Head Games : Some UCI Fans Say Mascot’s New Anteater Get-Up Is a Letdown

Like all great mascots, Peter the Anteater wants only to make you laugh, only to make you cheer, only to make you happy.

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But of late, the fuzzy UC Irvine mascot has been prompting some alumni to only boo and hiss. They contend Peter’s get-up isn’t what it should be.

“I think it looks like a donkey, but my friend thinks it looks like a giraffe,” said Jim Harvey, 34, a UCI alumni and basketball season ticket holder. “Whatever it is, it’s the worst suit ever.”

Even school officials concede Peter isn’t exactly the spitting image of the long-snouted, furry beast that populates South America.

“Yeah,” sighed Ivan Canete, UCI’s cheerleader adviser. “He looks like that giraffe from Toys ‘R’ Us.”

Peter’s identity crisis stems from a tale of twisted woe that now has UCI using two different heads with one anteater costume. The story begins two years ago when somebody swiped a perfectly convincing anteater costume from its cam pus storage area.

Fatefully, though, the thief left behind Peter’s head.

So, UCI officials shelled out about $4,000 for a new anteater costume. Only problem was the new head on the new anteater costume, well, looked like a giraffe or a donkey--depending on your point of view.

With scant funds to buy a more realistic suit last year, officials improvised by plopping the old head on the new body. A simple enough plan that sadly contained a few flaws.

First, the old “dysfunctional” head--as Canete refers to it--had the disagreeable habit of rolling off at inopportune times.

“Sometimes, I would tumble in front of loads of fans, and the head would just come off,” said Sasha Strauss, a UCI sophomore in his second year as the school mascot. “It was really embarrassing.”

But anteaters and those that dress like them apparently possess thick skins.

“No worries,” added Strauss, 19, a biology major originally from Huntington Beach. “It was all for fun.”

If losing your head in public wasn’t bad enough, Strauss and other students also could hardly see inside the 1 1/2-inch thick costume topped off by a poorly ventilated head. The handicap led to many an unscripted pratfall at crowded UCI athletic events.

“I’ve tripped over kids, I’ve stepped on kids,” Strauss said. “I could barely see my own toes with that head on.”

Last year’s mascot bloopers proved too much, and an executive decision was made to reunite Peter’s new head with his new body during on-campus activities. But for appearances off-campus, for example to trumpet a new car-pool lane last month, Peter is fitted with his old more anteater-like noggin.

On campus now, however, the new head stays on. The kids stay up. And the new head boasts the added appeal of having an extra long tongue--just like a real anteater.

“The kids just love that,” said Strauss, one of three students who pose as Peter.

But the sight of the new head, notwithstanding the extra long tongue, provoked some complaints.

“Every single time I walk by an alumni,” Strauss said, “they always say, ‘We need a new anteater.’ ”

Compounding Peter the Anteater’s troubles, Harvey and three other alumni wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to UCI’s student newspaper last month criticizing the mascot for not being peppy during athletic contests. Harvey said he spied Peter the Anteater sitting with his legs crossed during a home basketball game--a vision that made him feel “like throwing up” his beer.

“He isn’t Barney the dinosaur,” said Harvey, an Irvine attorney. “He is supposed to be a college mascot. It might seem like a trivial issue, but it symbolizes UCI’s general lack of school spirit.”

While conceding points about appearance, school officials are standing by their anteaters.

“The mascots have done a really good job, I think they are very energetic,” said Canete, 27, a former cheerleader at UCLA. “Besides, I don’t think you can have a fierce anteater. I haven’t seen one of those before.”

Mascot philosophies aside, Athletic Department officials have heard the cry from the alumni jungle and are moving to correct Peter’s cosmetic problems. They are sending the new head back to its Arizona manufacturer and demanding a face lift or a brand new head that actually looks like an anteater.

Arizona?