We Need To Have A Serious Discussion About Otey, The Arkansas Travelers’ Horrifying Possum Mascot

Maybe it should be an ‘opossum,’ as in ‘oh shit that thing is scary.’

Glare into the soulless eyes of OTEY, one of two new mascots for the Minor League Arkansas Travelers. The other one is ACE, and is basically Gaston from Beauty & The Beast as a horse. They had a perfectly good dopey, gas station-themed donkey mascot before, I don’t know why they needed to jump on this weird bandwagon of making your sports team’s mascot as nightmare-causing as possible. Pierre the Pelican set a new bar, Russia brought in a crying animatronic bear for the Olympics and creepy mascot stalwart the Spurs Coyote has started rearranging his eyeballs. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Here is a giant, beautiful mugshot from the KARK 4 News Facebook page:

Choice Facebook comments include “Correct me if I’m wrong but when confronted aren’t opossum notorious for playing dead?” “How are we ever going to overcome the Hillbilly Image with this??” and my personal favorite, “Looks like the Chucky cheese guy fell on hard times.”

As far as insulting, creepy roadkill mascots named after Buckwheat catchphrases, I give it an A+.

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