The Six Flags Mascot: Like Being Kicked in the Eyes By AIDS
Dear Six Flags Corporation,
I am part of a minority in America, in that I dont have cable. Like the proud Somalians, I must resort to piracy if I am to fulfill my material and entertainment needs. That is, until last week when my TV inexplicably started having all the major network channels where once there was static. I guess the Somalian analogy there would be getting sniped in the face, but in a good way.
And though I have since been enjoying occasionally-flickering episodes of House and the Simpsons/Family Guy hybrid that The Simpsons has become, Ive also been repeatedly reminded why I canceled my cable in the first place.
No, Im not talking about commercial breaks, episode preemption or Two and a Half Men. My cable-demon has a face. An old, plastic, wrinkled, terrifying face. Its this guy:
Fuck. This. Guy. I fucking hate him. He looks like someone left a dead turtle in a stagnant pool of water for a month then put glasses on it. And as his parent, it's your responsibility to abort him.
Lets make one thing clear: This man has no business giving me advice on anything post-Cold War Era, let alone my choice of amusement park. If this guy went on a roller coaster, his putrefied organs would ooze out of every orifice. In fact, THATS what you should put in the commercial. Seriously, if you built a roller coaster called Der Elderkiller and killed off your mascot in the commercial for it, I promise I would call and buy a season pass immediately.
Whered you get this guy? The Sopranos? The Progeria Center? Has Dana Carvey fallen so far?
Theres only one thing Id buy from this man. Canned, unsalted peanuts. Thats it. Maybe adult diapers, but only if he promised his face wasnt on the package.
I think what really gets me is that its clearly a young person wearing grotesque amounts of old man makeup. Whats the message there, Six Flags? Are you reaching out to old people? Young people who dress like old people? Musical Theater majors desperate for the most humiliating work possible?
Heres a list of things that would have been more appropriate as a mascot for a roller coaster-based amusement park:
- A skateboarding duck.
- Six flags, each with a different disquieting personality disorder.
- An animate gust of wind.
- A coaster. Like, a drink coaster. Named "Roller."
- An old tire.
- Fucking ANYTHING.
And come on: More Flags. More Fun? Why do you think that means ANYTHING to ANYONE? Admittedly, it is exactly the kind of thing a doddering old man would mutter to himself while being wheeled out behind the barn to be put out of his misery.
Its a nonsensical turd of a slogan. The only times more flags equals more fun are at Semifore Camp and on Nickelodeon game shows from the late 90s. You are neither. You are a place that houses a collection of giant robots that push people around. And even THAT overly technical description of your function is a cooler-sounding slogan than More Flags. More Fun.
Plus, youre leaving the door wide open for someone to found an amusement park called 12 Flags and steal all your business. Then youll go to 14, and the Flag Wars will be on. Where will it end? My guess is with a park just called FLAAAAAAAAGSSSZ!!! whose mascot is an Olympic runner made up as a paraplegic.
More Flags? More Fun? Mother Fuckers.
Your mascot literally makes me sick to my stomach. Get that hideous thing off of my television so I can get back to my Fear Factor rerun. Because honestly, watching someone hork down rotten dongs is a lot more palatable than this decrepit, polyurethane diaper-faced reject from a Buzbee Berkley Musical.
Eat Chocolate Skittles and die.
Sincerely,
A guy who hasnt ridden a roller coaster since Viper gave him migraines.
When not reskinning his old blog posts, Michael serves as head writer for and co-founder of Those Aren't Muskets! You can also follow him on Twitter from now until they invent a social networking tool where you communicate only with emoticons.
When I went to Six Flags Fiesta Texas, one of my friends saw the old man and had a dance-off with him. It was pretty f**king awesome.
ReplyWho won?
He sounds a lot like Maddox at the end. I like it.
ReplyInfinite flags. I would go there.
ReplyI have the dance as an animated emoticon on MSN messenger. It's a lot more enjoyable than the commercials.
Replydid you actually send this letter to them? i really hope you did
ReplyDamn, I wish Swaim posted articles more often.
ReplyI would rather lick my bulldogs ass after it had just eaten a massive dosage of laxatives and several dozen cans of Busch Beans than get on a bus with that disgusting half aborted Elmer Fudd clone.
ReplyI was taking a picture of a parade once, and the old guy rode his sc****r (or whatever the crap it was) right in front of me. Jacka$$.
Replyumm...hate to break it to ya, but those "peanuts" in the picture are actually pistachios...
Reply Hide All See All 3 Repliesgod i feel like such a douche now.
umm...hate to break it to ya, but I doubt Michael reads comments on 4 month old articles.
KTope, who's the douche now?! Probably me because I've commented on this article 4 months after your response
They're actually peanuts, the split is caused by the release of moisture and contraction of the meat during the roasting process allowing for the preservation of the peanut. I can see how you could have made this mistake on first glance as the number of whole peanuts (that being nuts which have not separated) is a misrepresentation of that which you would receive from a normal can of peanuts. However, the over-filled can of peanuts should have triggered your senses into seeing that this is no ordinary can of peanuts, but rather a can of peanuts used in an advertisement to convey the "Extra Large" in "Extra Large Gourmet Virgina Peanuts" as stated on the can.
It is your response which contains the incorrect content as you have made the mistake of using the wrong word. Where you have used the word 'feel' you really meant "am".
Any fake elderly person doing advanced dance moves creeps me the f**k out. It's unnatural, like the Asians in the Grudge.
Replynot that i hate the old man...i just don't think that his commercials having any appeal and that the marketing team that thought that one up are a bunch of dumbs**ts. humor, humor is good. an old guy on a roller coaster grinning his ass off doesnt make me laugh, it just makes me think im seeing what the inside of a senior's mind looks like when they're heavily drugged and finally getting that sponge-bath they've been begging for.
ReplyThat just made me shiver. Thanks for the visual.
I regret to find that nobody has made a single complaint about that equally retarded and unnecessary slogan from Six flags after every goddamn ride: WE HOPE YOU HAD A SIX FLAGS RIDE!!
ReplySo, what other ride could I have had? An Amusement Park XYZ ride? That along with that more flags, more fun bullcrap kinda cancels out most of the fun I just on the ride. You did a Six Flags job, Six Flags!
I don't know what Six Flags you went to. I can't say i've ever heard that phrase before but it sounds absolutely ridiculous.
Um, okay. Two And A Hlaf Men is NOT a cable show, and Six Flags commercials most often appear on non-cable channels... so apparently you are a f**king moron if you canceled your cable for those reason.
ReplyNice adage to Real Nick game shows, though...
Swaim, look at that. You offended the publisher of the T.V guide.
Ravyn7 doesn't know what a joke is.
Ravyn7 choked down a TV Guide and shat out a fistful of spelling and grammatical errors.
EDITED SORRY CAN'T EDIT THE OLD ONE
ReplyI miss the Asian guy. After they stopped doing the old guy campaigns for awhile (2 or 3 years) the Asian guy came on and was just generic asian man with a slight accent and spiky hair. But I guess people found it racist (most likely case) and they decided to re-introduce the creepy old guy. You know what else is creepy. There is a mini-me version in some of the commercials.
And roller coasters at Six Flags are O.K.. I hate cheap amusement park ones though. Never ride "Mind Eraser" in Boulder, CO. That thing made me not want to ride or do anything the rest of the day. It probably wasn't even called mind eraser, just changed to that when they didn't wanna fix the rickety coaster.
I miss the Asian guy. After they stopped doing the old guy campaigns for awhile (2 or 3 years) the Asian guy came on and was just generic asian man with a slight accent and spiky hair. But I guess people found it racist (most likely case) and they decided to re-introduce the creepy old guy. You know what else is creepy. There is a mini-me version in some of the commercials.
ReplyHe IS right, though. Surrealist advertising may have started as a humorous attempt at appealing to the eighteen-to-twenty-fives, but it went from David Lynch to Terry Gilliam while he was still doing Monty Python REAL quick, if you catch my drift...
ReplyThe funny thing is, I bet half of the people who agree with Swaim don't really give a s**t either way, they just like agreeing with Michael. That said, I don't really care about the old dude - I go there to ride the Bizarro ;)
ReplyI never used to care about the guy, but then I worked for Six Flags one summer and now what violence would I not perpetrate on him?
ReplySix Flags actually made it worse. They combined the really obnoxious Asian guy screaming "Mo Flags..Mo Fun!" while smiling (damn the smiling) with the creepy Crypt Keeper. They should all die.
ReplyI went to Six Flags in Jersey last year and during the apparently nessesary dance sequence near the big fountain, this f**king guy was there, leader of the pack, dancing his black ass off. No Quad City DJ's song though, major disapointment. He was less than 3 feet away from me, staring off into space, deeply involved in his amazing dancing skills. Weird. I'm still terrified of this "man" to this day. How he talks in the commercials is his actual voice, I s**t you not.
ReplyWait, he's black?