Today people are discovering what I've known about the Pirates for years: Though they are incompetent on practically every aspect of baseball, once they have you in the park they are absolute masters of in-park, off-field entertainment.

The impetus being the film of this recent add-on to the on-Jumbotron entertainment. In addition to being pitch perfect, it's important to note that around 2:18 in the clip Oliver Onion, the Emo pierogie, turns cannibal. The Pittsburgh Pirates. We will... devour our own.

Strangely, this wasn't the most upsetting mascot related thing I found today. No that's this site here, which appears to be Canada's preeminent supplier of nightmare fuel. To wit:

1. Here we see Christ substitute Kool-Aid Man welcoming Greenpeace into the harbor.
2. Something designed to traumatize children into a lifetime of littering because they're afraid the can will eat them.
3. The anime version of Jim Henson's Edward G. Robinson Babies
4. Norrin Radd for the Royal Canadian Mint.
5. All Glory to the Hypno-Cup.
6. Mr. Hydrolix, who caused me 15 minutes of Don Music-style fits trying to fit the letter K into the phrase "Xzibit drove by the crib and righteously pimped Jeff's new Q*bert."

and last, but certainly not least,
7. A mascot that utterly amazes me that it could be commissioned. Once you realize what it's advertising, it's utterly jaw-dropping that someone would either commission or wear it. The only purposes I can see for it are ads like in the Truth campaign, or as it looks like the picture was shot out of a doorway, a singing telegram of such spectacular awkwardness as to blast the entire industry back to the stone age, or at least before the days of polyphony.

Apparently, I still have Dabney Coleman buried in my basement.

Many years ago at one of the Ironheads I wrote a question that began "Try as he might, Dabney Coleman cannot escape Pittsburgh." in which I noted that Dabney Coleman managed to appear in Inspector Gadget, where the city was used for background, the Guardian, which used the city as setting, and some fairly awful TV movie where he played a kidnapped fashion designer, which used city cop cars. The question then insinuated that I had him tied up in my basement, which is a dirty lie. I don't even have a basement.

So when flipping through the channels this evening, I saw TNT had a new medical drama and the setting was an organ transplant unit at a Pittsburgh hospital. I then paged down in the listing, and we find the first episode's B plot is Treat Williams trying to become chief of surgery when his mentor and special guest star falls ill. Yup, Dabney Coleman really can't escape Pittsburgh.

On the other hand, this I KNOW is transgressive marketing.

In my drive-thru pickup order I got ad for Wendy's new burger monstrosity. (Their previous effort being the Bacon Mushroom Swiss melty thing that achieved its greatest publicity as being the burger David Hasselhoff was too drunk to eat.) They call it the Baconator. Now ordinarily I'd take this as a challenge. However, they've decided to promote it with the exact method of promotion I'd expect some advertising firm to do if they were forced to alert a neighborhood to a predator.

"Okay, so number one, we can't actually tell them about it, what we have to do is get the warning out about the Baconator without telling them about the Baconator. So we have them slip the flyers in their bags, put 'em under the salad on the tray. We need plausible deniability here. We want them finding out about the Baconator miles from here, so they can't ask questions about it. It's equally important that people know, but we can't be seen as knowing about it when it gets released."
"So what do we put in the flyer?"
"I don't care. Tell them it can sense fear. Tell them they need to be prepared, because the police can't or won't stop it."
"Sir, are you actually advocating vigilante consumption of the Baconator?"
"All I'm saying is I'm not letting my kids within a mile of the Baconator. If somebody else gets rid of it, so much the better."

I'm just trying to figure out if this is going to end up a Law & Order twist, or Chris Hansen gets takeout.

UPDATE: Just when I thought this was limited to Wendy's, Long John Silver's posting up signs saying that "MONSTER SHRIMP ARE COMING!"