Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

First published Sept 12, 2018

Robert Beria asks:
Professor Popinjay,
Why do some football mascots go without pants?

Dear Robert,
In the days of yore team mascots often manifested in the form of an actual living, breathing, pooping animal. Requiring said animal to don lederhösen would obviously impede a particular one of those perpetual occurrences toward which the animal is so inclined. In a word, no one was jumping at the chance to clean the proposed garments at the end of the day except for one individual who was actually a little TOO excited for the job and is now required to maintain a 50 foot radius from Billy the Goat at all times.
Obviously pants were a bad idea but letterman sweaters were given the greenlight and lo it came to pass that all sports mascots would wear these sweaters displaying prominently their school spirit, and how ill-fitting our clothes would be were we to suddenly find ourselves turned into pigs à la Val Kilmer in the movie Willow. This practice worked fine for schools with naked mole rats as mascots, but the average wolverine found these knitted vestments just too stifling and as a result many wolverine caretakers were inadvertently clawed into oblivion.

Unfortunately most school’s insurance agencies frowned at the prospect of weekly eviscerations and so the animals were sent away in shame but the sweaters remained. SOMEONE had to wear them aside from the entire student body and faculty but who? Thus the schools turned to the burgeoning animation studios of the time to create for them incorruptible non-pooping symbols that would represent their sportsmanship, athletic prowess, and perform bizarre rituals to the cheers of thousands of semi-inebriated fans.
But why have your mascot designed by a cartoonist? Simple: Because cartoon characters often suffered from a syndrome known as anthropomorphism which means they acted and moved like humans despite grueling conditioning to do otherwise. An anthropomorphic beaver could be more easily portrayed by a human in costume than, say, a non-cartoon photorealistic beaver. Beavers are rather diminutive creatures, hardly big enough to accommodate a human foot let alone the remainder of the human and don’t think I haven’t tried.

As Oregonians, dear Robert, we have an affinity for a particular pantless cartoon duck who has served as the University of Oregon mascot since 1947. Concern for this character’s modesty have been raised before. His comics were even banned in Finland 1977 due to his lack of leg wear. I looked up other popular Finnish comic books to see if there were any undue biases going on and stumbled upon Kieku ja Kaiku (1932) , two anthropomorphic Roosters who I wished were half-naked so I could point a big wagging finger of “j’accuse!” but no, they wore more clothes than Marlon Brando in a snowstorm.

In the US a certain cartoon cow stirred up similar controversy, ambiguous as she was regarding her anthropomorphism. First appearing as a full-fledged animal bovine walking on all fours and chewing cud, she later appeared sitting in a house reading a decidedly risqué novel completely naked with udders prominently poised. It seems, at the time, the more human-like a character was, the more they would be required to wear clothes. This partly explains why a clothesless dog can be a pet while another fully-clothed dog can be a humanoid friend but why can a duck dress like a pantless sailor? Or did I just answer my own question? The answer is more simple and thankfully doesn’t involve the promiscuity of seafaring men, nor does it postulate that 1940’s animators were concerned with a duck’s preen oil gland as the internet has oddly decided. If the duck was concerned with preen oil why would he apply a swimsuit before diving into the water? Preen oil. That’s just stupid.
Disney animator, Fred Spencer, explained, “Donald Duck does not wear pants because it looks awkward around his pear shaped rear end. In addition, the wearing of pants or shoes would obscure some of the most noticeable anatomy of a duck.”

This is logic which can only apply to a cartoon animal. If I chose not to wear shorts because it would hide the most noticeable anatomy of my pear shaped rear end, I would not be allowed to return to that public pool… or public in general.
Strangely, Disney would go on to literally sue the pants ON to a comic duck named Howard, claiming the character was too similar to their own. Thankfully that’s all a moot point since Disney now owns the offending foul and everything else on the planet.

Personally, I question the priorities of any culture new or old who instantly asks the question “Why isn’t that duck wearing pants” and never once asks “Why is that duck wearing a shirt?”. It may be easy to say these were just the misplaced concerns of a squeamish society who were all just looking for something popular to attack but then I consider our “modern” society and realize somewhat of a double standard exists. Of course I refer to a 2011 Arizona-UCLA football game where a man by the name of Jacen Lankow walked onto the field and disrobed revealing his Twitter handle drawn on his back in black marker. Jacen was escorted from the field by campus police while, ironically, a fully humanoid Wilbur the Wildcat danced pantless just a few yards away.

The only obvious solution to this entire conundrum is that animal and human alike wear the red shorts with the giant yellow buttons on the front. I think that would just make the world a better place.

Sincerely,
Professor Popinjay