Time For Green Man?: The Creators Of The Phillie Phanatic Are Threatening To Take The Mascot To Free Agency
NPR – Major League Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies are suing the creators of “The Phillie Phanatic,” to prevent them from making the green and furry mascot a “free agent,” available to root for and promote other teams.
The Phanatic debuted at a Phillies game in April 1978 with the help of Harrison and Erickson, Inc., which designed and created it.
According to a lawsuit filed in New York, the firm’s principals, Wayde Harrison and Bonnie Erickson, were paid over $200,000 by the end of 1980. In 1984, after it was clear that the Phanatic was a hit, Harrison and Erickson terminated the original licensing agreement and renegotiated a deal for $215,000. The Phillies say the 1984 agreement gave the team the rights to the mascot forever.
The 39-page lawsuit says the firm “has threatened to obtain an injunction against the Phillies’ use of the Phanatic and to ‘make the Phanatic a free agent’ if the Club does not renegotiate the 1984 Assignment and pay H/E millions of dollars.”
So let me get this straight real quick…the creators of the Phillie Phanatic were paid a total of $415,000 by 1984 and now they have the balls–the AUDACITY–to say that they deserve more money again or else they’re going to take the Phanatic to free agency?
I don’t want to get too Darren Rovell-esque here but the average MLB salary in 1980 was somewhere around $150,000. So these dudes pretty much caught 2 above-average MLB contracts all because they drew up some goofy looking green bastard who can move his belly. You take inflation into account and it’s like the Phillies gave these two jackasses a couple hundred million each. It’s not the Phillies’ fault that these idiots decided to design the Phanatic back in the 80s before guys like Bryce Harper were making $330 million. That would be like Steve Carlton coming back and saying the Phillies need to pay him more right now just because players make more toady than they did when he was playing.
The fact that this even needs to go to court in the first place is already a black eye on the judicial system here in America. Anybody with half a brain knows that the Phillie Phanatic doesn’t belong to these clowns anymore. Maybe on a technicality, sure, but that’s not real life. Real life isn’t governed by technicalities. These guys got their money in the 80s, probably blew through it with strippers and cocaine since that’s all the 80s were according to movies, and now they’re just being a bunch of greedy assholes. Little do they know that it’s not the actual design of the Phanatic that makes the Phanatic who he is today. Without the Phillies embracing the Phanatic and the Oscar-worthy performances put on by anybody who has ever had the honor to throw on that costume, the Phanatic is nothing. NOTHING.
Realistically what should happen here is the Phillies should call these dudes on their bluff. I mean who would actually buy the rights to the Phanatic now? Unless you’re a rival team of the Phillies and you buy the rights to the Phanatic just to fuck with the team, nobody is actually going to spend their money on a mascot who is clearly synonymous with the Phillies. So tell them to take the contract, shove it up their ass and they can take the Phanatic. In the meantime, we can just go with Green Man.
Once they realize they’ll never get the millions they’re searching for, they’ll come crawling right back like the rats they are.