BEEFED-UP DUCK

Wildwing, the Mighty Ducks’ team mascot, now sports attitude. And muscles. And a white, fluffy Mohawk atop his 7-foot-tall frame. He’s been called both “dapper” and “menacing” by his Disney creators, who praise the make-over as “cutting edge.”

The switch from the softer-looking, cuddly--and sometimes accident-prone--Wildwing to buffed-out beefy duck came this season when Disney Sports Enterprises, which owns the professional hockey team, made the new version resemble the lead character of a new Saturday morning television cartoon. The “Mighty Ducks” show features six hockey-playing, crime-fighting ducks from another planet, with Wildwing as the mightiest, baddest of the flock.

Cartoon producer Joe Barruso said the old Wildwing, whooping it up since the team’s first season three years ago, just didn’t have the “heroic” look necessary for the lead in an animated action television show.

“We didn’t want cute and cuddly,” Barruso said. “So we pumped him up a little, made him tougher, gave him more of a ‘Don’t-mess-with-me’ look.”

The team’s fans would prefer a make-over for the Mighty Ducks’ 1-9-2 record. “If a way-out, meaner duck can pull these guys out of their slump, I’m all for it,” said Jimmy Delao, a fan from Fountain Valley who saw the new Wildwing for the first time last week. “Whatever it takes.”

The old Wildwing seemed ready for a break anyway. Over the years, it sprained wrists and ankles stumbling into the bleachers, bruised legs and hips in clumsy wire drops from the Pond rafters and even collapsed into a ring of flames it was trying to jump through during a pregame show last year.

“He always came back like a trouper though,” Disney Sports spokesman Bill Robertson said.

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Disney introduced the new Wildwing at the Ducks’ season opener Sept. 18. The company hinted at the change to come during four exhibition games in which fans were treated to video clips depicting the old Wildwing working out with team players, who complained the duck was sorely out of shape.

Robertson said with a wink that those summer-long workouts are responsible for the mascot’s new bod, yet some fans suspect only steroids could have inflated Wildwing’s shoulders past NFL widths.

“He’s huge now,” said Mike Taylor, 30, a faithful Duck fan from Santa Ana who attended last week’s game against the Calgary Flames. “He’s no hockey player. He’s a linebacker.”

Said Don Delany, holding his sleepy 3-year-old son, Dominic: “I’d like to get on his training program.”

Disney officials refuse to disclose Wildwing’s weight or measurements--”We don’t give out vitals,” Robertson said--and forbid the mascot from conducting interviews. Robertson did say the employee inside the new suit is the same one as before.

“He’s still wonderful with families and children,” Robertson said. “He’s the goodwill ambassador for the Ducks.”

Change, Robertson said, is simply the Disney way.

“We’re always trying to give fans something new, something edgier, better,” he said. “Wildwing is bigger, taller, stronger and more menacing than the previous character. He’s new and improved.”

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Mascot creators warn against sudden changes to a team’s established character, especially when the replacement is designed to look more intimidating than the last.

Owners of Acme Mascots Inc., a Brooklyn-based company that has designed nearly two dozen professional sports team mascots, believe it’s more difficult to maintain a character “in superhero mode,” as company President Wayde Harrison put it.

“Cute actually has a longer life than rough and tough,” Harrison said. “If [the change] isn’t done carefully, a harder-edged mascot could turn people off.”

He added: “The mascot has to be well-liked. He’s a one-person pep squad. He helps morale and builds excitement, which we all know is contagious.”

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Last Sunday at the Pond, Wildwing cut up right along with booing fans when a firetruck on its way to the ice for a pregame show got stuck in an entrance. Swinging his arms at the driver, Wildwing paced around in an apparent temper tantrum.

Before long, however, the duck was making his usual rounds, giving high-fives to children, signing hockey sticks and waving at mothers holding babies. When the Ducks scored their first and only goal of the night, Wildwing leaped into the stands, urging fans to cheer louder and mugging for TV cameras. The Ducks lost, 4-1, to the Flames.

Chrissy McFalls, 15, swears Wildwing has a bit of arrogance about him now. “He struts,” McFalls said. “It’s like he’s all confident and even sort of cocky. It’s pretty cool.”

“He’s bad,” said Chase Sorenson, a 12-year-old with a hoop earring. “He rules.”

The mascot’s new look has ruffled other fans’ feathers, though. They miss the old Wildwing, with his oversized goalie pads, curved-up beak and gentle tuft of white feathers on his head.

Dan Hanneke, 40, and his three sons, all clad in Mighty Duck jerseys, said they’d take the original Wildwing back “in a second.”

“We just got used to the old one,” Hanneke said. “And now they went and changed him.”