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Hide Your Kids: The Philadelphia Flyers’ New Mascot “Gritty” is a Giant Orange Monster With Googly Eyes

John Squires

We can’t figure out whether to give him a big hug or run for our lives.

At a special event this morning, the Philadelphia Flyers presented “Gritty” to a crowd of 600 children, a new team mascot who is said to be taking an active role in community outreach. Gritty, as it turns out, is a seven-foot-tall fuzzy orange monster with googly eyes, a massive beard and wild eyebrows. His origin story, well, it reads like something out of a horror movie.

According to the official press release, “Gritty claims that he’s been around for a lot longer than we know it, and recent construction at the Wells Fargo Center disturbed his secret hideout forcing him to show his face publicly for the first time. As his home has been deep inside the Wells Fargo Center for an unknown amount of time, Gritty has also picked up solid skating and hockey abilities.”

The character’s bio continues, “He has some oddities that are both humorous and strange. A number of times he’s been caught eating snow straight from the Zamboni machine, and unbeknownst to most, his love of hot dogs has been inflating the Flyers Dollar Dog Night consumption totals for years.”

Oh and if all this wasn’t already strange enough, Gritty has a squeaky belly button, as well as the ability to blow smoke out of his ears. He drives a car that shoots t-shirts into the crowd.

Naturally, Twitter has been having a field day with Gritty, mocking him all day and dubbing him “nightmare fuel.” They’re not wrong. If the eyes truly are the windows to the soul, then it seems pretty safe to assume that Gritty has eaten a few children in his day. But it would seem he’s looking to redeem himself, and that’s more than we can say for most here in 2018.

He’s kinda cute, in a My Pet Monster sorta way. Don’t ya think?

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