Saturday, June 20, 2009

This Guy Just Weirds Me Out

Just a brief snark today, because it's been a very, very busy week- but who came up with the idea that a grotesque bald man with freakishly big ears and matching enormous glasses would make a good mascot for an amusement park? Every Six Flags commercial features this totally bizarre, ghoulish, animated zombie who is apparently supposed to make you think of water slides and roller coasters. I just don't get it.

My "favorite" Six Flags commercial shows a couple of preteens sitting in their yard, bored out of their minds. Suddenly the Official Six Flags bus shows up, and this frightening scarecrow man jumps out and starts dancing on the sidewalk, pointing to the open door of the bus. Yay, Six Flags! Goodbye, boredom! Here's the cure for the summertime blues: jump on to a bus driven by a total stranger who looks like he died several years ago! Or not.

When I was a kid, there was a character on tv called "HR Puffinstuff." During the credits of his show, Puffinstuff would successfully encourage two small children to follow him to a tiny boat, get in, and get propelled across the sea to a magical land. Even when I was young, I thought that the creep factor was very heavy in that opening- why would Sid and Mary Kroft encourage little kids to go off with interesting-looking strangers?

I can take the Six Flags guy a little less seriously, but still. If I were a kid under the age of six or so, this guy would totally give me nightmares. I just don't get how he's supposed to encourage me to go to an amusement park. And I hate to think of the mascot ideas REJECTED by Six Flags before they came up with THIS guy.

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