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Set course for a balanced breakfast. Engage!

"Here it is shown how the leprechauns are first flayed and then pulped to be turned into the marshmallows. Off to the side are waist-high piles of abandoned little green hats that will be shipped back to Ireland under international treaty.
'Am I the only one who finds this a little bit creepy?' I ask aloud. Elayne ignores me.
'You can have your picture taken and put on a box of Wheaties,' she says.
'That's insane," I say. 'I can't masturbate to a picture of myself. Where are the Mary Lou Retton boxes?'"

If you were looking for our lovable mascot, please see Trope-tan.

A character, animal or animate object (see Everything Talks) which theoretically represents all that is good and attractive about a product, and which may act as a spokesman for it. Sometimes it may be an anthropomorphized version of the product itself, or of some primary component in it.

Mascots were almost mandatory in the early days of advertising on radio and television, but are far less common today, probably because of the growing sophistication (or cynicism if you prefer) of the audience coupled with the perception that they are, really, rather silly. Outside of advertising aimed at children and/or breakfast foods, a Mascot in a modern commercial is as likely to be a subversion as not.

An exception would be Japan, where everything has a cute mascot nowadays. EVERYTHING.


Related tropes:


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Clothes 
  • Buster Brown shoes had the early 20th century comic strip character Buster Brown and his dog Tige.
  • The four guys dressed as the fruit from the Fruit of the Loom logo.

    Electronics 
  • Apple's famous "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads feature Justin Long and John Hodgman representing the two computers. Their effectiveness is questionable; viewers across OS lines have fallen in love with the idea (even to the point of Shipping the two characters), but among those who don't adore it the general consensus seems to be that the "Mac" character is vastly less appealing than his "out of date" rival. Not to mention that Mac is never invited to a LAN party...
    • It probably didn't help matters much that in real life, John Hodgman is actually a very friendly, charismatic man.
    • The Apple adverts in Britain featured David Mitchell and Robert Webb as the PC and the Mac respectively. They have been quite unpopular, and have raised questions about the duo's credibility. Not least because, like the US adverts, while Webb is the ostentatiously cool character, Mitchell generally comes across as the more down-to-earth and likeable (this is despite him often playing the role of an unapologetic quasi-intellectual). While hosting Have I Got News for You, Webb explained to Ian that he had played the smug unbearable one whose product you were meant to buy, while Mitchell had all the fun lines and he was meant to be despised. He described it as a 'confused campaign'.
  • This is a long-standing tradition in the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community. Many if not most FOSS projects have some sort of mascot used to represent their products. Some notable examples include:
  • German Cell-phone and music company Jamster/JAMBA currently have two mascots for the company who are also characters created by the company (Baby Vuvu, and Schnuffel) who both replaced The Crazy Frog who was the company's former mascot in the early 2000's.
    • Schnuffel (Snuggle Bunny) gets special mention since the character apparently started out as a one-shot character debuting in 2007 with song sang by the character called "The Snuggle Song" like the previous character created by the company. However the song and character became so popular in Germany that the company decided to create more songs and music videos featuring the character complete with a few albums where you can lesson to more songs sang by the character and even showed up at a few live shows in Germany. Then in 2010, the company created a second bunny character named Schnffelienchen (Snuggelina) who is Snuggle's girlfriend and even had songs of her own. That same year the company started releasing Audio CD's currently only available in Germany that stars the duo on various adventures and are actually voiced by different voice actors and aren't high pitched like they usually are.

    Food and Drink 
  • One of the most famous and longest-lived is Miss Chiquita Banana, for the United Fruit Company (Later United Brands, and now Chiquita Brands Intl.). Based loosely on Carmen Miranda, she dates back to 1945.
  • Morris the Cat for 9 Lives cat food.
  • Mrs. Butterworth, formerly a borderline racist Southern Mammy, is now always presented as an animated humanoid syrup bottle. Parodied on Clone High with Racist Mammy Products.
  • Elsie the Cow for Borden (And Elmer the Bull, the mascot of Elmer's Glue, which is manufactured by a different part of the same conglomerate).
  • Charlie the Tuna for Starkist.
  • Possibly the earliest subverted mascot would be Big Fig for Nabisco's Fig Newton cookies in the 1970s.
  • Aunt Jemima, back in the early 20th century, was an African-American slave with a kerchief on her head. After the Black Rights movement in the 1960s, she was transformed into a middle-class African-American housewife.
    • But Uncle Ben, on the rice packages, still looks pretty much the way he did at the beginning. So does Rastus, the waiter on the Cream of Wheat box.
  • Colonel Sanders, for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Mind you, Harland Sanders was a real person, the founder of KFC (though he served in the military, having received the title from the state of Kentucky for his achievements as a restaurateur and kept it as a means of self-promotion), and at times attained quasi-heroic status in Kentucky. Opinions on his animated, wise-cracking, dancing doppleganger are mixed.
    • Pepsico commercials in the 1990s gave him a light saber and teamed him up with the Pizza Hut Girl (armed with a blaster) and the Taco Bell chihuahua. When they found themselves surrounded by enemy combat droids, the chihuahua turned to Colonel Sanders and said, "You're a real colonel, right?"
  • Companies like General Mills, Kellogg's, and Post tend to have a mascot for each of their brands of breakfast cereals, some of whom spend their lives chasing a Cereal Vice Reward. A few examples:
    • The Trix Rabbit, who had to put up with almost 40 years of punk kids denying him Trix Cereal. "Silly Rabbit, Trix are for Kids"
      • Funny thing: The one time the rabbit actually tries to purchase Trix legally, we get this.
      • Given their shape and color, it's a good thing the Rabbit wasn't the mascot for Cocoa Puffs....
    • Tony the Tiger for Frosted Flakes (Frosties in the UK). "They're Grrreat!"
    • Coco the Monkey for Cocoa Krispies (Has become an outreach of the Rice Krispies franchise, so its mascot(s) have become...)
    • Snap, Crackle and Pop for Rice Krispies.
      • Though Coco still lives on in some countries like Japan, where he's the mascot for Coco's Chokowa (basically a cocoa version of Froot Loops), and the UK (where Cocoa Krispies are Coco Pops, despite a brief attempt to rename them Choco Krispies).
    • Lucky the Leprechaun, who desperately tries to keep his Lucky Charms out of the hands of his relentless pursuers.
    • Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, a recovering Cocoa Puffs addict who's always being tempted by cruel kids to give in to his addiction.
    • Toucan Sam for Froot Loops.
    • Buzzbee the Honey Nut Cheerios bee.
    • Cap'n Crunch for the cereal of the same name.
      • For a while, the various Cap'n Crunch cereals had their own mascots: Smedley the Elephant for Cap'n Crunch's Peanut Butter Cereal (now Peanut Butter Crunch), the Crunchberry Beast for Cap'n Crunch with Crunch Berries, Wilma the Winsome White Whale for Vanilly Crunch, and the pirate Jean LaFoote for Cinnamon Crunch.
    • Loopy the Bee for Honey Loops.
    • Officer Crumb, the Cookie Crook, and Chip for Cookie Crisp. Their shtick was that the Cookie Crook tried to steal the cereal, but his dog Chip for whatever reason was trained to howl "Coooooookie Crisp!" when he smelled the stuff, alerting Officer Crumb in the process. (Only Chip is still around, and he's changed from a dog into a wolf. Not sure if he even howls anymore.)
      • There was also Jarvis the Wizard who got replaced by Cookie Crook & Officer Crumb, and Jarvis even had one commercial alongside Cookie Crook so there is a linear progression from Jarvis to Cookie Crook & Officer Crumb to Chip the Dog to Chip the Wolf. That said Cookie Crisp's mascots seem to contract Chuck Cunningham Syndrome on a regular basis.
    • Bob, Quienno, and Wendell for Cinnamon Toast Crunch (Only Wendell was still around until even he was eventually replaced by the crazy squares in 2016).
    • Apple and CinnaMon for Apple Jacks.
    • Fred and Barney from The Flintstones for the Pebbles Cereal (Also, Snagglepuss was the Cocoa Krispies mascot at one time).
    • Sugar Bear for Super Sugar Crisp (now called Super Golden Crisp). At the end of The '70s, sugar gained a reputation not unlike arsenic or Zyklon B, so the word "sugar" was dropped from the names of all major cereal brands in the United States (Sugar Frosted Flakes became Frosted Flakes, Sugar Smacks became Honey Smacks, Sugar Pops became Sugar Corn Pops and then Corn Pops, etc.). But what do you do when your mascot has "Sugar" for his first name? Why, you emphasize the "Super" in the cereal's name instead, by having him transform into Super Bear — a full sized grizzly bear with an angry expression and teeth and claws. Needless to say, this wasn't the best image to associate with a product aimed at young easily-frightened children, and Super Bear quickly regained Sugar Bear's teddy-bear-like face before being dropped entirely.
      • In the earliest years (and still is in Canada), the cereal was just called "Sugar Crisp". It got the "Super" added to its name when they added vitamin fortification.
    • And who can ever forget Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Boo Berry, and Fruit Brute from their namesake cereals?
      • Fruit Brute was later replaced by Fruity Yummy Mummy, perhaps because General Mills thought a decaying Egyptian corpse coming to life to fulfill an ancient curse is less intimidating than a werewolf.
    • All of these characters have been given their own webcomic, Breakfast of the Gods. Be warned: it's pretty violent.
      • The knock-off brand Malt-o-Meal has the kangaroos Blue and Lil' Oaty.
    • The slightly terrifying Hunger used to be the mascot for Shreddies, on the basis that it "kept hunger locked up...till lunch". Nowadays they use a group of old ladies who are knitting the cereal.
    • The Honey Monster, a somewhat Muppety puppet that has been advertising Sugar Puffs since 1976. Following the great Unfortunate Ingredients rethink, the cereal was renamed after him, as Honey Monster Puffs. Catchphrase: "Tell 'em about the honey, Mummy!"
  • Slightly creepily, Felix (cat) for Felix (cat food). Slogan: "Cats like Felix... like Felix."
  • The creepy, silent Burger King, who shows up in the most random places (like your bed) to give people BK food (Actually a subversion of an earlier version of the King, who was played straight as a cheerful kids' mascot a la Ronald McDonald). He talked, too.
  • Applebee's had a talking apple voiced by Wanda Sykes Hall. The character was discontinued after new owners took over.
  • Fast food chain Jack in the Box has Jack, a man with a clown-head who is both mascot and Kayfabe CEO of the company. Like the King, Jack is a subversion of an earlier mascot, a clown-head which stood atop the original Jack in the Box restaurant and which appeared on their drive-thru menus for many years. The ad campaign featuring Jack has run continuously since 1995, making it one of the longest-running in history.
  • Kool-Aid Man. Ooohhh yeeeeeaaaaaahh!
  • Round Table, a pizza place, has a knight in full-body armour, complete with pointy face-guard.
  • There was a brand of cat food called "Kattomeat" and they started advertising it with a white tomcat called "Arthur"...became such a good mascot that not many months later they had to rename the catfood "Arthur's".
  • Ronald McDonald has gone pretty much un-subverted to this day thanks to becoming part of the greater American pop-cultural landscape.
    • Save for a brief period in the mid '90s where he was depicted engaging in such activities as clubbing and playing golf as part of the ad campaign for the execrable "Arch Deluxe" burger (a "sandwich for 'adults'," as demonstrated by ads showing kids recoiling in disgust; surely the best way to convince someone to eat one).
    • In The '70s, The '80s, and part of The '90s, McDonalds had a whole army of mascots in McDonaldland. There was Mayor McCheese, the Grimace (who, like Godzilla, started as a bad guy but quickly became a good guy), the Hamburglar, Big Mac (the cop who chased the Hamburglar down), the French Fry Goblins (who bear an eerie resemblance to the ghosts in Pac-Man, although the French Fry Goblins came earlier), an orange juice tree, Birdie the bird, and a host of other minor players.
    • They also had Mac Tonight in the late 80s, a cheesy moon-faced (literally) lounge singer character intended to promote the idea of eating dinner (as opposed to lunch) at McDonald's.
  • Weight Watchers has Hungry, an furry orange monster that constantly tempts you to eat junk food and thus ruin your diet.
  • Little Caesars. "Pizza pizza!”
  • The Chick-fil-A cows, exhorting people to "Eat Mor Chikin".
  • Captain Birdseye, face of Birdseye frozen foods.
  • Similarly, the Jolly Green Giant for Green Giant frozen and canned vegetables. Ho ho ho!
  • Quizno's submarine sandwich restaurant had several sponge monkeys that sang about loving their subs, that they are toasted, and that they have a pepper bar.
  • Twinkie the Kid for Hostess Twinkies (duh), before he was relegated to package duty only.
    • They also had Captain Cupcake for Hostess Cupcakes and Fruit Pie The Magician for Hostess Fruit Pies and many others.
  • In Japan, Pepsi had an Iron Butt-Monkey mascot in form of PEPSIMAAAAAANNNN!!!!
  • Milky Bar had The Milky Bar Kid, who was actually played by a number of children over the years. "The Milky Bars are on me!"
  • The M&M's Spokescandies. Oddly enough, since 1999 there were only five of them (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, and Orange) when the standard color mix includes six (with brown being the sixth color). They have finally rectified this in 2012, so the spokescandies finally match up with the color mix.
    • Though this happened because each of the five was one of the M&M's types (Red is milk chocolate, Yellow is peanut, Blue is almond, Green is peanut butter, and Orange is crispy and pretzel)... meaning Brown was only there to complete the set. Until brownie M&M's were introduced in 2020, and Brown was naturally chosen to represent them.
  • The California Raisins.
  • The mascot for a Japanese drink and beverage called Qoo.
  • The cute Koala mascot for a Japanese bite-sized cookie snack with a sweet filling "Koala's March" (Called "Koala Yummies" in the United States).
  • The late 2010s introduces Carl Hardee, Sr. and his hapless son Carl Hardee, Jr. As the spokesmen for the Hardee's and Carl's Jr. chain of restaurants.
  • The Nesquik Bunny.
  • Brazil's Arab food restaurant chain Habib's has a genie.
  • Budweiser had the frogs from the Super Bowl commercial. More recently their mascot is a "Bud Knight" who stars in a series of medieval-themed commercials.
  • Lil' Sweet was designed to promote Diet Dr. Pepper, often magically appearing out of nowhere and gives them Diet Dr. Pepper as a reward for their work.
  • The Fantastic Friends (composed of teenagers Charis, Tzina, Gkazis, Flora, Orfeas, Phoibi, Enti and Nefeli) were created for the Junior meals on Goody's Burger House, the most prominent fast food chain in Greece. They also starred in comic strips and a short film.
  • Never Say No to Panda has the Panda. If you don't accept Panda Cheese, he will teleport out of nowhere and break your stuff. In one ad, he actually kills a person.
  • "Babycham" (British beer and alcohol company) has an unnamed fawn/chamois that's been the company's mascot since the 1960s. Later commericals featured the fawn wearning shades and a bowtie.
  • Coca-Cola has the Coca-Cola Polar Bear.
  • A&W has the Burger Family: Papa, Mama, Teen & Baby, later joined by Grandpa and Uncle. It’s a burger for everybody. They also had the Great Root Bear, with his distinctive theme music.
  • Planters has Mr. Peanut, an anthropomorphic peanut who wears a top hat and monocle, and carries a Classy Cane.

    Household Products 
  • Mister Clean for the cleaner of the same name. Bonus points if you can identify the piece of jewelry he wears and where on his body: The answer he wears an earring on his left ear.
  • The Energizer Bunny and his older cousin the Duracell Bunny. It began with a 1973 Duracell commercial where a fleet of battery-powered drumming bunnies would run down one by one, leaving only the Duracell-powered one. When Duracell's trademark on the bunny lapsed in 1988, Energizer produced a parody of the ad explaining that their brand was left out of the competition as their sunglasses-wearing bunny strolled along beating a bass drum. While early confusion led to Energizer losing share to Duracell initially, they eventually grew it back as their mascot starred in new Commercial Switcheroo spots. Duracell, for their part, tried to revive their own bunny mascot, which led to a trademark dispute between the two companies that ended with a settlement where the "bunny mascot" rights were given to Energizer in North America and to Duracell elsewhere.
  • The Scrubbing Bubbles, for Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner (originally named Dow Bathroom Cleaner).
  • Alka-Seltzer was represented from 1951 to 1964 by Speedy Alka-Seltzer, a walking, talking antacid tablet. He was animated via stop-motion puppetry and voiced by Dick Beals. note  The character was revived briefly in 1976 (as part of the "plop, plop, fizz, fizz" campaign) and 2010 (with the voice of Debi Derryberry from Zatch Bell! and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius).
  • Michelin tires are hawked by Bibendum, a strange white bulbous fellow who looks like a cross between the Mummy and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Also, the company publishes a line of restaurant guides for travelers.
  • The Pink Panther has been one of these for Owens Corning fiberglass insulation for many years.

    Insurance Companies 
  • GEICO has four mascots:
    • Their British-accented gecko, who began with commercials stressing the difference pronunciations of "GEICO" and "gecko."
    • A bunch of pissed off Neanderthals who didn't like the slogan, "So easy, a caveman can do it!" The writers of the ads attempted to create a sitcom from those Neanderthals. Thankfully, it bombed. Especially thankful is Geico, which could not run ads with the characters during the series' run.
    • Kash, the pile of money with googly eyes and his own theme song has also been slowly adapted into a third(!) mascot for Geico.
    • The "stupid questions" man, who opened every commercial with, "Does switching to GEICO save you 15% or more on car insurance? Does the question inserted here have an obvious answer?" One of his ads even references the still-pissed-off Neanderthals.
  • The duck that quacks, "AFLAC!"
  • Flo the checkout girl in the Progressive Insurance commercials.
  • Erin Esurance, a pink-haired Action Girl in a Spy Catsuit, who hawked Esurance. Now retired due to becoming a magnet for cheesecake pictures and fanporn. Also made a guest appearance on Who Wants to Be a Superhero?!
  • Churchill, the little nodding dog mascot of Churchill Insurance. All together now: "OH YES!!". Nowadays he's been reduced to a lifelike (though still CGI-rendered), non-talking dog.
  • The General, for The General Car Insurance.
  • The Admiral, for Admiral Car Insurance. Nowadays it's a female admiral, who looks far too young to have achieved such a rank and appears to be in charge of the insurance company, rather than anything to do with the Navy.
  • Eastwood Insurance had a gunslinger mascot imitating Clint Eastwood.
  • Snoopy for MetLife. The other Peanuts characters appear in commercials from time to time.
  • Alexander Orlov, spokesmeerkat for Compare The Market dot com. From this original spot, a vast merchandising empire was spawned...

    Media 

    Music 
Also see Metal Band Mascot

  • Punk bands aren't too far behind in the mascot department:
  • Hatchet Man for the Psychopathic Records label.
  • Booji Boy for Devo.
  • Radiohead has that Bear.
  • The Black Crowes have an unnamed pair of stoned crows that appear on most of their merchandise. In the early days, they were drawn to resemble Heckle and Jeckle, though more recently (perhaps in an effort to avoid lawsuits), they're made to resemble tired blues musicians.
  • Kanye West has Dropout Bear.
  • The Download Dog, mascot for Donington Park's Download Festival.
  • Hinatazaka46 has Poka the sky blue bird, which was born from the egg given to one of them by Santa Claus in 2019 as reward for Saving Christmas in their concert storyline.
  • Super Sonico started out as a mascot for the NITRO SUPER SONIC concerts of nitro+ before graduating to poster girl of the company itself. Naitou-kun, mascot of Nitro+CHiRAL, got a similar start as mascot of THE CHiRAL NIGHT.
  • Tsukipro has mascots for 8 of its idol groups - Tsukiusa ("moon rabbit") for the Tsukiuta groups, Lizz-kun for the SQ groups, and Arainu ("Alive dog") for the Alive groups. The mascots have the same oblong bodies and minimalist faces, but different ears and tails depending on the animal, and they come in each member's unit colors, so fans can show who their favorite idol is by which color mascot they carry. In-universe, the idols tend to carry their own mascots on their bags, as well. In real life, special-edition collars and t-shirts for the mascot plushies are sold at events, and many fans have also taken to making accessories and costumes for them. And of course, full size mascots appear at the events for photo ops (and in the first anime, two of the idols have to wear the suits for a special job).
  • The band Blotto had a woman with a bass drum for a head. This image appeared on stage and on album covers.

    Pinball 

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Wild Cat Willie/Mr. Willie, a mascot WCW used during their "Worldwide" and "Saturday Night" shows of the 1980s.
  • Stomper, a kangaroo who represented TNA.

    Sports 
  • The San Diego Chicken was originally a mascot for local radio station KGB. Played by Ted Giannoulas, the character was originally known as the KGB Chicken, and appeared in ads for the station and events around town starting in 1974. After appearing at hundreds of games for the San Diego Padres promoting the station (but building up a following for the character — attendance at Padres games doubled during the Chicken's first couple of years), Giannoulas was eventually fired by KGB in 1979 in a contractual dispute. KGB tried to put someone else in the chicken suit, but Padres fans literally booed the imposter chicken off the field. The Padres, meanwhile, quickly hired Giannoulas to create a similar-but-not-quite-identical mascot for the team, rather than the station. Thus, The San Diego Chicken (officially billed as "The Famous Chicken") was born — and he single handedly created the profession of sports mascots. He is now the patron saint of all sports mascots.
    • The Army mule and the Navy goat. These sports mascots date back at least 100 years, and other college teams had mascots as well, such as the Yale bulldog and "Bucky Badger".
    • Pro teams with mascots, however, were more or less unheard of until the Famous Chicken (as he's now known, presumably because he's no longer tied to San Diego and has become a freelance mascot) came about.
  • Several colleges use live animals as mascots in addition to the fake ones:
    • Uga the bulldog at U of Georgia.
    • Tusk the pig at U of Arkansas.
    • Bevo the Texas longhorn at U of Texas.
    • Smokey the coonhound at U of Tennessee.
    • Jack the Bulldog at Georgetown U.
    • Peruna the pony at SMU.
    • Lions Leo and Una at U of North Alabama.
    • Reveille the Collie at Texas A&M U.
  • The University of Oregon managed to work a deal with Disney to use Donald Duck as their mascot. The official relationship started with a handshake agreement between Walt himself and the university, and was later formalized in 1973, though Disney imposed limits on where the costumed mascot could be used. In 2010 the deal was modified, with Oregon changing the duck costume (notably the head) to no longer resemble Donald, allowing The Oregon Duck to appear at more events.
  • Major League Baseball has a bunch of mascots but the most famous are The Phillie Phanatic, Wally the Green Monster (Red Sox), Mariner Moose, the Racing Sausages (Milwaukee), the Racing Presidents (Washington), Mr. Met, Billy the Marlin, and the Pirate Parrot. And then there was also once Youppi! the Montreal Expos mascot who is now currently a mascot for the Canadiens.
  • Speaking of the Canadiens, they are one of three mascots in the National Hockey League which were inherited from other teams in the area, along with the New York Islanders' Sparky the Dragon (the Arena Football League's New York Dragons) and the Winnipeg Jets' Mick E. Moose (the minor league hockey Manitoba Moose... which even if relocated once the major league team returned, eventually came back as well).
  • The first regular NHL mascot was the Calgary Flames' Harvey the Hound. In one of his more memorable antics he was annoying opposing coach Craig MacTavish so much, that when he was behind the visitors' bench MacTavish reached up and yanked out Harvey's tongue from the costume.
  • In the Canadian Football League, Gainer the Gopher is the well known mascot for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
  • The first CFL mascot was the Calgary Stampeders’ Ralph the Dog. They also have Quick Six, the touchdown horse, (with several predecessor touchdown horses.) Every time the team scores a touchdown the horse gallops up & down the sideline behind the visiting team’s bench.
  • Scottish Association Football has a few. Most of them are ignored except Broxi Bear for Glasgow Rangers and Hoopy the Huddle Hound for Celtic.
    • The UK Disney Channel had a competition called the Mascots' Cup. Broxi won, beating Manchester United's red devil in the final.
    • In Brazil, every team has one, mostly following Animal Motifs.
    • Possibly the most convoluted mascot Punny Name in Scottish football is Hibernian FC's "Sunshine the Leith Lynx", whose name is a reference to both the Leith Links public park and "Sunshine on Leith", the song by The Proclaimers which is the team anthem.
  • High school football in Texas -where it is a major religion- gives us mascots such as the Hamlin Pied Pipers (yes, as in the German folk tale) and the Winters Blizzards.
  • Small Midwestern college Missouri Western State University had, in the late 80s, a mascot that strongly resembled a golden aardvark. It was supposed to be a Griffon (the actual name of the sports teams), but the school had recently changed their logo and the mascot was intended to suggest the new, inferior-in-every-possible-way version.
  • Not only do most English football league clubs have a mascot, but they've taken mascot racing to amazing lengths - there's not only an official FA Cup Mascot Race, but also an even bigger Mascot Grand National - these aren't half-time entertainment at football matches, but special events held at racecourses.
  • The first World Cup mascot was in 1966, in England. It was a lion named World Cup Willie. Every World Cup since has had a mascot.
  • The first official Olympic Games mascot was at the 1972 Summer Olympics, a dachshund named Aldi. Every Olympics since, (winter and summer), has had at least one official mascot.
  • Rather than a team, some tracks on the NASCAR circuit have mascots. Notably, the 'Monster Mile' in Dover has Miles the Monster, a rocky monster holding a 1:1 scale race car in his hand. The statue (yes, it's a statue) has a ladder inside leading to the car, although it's not open to the public (imagine a drunk fan falling fifteen metres onto granite and the resulting lawsuit).

    Theme Parks 
  • Figment from Journey into Imagination is frequently used as the mascot of Epcot. Mickey Mouse for the Disney parks as a whole.
  • Shamu (an orca whale) has been SeaWorld's mascot practically since its beginning. In recent years, the Sesame Street characters slowly became the unofficial mascots for the chain after Sea World announced on phasing out orca shows.
  • Universal Studios tends to flip-flop between Woody Woodpecker and the Minions when it comes to mascots.
  • Pardoes The Jester/Wizard for the theme park Efteling located in North Brabant, in the Netherlands.
  • Ed Euromaus (an example of Mocky Mouse) for Germany's Europa-Park.
  • The Cedar Fair parks tend to use the Peanuts characters in their advertisements, Snoopy in particular, who usually has his own children's land "Camp Snoopy".
  • The Six Flags parks has the Looney Tunes, particularly Bugs Bunny as the chain's mascots since the late 1980s and early 1990s. Mr. Six later became the second mascot for Six Flags beginning in 2004 and up till the mid 2010s.
  • American indoor water park and resort chain "Great Wolf Lodge" has a group of young anthropomorphic animals (Wiley, Violet, Sammy, Oliver, and Brinley) as the chain's mascots.

    Video Games 
  • Unlike most other forms of media, video game mascots tend to fall under a slippery slope. In the past, many video game companies either used one or more characters from their most popular franchises as an official or unofficial mascot of some sort, or created one for the company's logo or exclusively for marketing purposes. Many of these mascots were cartoon or anime-influenced and made to appeal to their target audience, children. With gaming now being an industry focused on adults and most gaming protagonists following suit, many older mascots have been retired, mascots in general aren't really pushed as heavily as they were in previous decades, and many people tend to throw around the term "mascot" as the protagonist of a company's flagship series, whether it be a current or legacy series, due to the impact the character's game series has had on the industry or out of nostalgia. Out of all of them, the only ones that are undeniably official mascots and usually considered equal to Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny are Mario for Nintendo, Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega, and Pac-Man for what was originally Namco. They're usually the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about their respective companies and, at least during each of their heydays, had their images or associated sound effects plastered on logos, commercials, and company products outside their own series.
  • Nintendo
    • Mario is unquestionably considered the mascot for Nintendo, and in a sense, the face of gaming itself.
    • Donkey Kong, in his current incarnation, became a figurehead for both Nintendo and Rare during the mid '90s after Donkey Kong Country proved to be a smash hit. Between that time and the release of Super Mario 64, you Donkey Kong (and at times even Diddy Kong) were featured on so much more product than Mario that it would be easy to mistaken DK as the official mascot of Nintendo or even Rare.
    • While The Pokémon Company operates separately from Nintendo, Pikachu is not too far behind Mario, being the face of the Pokémon franchise, appearing in every game of the series and nearly every episode of Pokémon: The Series. Pikachu also became Japan's Official Mascot for Brazil 2014 World Cup.
      • Let's take a survey: ask anyone off the street if 1) they play Pokemon & 2) if so, which Pokemon is their favorite. If the answer to #1 is "yes", see how many answer "Pikachu" to #2. The results may surprise you.
    • The Famicom Disk System had a critter called Diskun, who occasionally made cameos in games for the peripheral and starred in the last-ever FDS game, Janken Disk Shiro.
  • Sega
    • Sonic The Hedgehog, both classic and modern versions of the character. Sonic was made to compete with and become Sega's equivalent to Mario and has since become synonymous with the company, for better or worse. He proved popular enough in western countries that he infamously led to the creation of an entire subtype of Mascot: the Mascot with Attitude.
    • Before Sonic's introduction, Alex Kidd was considered to be Sega's mascot, something later reaffirmed in several games, including Sega Ages series of rereleases for the Nintendo Switch. Opa-Opa of Fantasy Zone is also in a similar position, having cameos across several games.
    • In Japan, the company had another mascot specifically for the Saturn: Segata Sanshiro, a badass martial artist who would beat up people for not playing the Saturn. He eventually got his own video game, which was the last first-party game released for the Saturn.
    • Back when Compile was still around, Carbuncle, a character from Madou Monogatari 1-2-3 found himself in the Series Mascot role for its More Popular Spin Off series, Puyo Puyo. That series eventually got so big that Carbuncle was eventually promoted to being the mascot for Compile as a whole, often appearing on or near several of the company's logos. That sadly changed as Compile was facing a slow financial demise, and the Puyo Puyo series (though not Compile itself) was eventually bought by Sega, who put Carbuncle in the back seat for a while and started to focus more on the Puyos themselves.
    • Atlus uses Jack Frost and his brothers from Shin Megami Tensei. However, as of the massive success of Persona 5, it seems that Atlus has been pushing the main character of the game, Joker, as their mascot more and more, with his costume appearing in other Sega and Atlus games and the character himself being featured as DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • Namco / Bandai Namco Entertainment
    • Pac-Man was the official mascot for Namco and was quite possibly one of the earliest gaming mascots, predating Mario by a year and being more recognizable by older audiences. At a time when most games were Pong-clones or shooters, Pac-Man was created as a friendly face to bring in more female players. Though not as obvious as it once was ever since the merger with Bandai, He is still considered to be this for the gaming division, having many seperate social media accounts representing the character.
    • Like with Pac-Man, most of BNEI's other recurring mascot characters originated from the pre-merger Namco days, specifically its early-arcade era back in the '80s, including Mappy and Goro (Nyamco in the Japanese version), Taizo Hori and the enemies Pooka and Fygar from Dig Dug, the Mushlins from Libble Rabble, and Gilgamesh and Ki from The Tower of Druaga. Popular characters from outside that era include Kazuya, Heihachi, Klonoa, and Don Wada.
    • Ms. Pac-Man, despite not being created by Namco was right up there with Pac-Man. She was a big hit in America and despite her original arcade game not being released in Japan until over a decade later, she was often featured alongside Pac-Man in promotional artwork and several covers for the NG magazine. Legal issues from the BNEI era have since prevented her from maintaining this status.
  • Capcom: Capcom is a bizarre case, in which it has several unofficial mascots, but not one who is the entire face of the company, with the company being confirmed by former community manager Seth Killian to have never had an official mascot, even if fans refuse to believe it.
    • To many gaming fans, the original Mega Man is usually considered to be the mascot for Capcom due to his series being one of Capcom's earliest major successes, their first for home consoles, and a family-friendly face on par with Mario, Sonic and Pac-Man (which didn't go unnoticed in the recent Super Smash Bros. titles). He's since been Out of Focus ever since Keiji Inafune left the company and possibly because of the abundance of several different versions of Mega Man.
    • While Ryu predates him by a few months, it wasn't until four years later that his series played a significant part in gaming history and revolutionized the fighting genre forever. However, his series was put on a long hiatus after the late 90s once the arcade scene and the fighting game genre started to lose steam. Even then, he's not a major player in the story of most of the games. Many of the female characters such as Chun-Li has proven to be breakout characters having their popularity overtake Ryu's, and there have even been attempts to give the leading role to new characters (such as Alex and Luke).
    • Alongside them were Captain Commando, who appeared in packaging and game manuals before starring in his own self-titled video game (even taking center stage over Mega Man and Ryu in the opening of the first Marvel vs. Capcom), and Mobi-chan, a tiny version of the player character from Hyper Dyne Side Arms who appeared as an easter egg throughout several Capcom games, including those within the Mega Man and Street Fighter series.
    • In recent years, Capcom's attempt at a mascot has since diminished, but the company has always and continue to push its topical characters as an ensemble in promtional artwork and within several Capcom vs. titles. Featured characters often include characters from its two current best-selling flagship franchises, Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, at least one version of Mega Man, Ryu alongside other Street Fighter characters (Usually Chun-Li) or characters in the same universe (like Final Fight or Rival Schools), Morrgian Aensland from the Darkstalkers / Vampire series, Viewtiful Joe, and Phoenix Wright from the Ace Attorney series, among others.
  • Konami:
    • Similarly, Konami tends to cycle through characters from several of their franchises, though out of all of them, Solid Snake, Simon Belmont, Goemon, TwinBee, Shiori Fujisaki, and Power Pro-Kun tend to be their most notable picks.
    • In the wake of Konami dissolving Hudson Soft, Bomberman and Bonk has also risen to a similar rank. Though before the merger, Hudson Soft's official mascot was actually Hachisuke, also known as Hu-Bee. This character was exclusively used for the company's logo.
  • Square Enix:
    • Cloud Strife is generally considered by many to be the most iconic character from Final Fantasy and as such is considered to be the poster boy of the company as a whole, being featured in such games as Kingdom Hearts and Super Smash Bros., and Square would later try to recreate Cloud's success with Lightning Farron, but Cloud has continued to stay in the spotlight. And speaking of Kingdom Hearts, Sora also counts as a mascot, both for Square Enix and the franchise.
    • From the Dragon Quest games, Slime is undeniably the most iconic and recognizable character from the franchise, appears in a good majority of the merchandise sold for it, and is often used to represent the franchise in crossovers such as Fortune Street.
    • Lara Croft is this for Eidos Interactive, even after their acquisition by Square Enix in 2009.
  • SNK
    • Before 1991, SNK had the now pretty much unknown G-Mantle. After rebranding itself as "SNK Entertainment" in 2016, they brought in a new mascot named Enta Girl.
    • Athena Asamiya was viewed as the more recognizable face of SNK before she was pushed to the sidelines for the more popular Terry Bogard. This gets used as a joke in The King of Fighters where she has a bitter rivalry with him. Though by XIII she seems to have gotten over it and has nothing but respect for him. Kyo Kusanagi and Nakoruru are usually not too far behind.
  • Others
    • Crash Bandicoot was at one point considered the unofficial mascot of the PlayStation and Sony Computer Entertainment, as he was made to be the console's answer to both Sonic and Mario. The American commercials featuring the guy in the Crash suit taking shots at Nintendo only cemented this.
      • In North America, the PlayStation was originally going to have a mascot named Polygon Man who appears in the early marketing of the console, but was completely absent in the console because Ken Kutaragi was disappointed with his design so he's absent in the final release and fell to obscurity. He returned unexpectedly in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale as the final boss.
    • Koei Tecmo's de facto mascot is Ryu Hayabusa, whose appeared not only in Dead or Alive, but also in Warriors Orochi, Warriors All-Stars, and had his ancestor appear in Nioh.
    • Arc System Works has its mascot position shared by Sol Badguy and Ragna the Bloodedge.
    • Ubisoft's mascots are Rayman and Sam Fisher, even after years of both characters not receiving brand new games. Ezio Auditore and Vaas Montenegro are also mascots, to a lesser extent.
    • Master Chief is usually seen as this for Xbox Game Studios.
    • Fictional example: "Vault Boy", the wavy-haired boy in the vault-dweller jumpsuit who serves as the smiling figurehead for Vault-Tec in Fallout. Fans call him "Fallout Boy" (no relation to the band or the fictional character on The Simpsons), and he's come to serve as a mascot for the game series, as well.
      • Not to be confused (although he often has been, even the developers of Fallout Tactics made this mistake) with "Pip-Boy", who is the redheaded pixie in the yellow and orange spacesuit, visible on the logo of the Pip-Boy 2000.
    • The Companion Cube for Portal. Portal 2 uses Atlas and P-Body, the robots from the game's co-op mode.
      • Valve have also used other characters as mascots, with the Heavy Weapons Guy or the Soldier representing Team Fortress 2. The announcement for the Steam platform coming to the Mac used one of Portal's iPod-esque turrets to resemble the Mac and the Engineer's solidly mechanical turret from TF2 for the PC.

    Other 
  • Honda has Mr. Opportunity (voiced by Rob Paulsen) for their yearly Clearance.
  • The Pep Boys, Manny, Moe and Jack, for the automotive parts retailer of the same name (including the character names). (The characters are based on the company founders.)
  • The Car Fox, a puppet used in CarFax.com commercials, is something of a Heel–Face Turn example: it first appeared as a deceptive knock-off competitor of CarFax, but was cute and popular enough that it now promotes their used-car-information service directly.
  • Orange Guy, the mascot of the New Zealand Electoral Commission. He was first introduced in 2002 and was designed to be as politically-neutral as possible.
  • A rare game show example is from Catchphrase, where a small, cylindrical robot named either Herbie (for the short-lived US version) or Mr. Chips in the UK; he often appears on the screen as part of the "catch phrases" the contestants must decipher.
  • Indian antivirus software Protegent became infamous on the internet for having several ads released for it featuring a mascot named Proto, whose design is blatantly ripped off from the main character of Super Why!.
  • The hhgregg chain of stores had commercials featuring hh, a sentient rolled-up hhgregg ad.
  • The music retailer HMV has Nipper the dog, though he's not used much nowadays apart from being their website's favicon.
  • Crazy Frog was the mascot of the infamous premium SMS text message club company Jamba!/Jamster at its height.
  • Goodwill Industries currently has a Goofy Suit version of its "Smiling G" logo serving as a mascot at events, but in the 1950s and '60s there was Good Willy, a little boy in a wheelchair (representing the people the organization helped). He also appeared as a Goofy Suit character at fundraisers, etc. (Jeff Goldblum says his first onstage experience of any kind was playing him at a school assembly when he was in the third grade — with a Dramatic Unmask at the end that blew the other kids' minds.)
  • An In-Universe example from Mystery Flesh Pit National Park: Caver Coop was the cute Anodyne cartoon mascot that existed to convince frightened people - especially children - that being down in the pit wasn't like being "swallowed alive" and was actually quite safe. Coop became an Abandoned Mascot after 2007.
  • An in-universe example with the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game. As Bufo is a mascot of the Amazement Attraction theme park, he is classified as Beast-Type because he's a fluffy teddy bear. This typing for cute animals has precedence with the Rescue series and the Melffy archetype.
  • Suburban Auto Group of Sandy, Oregon has the Trunk Monkey, (actually a chimpanzee). Trunk Monkey comes out the trunk to assist the vehicle owner with a variety of situations. (Those solutions are not always legal or ethical, but they tend to be humorous.) Trunk Monkey has also been franchised to other car dealers.
  • The social media website Cohost has Eggbug, a purple winged bug with a smile shaped like the Cohost logo.
  • In the Novelization of Turning Red, Mei and her friends write Tyler into their collaborative fanfic as their mascot.

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Connie the Coin

The mascot of Cryptoland.

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