My Mascot Plush Collection: Rating and Showing Off

This article will be updated as my collection grows.

So one of my top 10 hobbies of all time is thrifting, and specifically, thrifting for toys. I consider myself a toy collector,
but don't let the name fool you-- I have a very specific set of rules and niches for myself so that I don't end up with too much. And at the
intersection of toy collecting and thrifting lies our niche of interest: promotional plush and plush mascot characters. And, for full clarity,
not every single thing on this list was thrifted. Some I purchased on eBay, and some I've had for so long that I can't trace the origins.
Regardless, my typical thrifting rules apply here as well.

  1. Must be old, only as recent as the early 2010s, but preferably between the 90s and 2000s.
    Rare exceptions are made for newer items if they interest me enough.
  2. Must be related in some way to something I'm already interested in OR
  3. Must be quirky/weird enough to stand out.

Now as for what I consider to be a promotional, or more importantly a mascot for the sake of this list, it started getting a bit tricky.
I wanted the classification to be restrictive enough that things like Mario (mascot of Nintendo) or Pikachu (mascot of Pokemon) wouldn't count. But I
also wanted it to be open ended enough that weird, oddball promo non-characters counted. So, I landed on this set of rules.

  1. The character must've been designed FOR advertising/branding. The character can appear in things like games or cartoons, but cannot debut in them.
  2. The character's brand association must be clear either through printed logos or attached tags.

This also eliminates boring potential entries like any generic made-to-ship teddy bears in t-shirts (as if I'd ever own something so boring anyway).
But mainly, I want to sort of rate these plush. Not in any particular or rigid order, just in general. I'd like to examine:

Let's get this show (and tell) on the road!



1996 Toucan Sam

representing Kelloggs' Froot Loops cereal

This here might just be the oldest thing in my collection. In age? Maybe. But more specifically, in ownership. I was born in 2001, and this was something I distinctly
remember having around from the very beginning. Originally, I remember being told it was my dads, and because I was an idiot child, I assumed it was
something he owned as a child. The weird state of it (the beak had been sewn up and the tag was very frayed and weathered) also lended to this idea. But
no, this Sam is from the 90s. I've seen listings state he's from as early as '94, and as late as '97. The tag doesn't say anything, so I'll just go with 1996.

There's actually a shocking amount of different Toucan Sam plush that have been released over the years, with some as early as the 60s! The character himself was
debuted in 1963 and has undergone many revisions since then. And obviously, both Kelloggs and this specific Froot Loops cereal are very popular and still
widely available. I'll be giving this specific plush an accuracy score of 3/5. All the colors are patterned in the right way, save for a few details
like the shapes on the beak, he's very true to form. The real reason I'm removing points though is due to his uncanny, blank stare. All other
Toucan Sam plush that I'm seeing results for have him sporting a smile, either through a more defined mouth or some little eyebrows. This one, however
has him oddly staring down with his mouth agape. I always remember being a bit unsettled by it as a child, and that feeling didn't come easy to me.

Onto craftsmanship, as alluded to above, this plush is very well made. Things from the 90s tend to have a higher quality point than modern things
(a massive draw for vintage collectors) and this is no exception. Multiple different kinds of fabric are used (high pile plush, flat cotton, and felt) and
the sew lines are visible, but strong. I'm not sure what happened that caused him to need his beak sewn up, and there's a piece of plastic cord (like some kind of fishing line?)
over the suture. I'm not sure if this was the original thread for the beak, as it's very firm and may have needed the stronger line, or if it was added when
it was mended. The eyes are also buttons instead of being sewn or printed on, which is another trait we've seemingly lost to time.
However, due to his beak being as heavy and dense as it is, he has a hard time sitting upright. His feet do a bit to help, but because of their dangling
attachment, they aren't always reliable. 4/5 for build.

Finally, do I like the guy? Well, it's complicated. There's definitely a crazy amount of nostalgia attached to him for me. I don't know if I could ever
part ways with him, if only for my own emotional sunk cost fallacy. Not a great way to live, I know. As for Toucan Sam himself,
well, not really. I'm neutral towards him. And I know that, had I not been given this as such a small child and instead saw him at a thrift store
as an adult, I would've said "oh cool, he looks really old" and then moved on. So... 1/5.

1996 Toucan Sam, your score is...




1998 Zyrtec Gorilla

representing Pfizer's Zyrtec medication

Okay. So. This is certainly something. I have many thoughts about this... guy. Let's start out with the basics. Why is a gorilla selling Zyrtec.
Most people know Pfizer and most people know Zyrtec, the allergy drug. I've seen a lot of medication commercials in my time, but never once do I ever remember
seeing a gorilla be used to advertise Zyrtec. I don't even know if this... thing... has an official name. One eBay listing refers to him as "Bunches", and there
seems to be a clock with a physical 3D sculpt of the ape attached to it as well, also referred to as "Bunches". But beyond that, I can't find him in any commercials
or print ads. As a matter of fact, some of you may be experiencing deja vu looking at him. Does anybody else think he looks a bit like... Bonzi Buddy?
Okay, obviously I'm just saying that because they're both purple gorillas with big heads and lavender skin. And to be honest, when I saw him hanging
in the Savers, I definitely thought he WAS Bonzi. I was very disappointed to see that he wasn't.

That all being said, it's kinda hard to rate his accuracy to the original character since... I don't have anything to compare it to. Sure, I could compare
him to the clock, but who's to say the clock is more original? I guess between the two of them, though, they're pretty good replications of each other, save for
the eyes being different sizes. So... 3/5.

This Zyrtec Ape is actually constructed rather well. Being another 90s plush, there's a lot more attention to detail than we probably would've seen
had this been made today. His ears are each two pieces of fabric, and are even sewn down the middle to give them a distinctive crease. The cloth
tag on his leg, although sewn on in a weird location (I would've chosen the chest or back), is smooth texturally and crisp in print quality.
His skin and chest are a separate type of cloth as well, a more meshy type of fabric. The oddest thing of all to me, though, is that his mouth is distinctively
fabric, not embroidered or printed. Even the outline of his mouth and tooth line are folded fabric! Even when they could've very
easily made them with strips of felt, thread, or embroidered. Or just omitted the outlines entirely, really. It's not like they had a super clear design
to emulate here. So, to be honest, for build quality, separate of character design, I have to give him a 5/5. Especially when you take into account
the beaded eyes, the sewn fingers and toes, and the details of the (fabric, crease-sewn) nose.

However... he's... got nothing there for me. I'm not a fan of apes or monkeys, to be honest, although I don't mind the color purple, and
knowing the only reason he caught my eye was because I thought he was a more famous, enjoyable, personally-historical purple gorilla... Yeah, I just
can't say that I enjoy this a whole "bunch". I, like many other people, do enjoy the hilariousness of certain medication promotional gear (Ambien computer mouse,
anyone?), and don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a plush of the Mucinex slimeballs, or the weird foot fungus guy who crawls under your toenails, but
I have no personal attachment to this character, and I'd be shocked if anyone did, considering I can't find him preserved in any form other than these two items
(well, and one other plush where he's built the exact same but with the logo on his chest instead of his leg). So sorry "Bunches", you're getting a 1/5.

1998 "Bunches" the Zyrtec Gorilla, your score is...




2020(?) Maurie the Hotdog

representing Chicago's own Superdawg restaurant

Alright, let's get a boring one out of the way quickly. This is Maurie the Hotdog. I don't know why he's dressed up as a caveman, and I've never
been to Superdawg despite living in the greater Chicagoland area. Or maybe I have, I went to this one hotdog place after Pride in 2018(?), and maybe it was this one?
I get my hotdogs very plain and commit the Chicago sin of putting ketchup on them (and a whisper of mustard) so it makes a lot of hotdog places blend together for me.
I found him in a Goodwill plush bin near my hometown, though. Nowhere near the actual restaurant. Comparing him to his source material, things get a bit weird.
The two best things I can compare him to are the original 2D logo, and the 3D statues of him and his partner Flaurie that sit atop the original location.
What sucks is that the two media, on their own, already have notable differences. 2D Maurie has the little hotdog hairs on top of his head, and his facial details show
him with his mouth closed & smiling, visible cheek/jowl lines, and a big long chin. His eyes are also cartoonish and quaint. 3D Maurie has a bald head, and these jarring white
lips that have his mouth in a permanent clown-smile. And for whatever reason, they decided to give him these giant red eyeballs that fucking light up at night.
But the weirdest part is, this plush seems to take traits from both, and also has its own traits? Like, he has the little hairs like the drawing does, but his mouth
details are done in a way where it looks a lot more like it's supposed to be an open mouth smile, but the lips aren't white? And then his eyes seem like they're
supposed to be the 2D's eyes, but they made the white part rounded so it looks like Adventure Time dog eyes?

It makes sense why a hotdog would be the mascot for a hotdog place. Although I don't know why his face is drawn like that, or like I said earlier, why he's wearing
a pelt and jesus sandals, or why he has human arms and legs. Maurie really reeks of a modern plush, though. I appreciate that his face is embroidered and not printed, and I
like that his pelt is actual cloth that loosely hangs from him, but he's not got much to him. He's very light and thin, his fabric isn't the softest, and his arms and legs are
locked in this forever position, too dense and sewn in a way that makes them impossible to hold in any other position. And, because of the curvature of his body,
it's very hard to get him to stand upright. It really makes me wonder who this was for, because it's not like he's exactly play-ready, not soft enough to be cuddled with, not
sturdy enough to be a dog toy, not weighted well enough to be able to be displayed without some kind of support... and it's not like they were free promotional material or
packaged in with some kind of special meal deal. You have to buy them online, and they're $11 each. I can't find an official release date on him either, but he was
mentioned in an article released in 2020, so, there you go.

Maurie's fine, I suppose. Definitely more of collection filler than collection fundamental. I wonder if I'd like him more if I had a personal connection to the restaurant.

2020(?) Maurie the Hotdog, your score is...




2013(?) Scrubby

representing SC Johnson's Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner

Would you believe me if I said I had a deep personal attachment to the Scrubbing Bubbles things. Maybe that's overselling it a bit, but I really do love these
little guys. I think they're so cute and so funny and I love the way they move around. So when I saw this guy on eBay for only $9 after shipping, I had to go for it.
It's actually really hard finding details on this plush, though. There seems to be a lot of variants that change the text printed on the bottom, and I'm not sure
if the weird cropping of the text on mine (and the omission of a year on the tag) means mine is like, bootleg or something. But who would make a bootleg
Scrubbing Bubbles plush? Other text variation plushes have tags that read 2013, but one variation says "30th anniversary" and no confirmed date on the tag, which,
if this cleaner was invented in 1968, would place these plushes as being made in 1998. It's really hard to tell exactly when they're from. Also, did you know that there's four
main Scrubbing Bubbles characters and they all have their own names and backstories?

Like most long running mascots, the Scrubbing Bubbles have been redesigned plenty of times throughout the years. And despite the existence of their new 3D model
forms, this plush takes direct design cues from the logo used on the front of all their packaging, which also lends me to believe this was created some time in the early 2000s.
Despite its small and rather cheap feeling, the details are actually very accurate to the design. I really love how they pleated the fabric to make it look more like
the bristles. It would've been very easy to just keep it straight, especially for how cheap the rest of it feels, although I'm not sure if it would've been
more or less expensive to sew lines around the skirt to make it look bristly that way. But as mentioned, the build quality otherwise feels kinda cheap. I like that
the eyebrows are standalone pieces of fabric instead of being embroidered shapes, but the fabric of the skirt is completely unhemmed. The fabric itself feels like a
budget fleece, and the embroidered details aren't super crisp. At the same time, I love the little 3D lip and the way the mouth is tucked behind it. It represents
the logo perfectly! He looks so cute like he's hiding behind the collar of his sweater.

There's a shocking amount of Scrubbing Bubbles plush that have been created over the years. Including these two that are
made with much more sheer fabric, button eyes, and actual individual strands of yarn and cut fleece to represent the individual bristles with stunning accuracy. And look
at those smiles! There was also a Japan exclusive Hello Kitty collab that used the more modern 3D design of Scrubby, adorned with Kitty's red bow, as a plush keychain. This release included
a version of Hello Kitty herself as a Scrubbing Bubble, and a larger Scrubby plush without the red bow and the text "Bubble Kunki(?)" embroidered in Japanese on the back.
This Japan exclusive merch drop also seemed to come with a tote bag with the two Bubbles on it, as well as a 3D digital clock. Over the years, Scrubbing Bubbles has also
seen a soft vinyl bath/squeaky toy, a shower caddy, a musical electric toothbrush, at least two different mascot costumes, a night light, and even a ceramic piggy bank!

My dad was home when the package was delivered, and although he didn't open it, he had to ask me what it was. He knows I like to buy a lot of toys and he
never fails to give me shit for it. He was very disappointed to see Scrubby. Well, that's okay. I get disappointed when he tells me he can't afford to
fix things around the house and yet there's always a package for him at the doorstep.

2013(?) Scrubby, your score is...




1997 Rooty the Root Bear

representing A&W's root beer beverage

Here's another one I've had for as long as I can remember. My paternal grandparents lived in Wisconsin, and there's a chain of thrift stores that's much
more prevalent there than it is down here in Illinois. Really, it was my first taste of thrifting of any kind, and would set me on the path I'm on today.
My grandparents knew me (and my middle brother) loved stuffed animals, so they'd always buy us those pre-made $5 bags of random stuffed animals
you see at thrift stores. Rooty is another one I wouldn't have chosen had I gotten to pick, and obviously I'm not sure what else was in the bag that
he came in, so who knows, maybe there was something else in there that made it worth it. I really liked root beer as a kid, although I'm rather sick of it now,
I would always get root beer whenever we went out to eat. That being said, I've never been to an A&W restaurant and I've only ever drank Barq's.
I'm also not that crazy about bears to begin with.

Did you know? There's actually two forms of Rooty, an American version and a Canadian version. American Rooty is the one seen here, with Canadian
Rooty having a slightly different face and a darker muzzle. Based solely on what pops up when you Google Image Search for "a&w bear plush", there's an
absolutely insane amount of different plush of Rooty, way more than even Toucan Sam, which is just so crazy to me. And other than the omission of his freckles
and the pom-pom on his hat, he's pretty close to form, albeit an obviously chibi-ified version of said form. I'm not all that impressed by this plush, however.
He's very stiff, yet somehow also light. Like with Maurie, he's impossible to pose without some kind of support. And on the topic of pose, he's trapped with his
arms sticking out at his side like he's waiting to be hung up on the cross. Points for a soft plastic nose, embroidered eyes, and the embroidery of the logo on his sweater
is very nicely detailed. However, the lack of fingers, toes, and that weird look on his face just makes him unpleasant. Not to mention, he's made entirely
of the same kind of fabric, which means there definitely was room in the budget to add more details elsewhere. Oh, and remember how I mentioned he's
missing his pom-pom? I lied, his pom-pom is represented by a single strand of white cotton that can only be seen from the back. How wonderful. His sweater is
also sewn to his body, which actually surprised me considering removable clothes were very common in older promotional plush. Even cheaper, less
thoughtful promo plush (like things for banks or tourist traps) tended to have removable shirts.

1997 Rooty, your score is...




1998 Primetheus

representing PrimeCo's telecommunications

Wow, two childhood plush in a row? This might just be one of the most obscure characters in this entire collection. Has anyone ever heard... of PrimeCo?
It was a cell service provider that operated two service areas-- one around the greater Chicagoland area (which included parts of Wisconsin and Indiana) and a
larger area comprised of the Gulf Coast and parts of Virginia. Family lore tells that my great uncle worked for this company before I was born, and he happened to
snag at least two of these, as my middle brother (who was born long after the company was bought out) also recieved one at the same time as me. Now we didn't know
what the fuck to do with these things, as they were kinda creepy and weird, and we had no idea what they were supposed to be exactly. We were (and still are) very
very sick little bastards, so we used to bend him over and move his arms back so that it looked like he was spreading his ass cheeks open with his big hands.
And although I have no idea what he did with his, I'm glad I kept mine. All things considered, it's definitely one of the jewels of my collection.

Primetheus starred in a small number of commercials starting with his debut in 1997. I'd really like to know exactly who designed him, because apart from his
face being a tiny bit uncanny, he's incredibly detailed for a mascot character. The two toned shirt, the details on his shoes, but my favorite part is that his antenna
has the exact same shape as the 2D logo. The 2D logo falls into the traditional "paintstroke" grain texture aesthetic that a lot of 90s logos had. Instead of the
communication waves being uniform lines, they're individually drawn, each with their own tiny details and line weight. It would've been so easy (especially for low-budget
90s 3D modeling) to use uniform lines for his antenna waves... and yet, they didn't. Each line is modeled to look like it does in the 2D logo. It's stunning, really.
Now obviously, a plush is going to be much harder to convey such detail. And beyond the antenna, his face is modeled slightly differently in plush form than the original
3D model. But honestly? I like the look of the plush more. He's much more kind and friendly looking. And they more than made up for the antenna with the rest of the plush.
His shirt/body is silky, his bag is (mostly) free hanging, they managed to get all the right colors for him despite the palette being rather odd, his arms and legs are
free hanging and easy to pose, although he is very top heavy, and they even managed to paint the logo on the bottoms of his shoes with a sort of heavy embossed ink.
I'm not sure what exactly the process is called, but they're durable and texturized. It's so incredible.

It stuns me that this obscure, short lived telecommunications company from the 90s somehow managed to put out a more high quality plush than a brand giant
like A&W literally at the exact same time in history.

1998 Primetheus, your score is...




2002(?) Soybean

representing Nutriant's milk flavoring syrup

This one I'm going to need some help with. To my knowledge, this is the only picture of this plush that exists on the entire internet. Everyone, give a warm
welcome to Soybean. He is a green soybean with a purple nose, wearing a tank top with a graphic of a lime green swirl, stylized blue text reading "02"
Beneath it, it reads "Milk Flavoring Syrup". So, I searched "02 milk syrup" and surely enough, I found a single eBay listing for a single bottle of "Oscars Blue Vanilla
Thrilla Milk Flavoring Syrup". However, no pictures of Soybean.

The front of his tag (thank god the previous owner didn't cut it off, I found this at a Goodwill near me) says "nutriant" (misspelled like that) while the back of his
tag reads "the joy of soy". Interestingly enough, lifting up his tank top reveals the nutriant text and logo embroiedered in white on his chest. However, these
things also yielded no fruit. Finally, I tried Google Lens, but it was no help either. The one thing I did find was some potential relation to a company called "Kerry",
but beyond that, nothing. Oscars itself seems to be a European beverage-related company. But still, no Soybean. So, if anyone has any more details on the
origin of Soybean, please let me know.

As for the way he's built, he's very clearly a soybean. His hands are made of a different material than the rest of his body for some reason, and although he's
got plastic pellets under the stuffing near his feet, his rounded base makes it impossible for him to be able to stand on his own.

Soybean, your score is...


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