Springfield Town State Mayor Founder. Faculty Students. Plant Employees. Season 31 Season Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? He glares at each person who walks in the door, beads of oil beginning to drip from under his helmet. Regardless, no one approaches Cleatus—no autographs, nothing. Even since the early days, Cleatus has always been more irritating curiosity than beloved mascot. Why was he flexing next to a Lipitor ad? Have Aikman and Buck completely given up on acknowledging his existence?
Why does he even exist in the first place? Cleatus poofs in front of Homer, who berates the android after he busts a couple moves to that goddamn jingle. Probably Buck. Cleatus blurts out a sarcastic whirrrrrr. I have to spray about three cans of WD on myself before I leave the garage in the morning.
These days, Cleatus just folds his arms and nods his head after commercial breaks, but there was a time not so long ago when he was in prime shape, breaking off a stretch as impressive as the most impressive feats in robot history, like C-3PO body-swapping his way into battle in Attack of the Clones , or Rosie the Robot Maid dealing with that little bastard Elroy Jetson for all those years.
After his glow-up from black and yellow to a blue and silver paint job in the early s, FOX intros showed him crashing through stadium roofs and ripping off blistering touchdown runs, week after week. He pauses.
I have no code of ethics. Listen, man, you try those TB12 electrolyte shots… shots…. All of the sudden— PEW! He stands up. A few people shriek. Can you imagine? They figured a dancing robot would make people forget about it all. But not create another robotic football player. After all, mascots, from Tony the Tiger to Mr. Clean, are well-worn tropes in advertising for a reason. To some extent, Marshall explains, the more random the character is, the better. After all, you want an ad to be memorable, not normal.
In the case of Fox coming in to claim football, a robotic mascot was actually a particularly good fit. The team began sketching more formally what the robot would look like, and Hartley shared much of the early work with his son.
It was kind of a cool thing. As 2D sketches transformed into 3D renders, Fox got to the stage where it was ready to animate the robot. They hired Blur Studios to handle the motion capture for a special effects sequence helmed by cofounder Tim Miller.
Miller has since gone on to become a major director with his breakout film Deadpool —and directed the coming Terminator reboot. Hartley remembers the first motion capture sessions clearly, as green-suited actors were asked to perform all sorts of things the robot might do. That included pointing, flexing, and taunting—the sort of machismo gesturing that was championed by a wave of mid-aughts dude-branding seen on contemporaries like SpikeTV.
A boastful, swole bro-bot is just the sort of over-indexing of masculinity that, seen through in a certain light, could have been interpreted as mocking Sunday football itself. They put the robot in costumes. Wrapped him in Christmas lights. Had him throw a snowball. Programmed him to mime. Even put him in a hula skirt. Some motion capture actor had to act out every iteration.
It was an outright subversion of masculine tropes, which may have hit too close to home during weekly contests where pound athletes slam into each other over and over again for a turf battle in a simulated war. Then in , Fox threw an online naming contest for the robot. He starred in a spot with another wonky brand icon, the Burger King King.
The King zanily knocked Cleatus in the head with a football. Why do Field Goals feel like you came in second place? Jac Mia. Now that the Texans game is over WadePhillips can get back to his job as caretaker at a Bed and Breakfast.
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