Talking With David Raymond, The Original Phillie Phanatic, About The Mascot Hall of Fame And Mascots in 2015

Our friend R.J. Casey runs a zine called Shirt Cannon, which is all about mascots. He was kind enough to let us reprint his wide-ranging interview with David Raymond, the O.G. Phillie Phanatic and an apostle of mascoting unlike any other. Get yourself a copy here.

David Raymond has done it all in the world of mascots: He was the very first Philadelphia Phanatic; a corporate and team branding entrepreneur; a talent scout and teacher of novice and veteran mascots alike. His newest endeavor, however, might be his lasting legacy. Raymond has been thrust into a management role for the new Mascot Hall of Fame. Set to open in just a few years in Whiting, Indiana, Raymond explains his role in the Hall's progress, the process of enshrinement, and how this idea didn't start with a light bulb over his head, but a literal blow to someone else's.

RJ CASEY: Tell me a little about the Mascot Hall of Fame. It's supposed to open in 2017?

DAVID RAYMOND: That's what we want. [laughs]

CASEY: How did you get involved with the Mascot Hall of Fame?

RAYMOND: It all started in 2003 with the sausage characters in Milwaukee. One day, one of the kids that was running in the sausage race got hit by Randall Simon of the Pirates.

CASEY: I remember that!

RAYMOND: Simon was just fooling around—being the way a lot of these professional ballplayers are toward mascots. He probably didn't realize he could hurt somebody by hitting them over the head with a bat. This made national news and one of my employees came in and said, "Hey, you should think about this from a public relations standpoint and do something."

So, the idea was a march on Philadelphia. A bunch of mascots marched for "mascot rights." We got about 50 mascots together to walk down to City Hall in Philadelphia and read the "Mascot Bill of Rights". We called it the "Where is The Love?" Tour because that song by the Black Eyed Peas was hot at the time. We had a DJ out there playing music and had a bunch of characters dancing around. We got a lot of media attention locally and some national. The following year we did it again. It was fun and we had a blast.

Because of all the media attention, we had talked about forming a Mascot Hall of Fame. We decided to create it as more or less web-based and had the first induction ceremony in Philadelphia. We inducted the Phanatic, the San Diego Chicken and the Phoenix Suns Gorilla. Then the following year, we had another induction ceremony where we blew it up—made it bigger and held it at a location that was close to the original march on Philadelphia. We ended up getting over 60 million media impressions at that induction.

CASEY: How are mascots inducted? Were they nominated by a group of people, or did you just select them?

RAYMOND: When we first decided to do this, we went through a process of getting an advisory committee to do the voting. We got authors, general managers, professional athletes, even Suzy Kolber from ESPN was on the committee. Then we sent an invitation to apply to the Phillies, the Suns, and Ted Giannoulas, who is the [San Diego] Chicken. It was a very simple application. We put those three to a vote with the purpose of the advisory committee setting up a ballot. We agreed that all three of them should be on the initial ballot. We then had people who paid a small fee—I think it was $15 for a Mascot Hall of Fame T-shirt—become voting members. Those five or six hundred people voted on the ballot and all three mascots received the number of votes to get in.

The advisory committee then turned into an executive committee moving forward. In recent years we've opened it up to popular votes on the internet as well. We started to bring in college performers and the application process has started to get a little more involved. We have a whole list of criteria—you have to be around for at least 10 years, you have to have proof that you've been a positive force in your local fan base. We're now asking for affidavits from people in the community, too. The Jazz Bear, when he was on the ballot, Senator Orrin Hatch actually sent in a letter suggesting how important the Jazz Bear was to Utah and Salt Lake. That was really interesting.

That's the way it started and we continued to do it that way for a number of years. It became very difficult financially for our business to continue to run local induction ceremonies at the character's home arena or stadium, and then we basically boarded up for a few years because we couldn't keep up with the cost to do these things. We put out the word that if anyone wanted to apply, we'd still accept applications but we were going to wait until we got a permanent Mascot Hall of Fame to hold further inductions.

About three years ago, the city of Whiting, Indiana was going to receive a good deal of money from British Petroleum, who has a very large refinery in that town, to fix up their waterfront there on Lake Michigan. They also wanted to develop some entertainment and had the idea of building a museum of Standard Oil. They later reached out to me because in their conversations about the Standard Oil Museum, they said, "Our town has the Pierogi Festival every year that attracts more than 250,000 people, so we're kind of a silly, little wacky town. The first museum we put up should be more about entertainment and fun than oil."

One of the people in the community brought up the Mascot Hall of Fame after they'd done some research and found us. They said, "We'd really like you to bring it here."

Frankly, I tried to talk them out of it. I said, "I don't think this is something that we could conceivably do and do right."

They said, "You've got to understand that we have the backing and the money available to give. We really want the Mascot Hall of Fame!"

CASEY: What were your initial apprehensions?

RAYMOND: I just wanted to be able to be available for them. I wanted to be an effective partner and I didn't feel like I would be able to be distracted by something that most likely wouldn't generate revenue for my company. I couldn't spend all my time working and doing research for them.

We've done a lot of work since then. I've been to Whiting now about a half-dozen times and have certainly had three or four times that amount of phone conference meetings. I realized the partnership with the city—their manpower and structure—would help us do the things I thought I would have to do on my own. We've come all the way to just this past weekend when Raymond Entertainment, my company, signed an understanding with them about how we'll work with the city of Whiting, and license them the use of the Mascot Hall of Fame logos and marks. We're ready to start moving on fundraising and developing the plans for the build. That's the long and short of it at this point.

It's a non-profit, but we're going to benefit from the publicity, from the success of the Hall of Fame, and merchandise sales. There's an opportunity for us to do things that will be good for the company and certainly will be great for the city of Whiting because this will be a community asset for them. We really think it will be one of the most successful Halls of Fame in the country because, in general, the well-known Halls hemorrhage money. Places like [The Baseball Hall of Fame] don't make money. It's really about investing in a facility that makes the community look good and a destination for people who are sports fans. In this case, we're trying to attract the over 35 million people that are just a few minutes away from Whiting in places like Chicago. They already know how to draw people with their Peirogi Fest and a few other big events. It's always going to be about fun, family entertainment. I think we got a great chance. My apprehensions were just about wanting to be a good partner. Now I see that it is developing and we're going to be able to do a great job. We've laid the foundation to make this a success.

CASEY: What's your vision for the museum itself? What's it going to look like when it opens?

RAYMOND: It's a gorgeous building with a lot of glass and sunlight—a beautiful building in unto itself. We want to take those plans and make the inside truly look like a Mascot Hall of Fame. It will not be filled with memorabilia and artifacts—a few, but a very small amount. It will mostly be high-tech, interactive fun. We're really hoping it's a unique experience. We'll also have a lot of live activities and mascots will be there on a regular basis. We have a lot of plans for mascots to be a part of induction ceremonies. Those will be fun, big events each year. Our tongues are firmly planted in our cheeks, but it will definitely be celebrating the great things that mascots do.

CASEY: Last question: looking back over your illustrious career where you've been a mascot yourself, you've taken leadership positions, been teaching mascots and making mascots, what do you think the current status and main function of a professional mascot is right now?

RAYMOND: Back when the Phanatic was created in 1978, mascots were not valued at all. They were more like, "Let's get a kid and throw him in a costume!"

Even on that level, there weren't many of them out there. It's grown from that to being a beneficial drive of revenue and brand. I just got back from working with Manchester, England's football club. We're trying to develop a mascot brand extension for their soccer team because mascots in Europe haven't done much more than stand on the periphery and shake hands and take pictures. We're talking about marketing, promotions, and merchandise sales here. It's gone from just being kids in big suits to being serious business.