was already bought by someone else.

They contacted the owner of the domain but he refused to sell it to them. So, they decided to temporarily name the website Reddit (which fortunately stuck!) and compromised to just calling the alien mascot as Snoo. (1,2)

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