At 49, Pudgy Guy in Red-Checkered Pants May Get the Ax : It’s Job Review Time at the Big Boy

Big Boy Restaurants will poll its diners next month to determine whether the original symbol of hamburger mania--the pudgy, pompadoured “Big Boy” who has been the restaurant chain’s mascot for 49 years--should be retired or given a vote of confidence.

The marketing gambit by the Glendale-based subsidiary of Marriott Corp. signals the company’s bid for more visibility in the wake of the nation’s multimillion-dollar “burger wars,” which began in 1982 when Burger King Inc. launched a $20-million ad campaign comparing its product to McDonald’s hamburgers.

“We want to make sure the public still identifies with our Big Boy character,” said Vincent J. Webb, marketing director for Big Boy. “We would never take him out back and throw him in the trash can, but we would downplay him significantly if he lost the vote.”

With his red-and-white-checkered overalls and cherubic demeanor, Big Boy has been a popular symbol at the chain’s 835 restaurants in 35 states, Japan and Canada.

But his appearance has changed little since he was designed in 1936 by restaurant founder Bob Wian, and he is now having to compete with some of the burger world’s newer faces.

The nation’s No. 1 hamburger chain, McDonald’s Corp., claims that Ronald McDonald, its 23-year-old mascot, is more popular among kids than anyone except Santa Claus. And Wendy’s “Where’s-the-Beef” spokeswoman, Clara Peller, vaulted to stardom in Wendy’s commercials.

Yet their emergence seems to have had little effect on Big Boy Restaurants, a chain that competes mostly with Denny’s Inc., experts say.

“They have done pretty well . . . in what we call the coffee shop market, “ said F. Hardy Bowen, a restaurant analyst at A&S; Bleichroeder in New York. “The restaurant business is a business of great operation, not great marketing.”

So where does that leave Big Boy?

“I think he needs to look a little bit more like Mr. T,” quipped Steven A. Rockwell, a senior vice president and restaurant analyst at Alex Brown in Baltimore.

Voters will determine Big Boy’s future by casting ballots when they dine out. Results of the poll will be announced in May, the company said.