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- [00:01]
A
Audio for sleep by hatch. Hello and good evening, everyone. I'm Josh. Welcome to the nightly from Hatch, where your late night thoughts go to rest. I am hosting Solo in the Pillow Fort tonight, and I'm really excited for this one. I have an incredible guest because earlier this week I was talking to a caller named Haley about mascots, and she was so fascinated with who designs them. How do the ideas come up? We had a great chat about mascots. And to answer some of Hayley's questions, we have a very special guest tonight. He is the creative director of the International Mascot Corporation and the owner of Reel Characters Incorporated. He has worked on mascots. You know, the Denver Nuggets mascot, Rocky, University of Georgia's Harry the Dog, Harry Hawk, the Atlanta Hawks mascot. Please welcome to the Hatch Pillow Fort. Please welcome to the show tonight, Tom Sapp. Tom, thank you for being here.
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B
Listen, thank you for having me.
- [01:28]
A
Okay, so I feel like this is a question that all the listeners want to ask. How do you get into the field of mascots?
- [01:36]
B
Well, I can tell you how I got into it. And. And I often tell people I didn't find it. It found me, and I'm. I'm thrilled about it. My background was I was an art director, creative director in the ad business, but I was one of those art directors that could draw and illustrate. And in 1980, the University of Georgia had a pretty good football team, and they had an absolutely horrific MA And I was. At that time, I was studying Ted Gianlis, who was the San Diego Chicken, and the success of that character. And the people were actually paying value added to a ticket to go see this character perform. And he was building a huge base, and his skits were unbelievable. So I approached the University of Georgia with a design that I actually did when I was in school over there for the business fraternity. And Coach Dooley asked me to have it in three weeks for the Sugar bowl, which was a championship game. And of course, I naively went, yeah, sure, why not? We can build a mascot. And I had a friend, Mac Talmadge, who was another art director, an incredible craftsman. And we kind of put our talents together and actually built that costume in three weeks.
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A
Wow.
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B
And we made the Sugar bowl, and I just kind of let it go with that. But I started. People started calling University of Georgia when he got on espn and they were putting them in touch with me. I started getting calls from all over the country.
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A
Wow.
- [03:01]
B
To create an original, to come up with original concept and a design for a character. Everything from schools to corporation I did the Goodwill Games in 1990. Of course, Michigan State was one of our first clients and it just kind of took off from there to where I had to incorporate in 89 as real characters Incorporated. Just doing. Creating original designs, concepts, artwork.
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A
Wow.
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B
You know, to go with the characters. And a friend of mine, Joe Olivier, owned International Mascot at the time. He's now retired by. But I think about 13 or 14 years ago, he asked me to come in as his creative director with International Mascot. So I've been doing that. But because of the client base I had with Real Characters, our agreement was that I had to keep that going. So I still do. I still work with several people around the country, like Dave Raymond, who was a Philly fanatic. I do all his design work and several other people. But I still love it. I'll probably fall over on that drawing board. I don't plan to retire because it's still. It's still a real love that I have for doing these things.
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A
That's amazing. So you've been in the mascot game like four and a half decades.
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B
It sounds like a long time. That's great.
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A
Incredible. So the UGA mascot before, was it still the same character, just a different design that didn't quite.
- [04:21]
B
Not. Not even close. And I'll send you a picture of it later, please. It was actually called Fluffy and it was a dark, dark gray mushroom head fur thing with just a red shirt and slacks and gray gloves that nobody knew how to move in. It didn't have any spirit at all. Wow. And I actually created Harry off of. Some friends of mine were watching the Florida game with me that year, and they had a new gator and it was better than most and sweater. But whoever was in the gator knew what they were doing at the opening of the game. And they were moving and jiving and doing it here. Next, on the other side of Keith Jackson was this dog just standing there with her arms down. And a buddy of mine, it was a photographer, said, you need to have a dog down there next year that will intimidate that damn gator. Yeah, sure, why not? And that was kind of the genesis for it. We started and, like I said, sent Coach Dooley some notes and off we went.
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A
So when you're working on a design like this, right, and this one, it sounded like you knew you needed it to be a dog, right? Or you wanted to stay in the dog realm. I imagine you don't always get so much direction. Like, how much do you usually expect to guide the process? Or like how Often are you expected to come in with big paradigm shifting ideas? And how often are you like, oh, it's a dog, but we're going to make it more intimidating?
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B
Well, it's one of the things that makes this business so exciting is you never know what's coming in the door. And I tell people that all the time. I said, I work with everything from elementary schools up to Sony Pictures, you know, and Kellogg's and people like that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And the interesting thing is my background was advertising, like I mentioned. And the thing that I brought over to the character business was understanding a brand and understanding that advertising had a purpose and it clients that expected a certain result. And I brought all those disciplines over to the mascot business. And I tell clients all the time I like more input than not enough.
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A
Sure.
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B
Whether a lot of times they'll just say, I want you to evolve my mascot, or I might suggest they evolve it. I'll say, you got too much equity in it to get rid of it. I've been asked to do Aubi the Tiger for years, and I said, don't touch that character. You got too much equity in it. I don't want to mess with it.
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A
Sure.
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B
But a lot of people will come in and I ask them for, like I said, more information than not enough. And then what I do, I do my own deep dive. I want to know the history. I want to know phrases and terminology, colors, whatever it is, something that might make that mascot proprietary to whoever the client is. And that's what I do. I actually sit down with a pencil and a sketchbook and I do a list. If I'm doing a baseball character, I write a list of every baseball term I can think of and whoever the client is, then I write those, I write that list down and I crisscross. And you'll be surprised how many times you come up with the character. Rocking the mountain lion was a perfect example. I was writing the area. Denver, Rocky Mountains.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, everything from storms in the. How he had that lightning bolt tail that made him unique and his color. And so it is a process, but it's, it's a fun process. And then I just start sketching and you never know, I'll wake up in the middle of the night with an idea. Wow. You'll wake up and go, oh, yeah, yeah. What if I tried that? So,
- [07:43]
A
So with something like Rocky the mountain lion. Right. Did they bring you in to innovate a new character or was this something, a concept they had that they needed you to refresh and like how many. How many people do you work with on the team side? Is it like one person that's in charge of their game ops, or is it like the whole ownership group comes in? Cause they're like, this is the brand of our whole organization now.
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B
Well, at that time, and it's one of my favorite stories, they actually came to me and didn't know what they wanted, you know, and one of the things, like I said when I started making notes about mountain. Then you go to mountain lion. Then you go to, you know, what other creatures are in Denver are known for? Birds, bear, Everything you could think of on that list. And once I came up with the idea for the mountain lion, I did my first sketch, and I thought, well, what's going to make him unique? And I don't know how I came up with the lightning bolt tale, but I wrote a whole backstory about how he came to have that lightning bolt tail.
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A
What's the story? Do you remember?
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B
Well, yeah, it was like, it was the biggest storm in the history of the Rockies. And, you know, in the highest part, and this young mountain lion actually gets separated from his family, and he takes refuge in a cave, and there's a glow in the corner, and it's a young lightning bolt that was broke off. And his name is Flash. And Rocky and he become friends, and they challenge all the other animals on the mountain to a game, a curious game where they throw rocks up through this hooped limb on a tree. And Rocky throws it up, and Flash comes over and slams it through.
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A
Oh, that's great.
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B
Well, of course, every time he slams it, there's thunder and claps. And the other parents on the mountain run him off, basically say, get out. There's too much noise. So they go down to this curious building called McNichols Arena. And not only can they play this game that they love, the louder the better. So Flash permanently disguises himself as Rocky's tale and embodies him with the powers of lightning and the glowing color and the cunningness of the cat. So we knew that this had to be an athletic character.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So I sent Wayne Jordan, who was then Harry the Hawk, out to Denver. He held auditions. And we brought Ken Solomon to Atlanta. We put the Rocky costume on him with no logos, just the black and the lightning bolts. And I took him to a public event, and I told him, I said, ken, I want to see how you do in the costume. Plus, I want to see how the public reacts to this character. And it was a huge hit. Bow both ends.
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A
Wow.
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B
He just retired Last year after 34 years as Rocky the Mountain Lion.
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A
Congratulations to Ken. That's incredible.
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B
His son actually moved into wearing it. Garrett. And his other son wears Hooper at the Detroit Pistons, which is one of my designs.
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A
Wow, Like a whole mascot family.
- [10:30]
B
Exactly. You know, he got this long history, and Ken's a great guy. He did an amazing job building that character. One of the things I tell every client, so, look, there's three parts. You hear the three, three legged stool analogy all the time. But I said, look, you've got to have a great idea and a backstory. That's the first thing. You know, have a good design of a character. Well thought out. But then you got to get a great costume. You don't want a cheap costume. Don't. Don't cut corners. You know, getting these costumes built and being able to perform with what they're asked to do. Like Rocky, we knew he was going to have to go off a mini tramp and slam dunk, and we built that costume around him being able to perform like that. And the last part is a performer. Get a great performer, particularly the first time you introduce your character. You know, don't have a Fluffy. Don't have somebody to stand there with their arms, and they don't represent your brand well.
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A
Right.
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B
And the failure of any one of those just weakens the process, you know, so that's what we try to talk clients through, is think through all the phases. You know, let's get your design right. You know, let's make sure we can roll it out in illustration and marketing artwork. And what do we do with it in illustration? How crazy does it get? You know? But there are certain limitations in the costume. It's like Dave Raymond's always telling me, try to make the expression neutral. He was the Philly fanatic for 18 years, and he said, let the performer emote, you know, let the performers work, give them more range. And then you go right back to, well, Harry Dog's got a terrible frown. I mean, he's frowning, he's got teeth. So it works on both sides, you know, but those are the things we consider.
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A
How often are you as deeply involved in that backstory? And how often do they, you know, a client come to you with something like that? Cause that's really, like, that's really inventive and in depth work you did. And I imagine, like, they appreciated this vision, but, like, how often do they go, okay, we want. It's gonna be a horse. And the horse came straight from hell. And that's why it patrols with fire around the football field or whatever.
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B
Yeah. It's actually the exception when I get to do that. But it's one of my favorite parts, and we've done it several times. I have a whole line of children's health care, which is one of my big. The things I love doing is children's health care. I love working with children's hospitals and different. I'm working. Matter of fact, the university. What is it? Cancer and Blood center at the University of Georgia. I'm working on concepts for them right now.
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A
Wow.
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B
And it's wide open. They just sent me a logo and said, show us ideas. But like I said, at times you'll get somebody that come in and said, look, we got this winged blue horse, like Middle Tennessee State. His name's Lightning. So I take a wing to Blue. I made him blue, like the color, but I added lightning bolts to his cheeks and things like that to enhance their mark, you know. So a lot of times I take a logo and rebuild a character off the logo. I'll find, like I said, elements within that search that I can stick on a logo that will, you know, on a character that will make them unique. That's the whole point is I tell clients all the time, I don't have a tiger design sitting that I'm going to take your logo and stick it on a tiger and change the color, and that's your tiger. I don't do that. You know, and it's one of the problems with AI Now. A lot of people are going to AI to get a character done.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And they don't realize that the next person that comes in and asks for a purple tiger with arms, they're gonna
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A
get the same purple tiger.
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They may get something very close.
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A
Yeah.
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And you can't copyright it. You know, so there's issues. Why it works well. And I've had. I've probably had six clients so far this year send me an AI image that they generated. I said, let me take. And I'm gonna show you why this doesn't work as a mascot.
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A
Yeah.
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And I have altered those things. I mean, I go with their direction again. They're the client. You know, you ultimately want to do it, but it seems to be a trend going right now in the business as people are doing that, so.
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A
Oh, that's really interesting. Going back, just a quick step. Do you have a favorite design you've done for something like a children's hospital? Because that feels like so such its own world from, like, team sports.
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B
Yeah. In 96. I had had a lot of experience with my oldest daughter going through surgeries when she was little. And we spent a lot of time in a children's hospital. And I thought, man, I watched Chuck E. Cheese come in and to these. Or I think it was some circus from a bear pizza place. And it scared the kids, you know, when it came into the children. And I thought, that's not right. That's, that's, that's not it. It needs so prominent. Approached me in 96 or 97, and I came up with this idea for Dr. Welby. You remember the name Marcus Welby?
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
And I thought it's got to be a B. So I created Dr. Welby, who wears a lab coat. He's a different color, but the thing that makes him unique is he only has one antenna. He's different. He has one antenna and he's a different color and he's odd, but people love him. Just because he doesn't have two antennas, you don't make fun of him. He's Dr. Welby, you know, and we have done, I think Dr. Welby has done over 10,000 appearances at high, at schools, at breast mobile breast exam stations. For now, well, Star WellStar took it over about the third year and it's their character now. And we did workbooks, you know, with prescriptions for well being from Dr. Welby all through the book and, you know, different artwork. We actually did a pediatric center where I got to go in emergency center and I got to design the wallpaper, the wall graphics, everything with Dr. Welby. So as far as the. I mean, I've got a. Well, I've got Doc hop to it. I've got. I mean, I've got a lot of different, you know, characters that I like, but Dr. Welby, you know, as far as my healthcare characters, he would absolutely be my favorite.
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A
That's really wonderful. And do you. Do you have to test those the same way you would test something like Rocky to, like, bring this character around kids and make sure that they feel comforted and at ease around them because you don't want to have the hospital erupt in terror again?
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B
No, there's nothing formal. We do a lot of time what we call sister in Law research. And one of my daughters is a terrific designer in her own right, an illustrator. And I lean on her. Matter of fact, I was just sitting with her last night with the University Cancer center designs in Pencil stage, and I was taking Emma through them and I said, look at this one, look at this one. And she'd go, nah, dad, that feels like fruit. You don't want to do that. You know, it's a great sounding board. Like I said, we call it sister in law research. We used to do it in advertising too, just to see how people would react to an idea. But it's very. You never know what you're going to hear. That's the neat part of it. But you have to react to it, right?
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A
When you say sister in law research, does that come from just the idea of. You kind of bounce the ideas off of people in your world without any industry expertise. You just go, how does a regular person react?
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B
It's the people who will see it and how they react to it. It's like I talked about. You never know when you put it out in public, how people gonna react. And if you can get to that ahead of time, to where you go to your audience, not your client, your audience, and see how they respond, see how they take it. We do listen very carefully, you know, to what people say.
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A
So have you ever had something or anything memorable in your career where you were really, like, excited about a feature of a character and then the public was like, oh, this is not what we're looking for?
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B
Not really. Not any that I can think of. I mean, it's. I'm a. I'm an antique car, hot rod, race car guy, and I got to do the Firestone Firehawk for their racing tires.
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A
Cool.
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B
You know, and he's always in the Indies circle. And boy, I was scared to death that the racing community. Because I hate it when I see people that don't understand racing and they put things out that are inaccurate. And I'm. I mean, I did the driver suit on this guy. I mean, I made. We cast the helmet shape with the hawk beak and the visor and the decals. And I even bought driver shoes for him to wear. I wanted him to be totally authentic. And the race car community just totally embraced that guy. And that was one of those, because I really wanted. And we built nine of them. I think there's. There's three in Japan, there's six in this country. So, yeah, that. That was a fun project.
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A
So that sounds like such a great feeling for people to notice the details, right? Because this is for such a. An enthusiastic and knowledgeable community. And so when they go, wow, that helmet is exactly right. And you go, yes.
- [19:08]
B
The real payoff is seeing that reaction from the public. It's all this work we do. And you work with the sculptors and you work with the Seamstresses and paying and touching, and you put it out there, and you kind of hold your breath. And when you see that reaction, that's the payoff. I mean, it really is a great feeling. I've told people a story of when we introduced Harry Dog to Sanford Stadium the next year, the first game after the Sugar Ball. Yeah. And the coaches invited me to come over for the game, and I thought, boy, I'm going to have a head as big as Sanford Stadium. Look what I did. I did this character. He's out on the field, and I remember him walking around on the field before the game, and I didn't feel a thing. And I was so disappointed. I thought, golly, man, I did this thing. We built this thing. Mac and I built this thing. And dad Gummett, I thought I'd feel more. And there was a commercial break, and I noticed some kids running down the stairs. And when I looked up, they were going down to the hedge in Sanford Stadium, and Harry Dog was signing autographs, and literally, the hair on my arms stood up, and I went, that's it. That's what I was looking for. They didn't go, there's a kid in a costume that was Harry Dog. You know, they bought it lock, stock, and barrel, and they wanted his own. And I realized after that, and again, that was a long time ago, that that's the thing we look for, is that acceptance.
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A
And I bet with kids, that's an even stronger feeling, right? It's an even stronger yes or no. Because kids won't pretend. They won't see a mascot that they don't. That doesn't resonate with them and still applaud because they go, no, I don't like that. They don't play by the same, like, politeness rules as grownups.
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B
No, they're very honest. But. But like I said, you. You have to be able to deal with that, you know? And if you have to back up and change something or take another step, that's what we do.
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A
So you were talking about taking kind of abstract concepts, right? Like health or the. The Denver environment, and. And imbuing a character with those qualities. What are some of the most challenging, like, ideas you've ever had to infuse a character with?
- [21:17]
B
Usually it's a product. I mean, a lot of times I had to do a. A nasal spray recently, and the client. The client wanted this particular bottle, and it just would not fit on a human being. And that's the thing. That's the measure we tell people all the time. Look, this has to work on human mechanics. The arms can only be you. People want to do a round character all the time, like a globe and you got flippers. No matter how you put a ball around a person, I don't care how big it is, you're only going to have the front part of your arms out. And to me, that diminishes the character. It diminishes what you can do. So, like I said, we take into consideration what I call human mechanics, and I try to illustrate my character over a silhouette of a person before I ever show it to the client. I want to know where the arms come out. I want to know how much arm use you're going to have. Can you walk? You know, can you move your feet? Can you see stairs? I mean, all of those things. You really have to think about it as a designer. You know, you got a person in there, but you want the public to accept that character for who it is. That's the name of my company Real Characters came from. I had this philosophy when I started. I wanted my characters real from 200ft or 2ft. And what I meant by that was, if you walk up and see a big piece of screen wire in the back of the head or something, that kills the magic. Yep. It just. It's all of a sudden, it's not the character. It's a person in a costume. So we try to work around that. We want you to walk up and believe that that character is who we said it is.
- [22:47]
A
That's amazing. If you could give any advice to someone that was designing something or like, even conceiving for their own organization, business or whatever. What is like the. Is there, like a bedrock tip that you go, this is where you should start conceiving this?
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B
No, what I say is a free. Think as much as you can.
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A
Yeah.
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B
When I sit with a sketchbook. When I started the University Cancer Center, I didn't know what I was going to do. I looked at their logo, and it's got a heart shape in it and some leaves and things. And I made note of that, but I just started going, God, you're a cancer patient. You're in there getting chemo or heart situation. This character walks in. What are you going to think? Do you want to embrace it? You know, do you want to go, get away from me. I don't feel good. So you try to take. Like I said, you try to take the person. That's what I call the end user into account, you know, and that's one that's One of the big things, that's one of the real measures to me of I even started out saying, okay, what can I do with a pillow? You know, for a character that these people just want to reach out and have a. Have a comfort pillow, you know, and hug it. And then you just start free thinking. Just don't box yourself in. Just sketch, draw fast, try things. You know, why not a turtle? Why not a turtle with a heart? That's a shell, you know, instead of a shell, he's got this heart logo on his back. You know, it's that kind of thinking that I encourage people to do. Don't limit yourself, you know, free think.
- [24:13]
A
I love that. I think that's great advice for so many different creative things, right? Not to start inside a box, but to really think expansively and, like, dynamically about the projects you're working on. Well, this has been truly such a wonderful time. I know I've said that twice already, but thank you so much for your time. Of course. I would like to say goodnight to you, obviously, Tom, but in addition, I'm gonna say goodnight to. I'm originally from Boston, so I'm gonna say goodnight to Boston Celtics mascot Lucky the leprechaun. I hope he's resting easy in the off season, resting up for the next season. And goodnight to all the listeners. Do you have any good nights you' to send out into the world?
- [24:53]
B
To my wonderful three daughters.
- [24:55]
A
Oh, that's really beautiful. Thank you so much. And listeners, obviously this was such a great conversation spurred by my conversation with Haley. So if there's anything you want to come on the show to talk about, anything that's on your mind late at night, email us or send a voice memo to thenightlyach. Co. That's thenightlyatch. Co. And we have actually a good night from a listener. Listener Declan sent an email saying your guys podcast has made my stress and anxiety go away before bed and that's what we're hoping to do. So thank you so much. Tom Sapp.
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B
Thank you.
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A
A pleasure to have you and good night to everyone. We'll talk to you soon. It.
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B
To learn more about our phone free light and audio experience, head to Hatch co. You can also follow us at HatchPodcasts.