I've been looking through my thousands of photographs lately, both because it is a nice way to remember and also because I find it fun to share stories. This story is about how the Disney company doesn't always get things right. Or maybe it is about how the UI Athletic Department (UIAD) was rather dumb in thinking that a change was needed—sometimes you shouldn't mess with success. The mistake was probably more UIAD's than Disney's—that's not surprising!
In 1977, The UIAD decided it was time for an update of our beloved Herky the Hawk. (Why?) As I understand, they contacted the Disney company and contracted with them to come up with a new version. You will see the results below. Most of you will realize that the Herky we still have today looks almost exactly like the old one who appears on the left in the photo. The Disney version on the right was not well received. In fact, I recall the crowd booing when he was introduced at the game with some fanfare—falling flat fanfare would be a better description. I don't think he appeared more than a handful of times.
Oh, about those thousands of photographs...I have approximately 12,000 of them right now, having digitized most of my old film-based photographs and now having added lots of digital photographs. So, you may be in for lots of boring stories. I'll try to be reasonable.
1 comment:
Looks like me dressed as Herky! No wonder they booed.
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