Mascots have a complicated set of roles in our society. Sometimes they’re out to cheer touchdowns, sometimes they’re selling hamburgers and sometimes they just make your kids cry as you reach for the phone to dial 911.
Here are 12 of the creepiest mascots we’ve ever seen.
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1. WuShock (Wichita State University Shockers)
AP Who knew a shock of wheat could be this angry? Quick, someone fire up the threshing machine and make a Cronut out of this guy before he starts spreading his spores all over your children’s dreams.
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2. The Burger King (Burger King)
Getty Images The frozen, leering plastic grin suggests this is a guy who likes to break into sorority houses and paw through the underwear drawers. Fortunately, the King was deposed in a silent coup when the BK Lounge fired him in 2011.
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3. King Cake Baby (New Orleans Pelicans)
Getty Images Though not the official mascot of the NBA team, the psychopathic 7-foot toddler does appear as a second mascot around Mardi Gras, mainly as a public service to get people to cut down on the partying in case they’re having hallucinations.
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4. Purdue Pete (Purdue University Boilermakers)
Getty Images So creepy that he was hauled off the field and redesigned in 2011, Purdue Pete nevertheless pulled a Classic Coke by appealing to traditionalists and rampaged right back onto the field with his sledgehammer and his vacant stare. Jason Voorhees thinks this guy is creepy.
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5. Gaylord the Fighting Camel (Campbell University)
Twitter There probably aren’t that many camels indigenous to Buies Creek, N.C., where this NCAA Division I university is located, but “camel” kinda sounds like “Campbell.” Gaylord (named after Campbell alum and Hall of Fame Major League Baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry, not Gaylord Focker) has such buff arms that his angry scowl could be the result of ’roid rage.
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6. Southern Illinois Saluki (Southern Illinois University)
Getty Images The region’s nickname — Little Egypt — led the university to pick an Egyptian hunting dog as its mascot. Why not be more honest and call this one “Angry Mullet Head”?
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7. Willie the Wave (Pepperdine University)
Getty Images Part Smurf, part surfer dude, he’s . . . the Smurfer Dude! This guy looks like he should be out in the parking lot selling weed.
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8. Mr. Redlegs (Cincinnati Reds)
Getty Images It’s unclear whether it’s the 1920s mustache or the crazy-eyed stare that’s more unnerving but . . . can’t speak . . . going into a trance . . .
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9. Boltman (San Diego Chargers)
Getty Images Clearly inspired by Duff Man from “The Simpsons,” right? This guy, who isn’t an official mascot but just a fan the team allowed on the field in the 1990s, looks like the gym jerk who lays his sweaty towel on the Nautilus and then struts around flexing and telling you your lifting technique “needs work, bud.”
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10. Steely McBeam (Pittsburgh Steelers)
AP Meant to represent the rugged salt of the earth who toiled in the city’s steel factories, he instead looks like a guy who needs those coveralls to catch the blood when he’s ramming that steel beam into someone’s skull in his underground torture dungeon.
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11. Jack I. Box (Jack in the Box)
AP Wearing a placid clown face that could have been dreamed up by Stephen King, Jack I. Box is the mascot who says, “Hey, kid, want some candy? Get in this car, and don’t tell Mommy!”
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12. Stanford Tree (Stanford University Cardinal)
AP Seemingly a descendant of the nasty apple trees in “The Wizard of Oz,” this mutant vegetable (whose costume changes every year) looks like a walking parable of eco-catastrophe.