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Dec. 14th, 2011 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupThe other day, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
onebrightroad linked me to this podcast, 99% Invisible, and I happened to download the episode about the Billy Possum.
A few years before the Billy Possum idea was floated, the Teddy Bear had come into existence, based on a story about President Theodore Roosevelt not shooting a pathetic-looking bear (but he did still eat her after someone else "put her out of her misery"). Apparently at the time it was super-weird and kind of creepy for kids to be playing with dolls that weren't human, but it was considered a fad.
Eager to cash in, William Howard Taft's spin doctors decided during his candidacy for president that they would create the Billy Possum, which did not have a cute story attached to it except for the fact that Taft liked to eat possum. So it didn't quite catch on the way the Teddy Bear did.
But I think it's kind of an awesome concept, the idea that every four to eight years there'd be a new stuffed toy to play with as the Presidential Mascot. (Too bad Millard Fillmore was pre-Roosevelt or we could have had the Mallard Fillmore.)
I mean, come on. The Woodrow Woodpecker! The Kennedy Camel! The Herbie Mole! (Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer.) Don't tell me you don't love the idea of a wee stuffed mole in a waistcoat.
And of course the Dick Cocker. Because that's only fair.
I was going to suggest the Barack Portuguese Water Dog but that's such a mouthful. On the other hand, the Obama Pup has a nice ring to it...
onebrightroad linked me to this podcast, 99% Invisible, and I happened to download the episode about the Billy Possum. A few years before the Billy Possum idea was floated, the Teddy Bear had come into existence, based on a story about President Theodore Roosevelt not shooting a pathetic-looking bear (but he did still eat her after someone else "put her out of her misery"). Apparently at the time it was super-weird and kind of creepy for kids to be playing with dolls that weren't human, but it was considered a fad.
Eager to cash in, William Howard Taft's spin doctors decided during his candidacy for president that they would create the Billy Possum, which did not have a cute story attached to it except for the fact that Taft liked to eat possum. So it didn't quite catch on the way the Teddy Bear did.
But I think it's kind of an awesome concept, the idea that every four to eight years there'd be a new stuffed toy to play with as the Presidential Mascot. (Too bad Millard Fillmore was pre-Roosevelt or we could have had the Mallard Fillmore.)
I mean, come on. The Woodrow Woodpecker! The Kennedy Camel! The Herbie Mole! (Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer.) Don't tell me you don't love the idea of a wee stuffed mole in a waistcoat.
And of course the Dick Cocker. Because that's only fair.
I was going to suggest the Barack Portuguese Water Dog but that's such a mouthful. On the other hand, the Obama Pup has a nice ring to it...
