Loathing, Thy Name Is The Six Flags Old Guy

You’ve seen the commercials: The commercials for Six Flags featuring an old man that starts dancing up a storm to one of the most annoying songs I’ve heard in a while. Despite the quality of the make-up job (I think a latex mask was involved), I know it’s not really an old man. You know it’s not really an old man. But he’s still there. Dancing. Riding on roller coasters. Getting soaking wet on water rides. And then he starts dancing through the park with Bugs Bunny and the Tazmanian Devil.

There’s something about really stupid advertising that pushes my buttons quite successfully. The use of this old guy dancing… is at the top of the ‘stupid advertising’ list. Six Flags couldn’t get a celebrity endorsement (like Cal Ripken). They couldn’t come up with a catchy slogan or two. So they invented a mascot. A very stupid mascot. The raison d’etre of the mascot is to embody the essence of whatever he/she/it is representing. Sports teams have the lion’s share of them, many of which aren’t even recognizable as characters, or animals. They’re just inanimate objects with legs and a smiley face pasted on. That’s fine.

Six Flags didn’t do that. No sir. “Sixxy the Flagging Fellow”, a misshapen collection of six colorful flags bound together with duct tape (yet still bearing the requisite smiley face and legs) didn’t make it past the drawing board. That in itself is a real shame, because I think Sixxy still would have made a better choice for mascot than the Old Guy. Who dances.

It doesn’t help the song the Old Guy’s dancing an epileptic jig to, was last used by the Kid’s WB for a short-lived campaign “I Want Da Puddy” sung by Tweety Bird. In that song, Tweety Bird sings about Sylvester the pussy cat, or ‘puddy tat’. Presumably for being a hair’s breadth away from being grossly inappropriate, the commercial was yanked shortly after originally airing. I’m not making this up.

To compound things, there’s a cardboard cut-out of the same old man at my place of business. I’m not kidding. On the off chance I have to use that hallway, he’s standing there with that grin on his face, waiting to be punched about the head. I haven’t punched him because the cardboard cut-out does not belong to me. That, and until the proper voodoo rituals have been cast on his likeness, I doubt very strongly that the genuine article would feel me committing acts of violence to his effigy.

Regardless: I hate the Old Guy. I hate his dancing. I hate the song. And I’m starting to hate Six Flags for orchestrating the whole wretched thing to begin with. And now I feel better.