The most unsettling meals mascots

Mondo Mascots is a Twitter account devoted to “the unusual, wonderful mascots of Japan,” and it is arguably the only superior detail to occur to the world wide web. (Moreover Gerald Stratford.) There is Hatton, a spilled bowl of soup, who is the mascot for Tome City, Japan. There is the psychedelic pig on Butamen pork ramen. There’s Imokki, the “bad boy sweet potato” serving as an unofficial mascot for Hitachinaka City, Japan. These foodstuff mascots are cheerful, charming, and exceedingly huggable. But when it arrives to food stuff mascot lore, like a lot of matters in daily life, you have to consider the excellent with the creepy. Like that time a bunch of horned-up marketing industry experts designed the Hamburglar pretty, or the cursed existence of the Gary Busey-esque California Raisins in the 1988 claymation Tv set unique Satisfy the Raisins! Beneath, we reflect on the food items world’s most unsettling figureheads.

Maurie and Flaurie, the Superdawg sweethearts

Enable me say, from the bottom of my coronary heart, that Superdawg Generate-In is a Chicago landmark of indescribable great importance. Relatives owned considering the fact that 1948, the organization is nationally renowned for staying 1 of the country’s several remaining continually functioning carhop push-in dining places, and the historical past of how it came to be justifies its very own Hallmark film. In addition, the incredibly hot canine are delectable. I just have a single small beef (heh) with its mascots, two 12-foot-substantial anthropomorphic very hot canines nicknamed Maurie and Flaurie soon after the restaurant’s authentic-life founders, substantial college sweethearts Maurie and Florence (“Flaurie”) Berman. The cartoonish, bunless weiners function Maurie flexing like a strongman in a cheetah-print singlet and the additional demure Flaurie clasping her fingers in entrance of her skirt, smiling warmly, a huge floppy bow on major of her head.

This, by the way, is all fine—I welcome it. Put 12-foot hot dogs on leading of each individual small business! Give them flesh-coloured arms and legs! There is just one unsettling feature, one particular that will make it difficult to push by Superdawg at night time: their eyes. Maurie and Flaurie have glowing purple eyes, which melt away brightly soon after sundown in purchase to, as Superdawg’s site places it, “beckon hungry passersby with their winking and blinking eyes.” As Mark Andel of Chicago Now’s Hot Canine Diaries places it, “A brilliant lightbulb in a single of [Maurie’s] eyes is established to wink each couple of seconds, giving off a assured little bit of insider braggadocio in a turf war that implies, ‘Yeah, we’re the most effective pet dog all around.’” As I set it: at night, the hot canine come to be bloodthirsty. I will fortunately aid Superdawg right up until the working day I die, but I pick to do so only by the gentle of day. —Marnie Shure, editor in chief

The Knob Twins

A thirty day period or two into courting my boyfriend, Sean, I started out to notice minor yellow sweet wrappers littering my apartment. Turns out, they were being Gin Gin wrappers. Gin Gins, a ginger-flavored really hard sweet sold by The Ginger Men and women, are billed as “the greatest purposeful treat” and advertised as a solution for nausea, digestive difficulties, and even “chronic throat tickles.” Sean eats at the very least two Gin Gins every single time I see him, and I also sneak one particular from time to time. They are tasty—if you’re curious, this taste test movie is a winner—and surely assist settle my tummy just after, say, a 7 days-prolonged rapidly fish binge. The only dilemma: the two anthropomorphic items of ginger on the front of the bag. They are known as the Knob Twins, and they are explained thusly on the brand’s web page:

“Don’t be fooled by their cuddly physical appearance, The Knob Twins are two rough figures. When they’ve received a large day (or a stinking chilly!) nothing but a strong pop of ginger will do.”

Cherry-crimson cheeks and button noses notwithstanding, the Knob Twins are not cuddly. They’re gnarled. They are gnarled as hell. If you’ve at any time held a piece of raw ginger root in your hand, you know what I’m chatting about. The Knob Twins’ limbs close in crusty stumps, and their cheeky smiles look to say, “Utter an incantation and stick me below your mattress for two months and see what comes about, loser.” I’d like to banish these twisted twins to the Pan’s Labyrinth-adjacent universe where by they belong. —Lillian Stone, workers writer

Ronald McDonald

C’mon, absolutely everyone. You knew Ronald McDonald was likely to make the list. I suppose this is a really primary respond to to the question “Which food items mascot evokes the most horror?”, but I took this image in man or woman at Koreafest in Chicago yrs and yrs in the past. Proudly owning this photograph is my life’s load. I have a challenging time seeking at it now.

I am very guaranteed Ronald McDonald is a ghoul. You see, I participate in a ton of video clip video games, and in some of them, you experience terrifying enemies that look a large amount like Ronny McDonny. The other suspicious matter is that he hasn’t aged a single little bit, as evidenced by this slideshow. That is a trademark of a ghoul’s existence, and ghouls need to be averted at all charges, in video game titles and in authentic daily life.

His mere image is meant to conjure up a longing for french fries, a Massive Mac, and a crisp fountain Coke, but in actuality, his image really evokes evening terrors in youngsters who put in way as well a lot time in the stinky PlayPlace ball pit. Be sure to gaze upon this photograph and enter the abyss with me. —Dennis Lee, staff author