NEWSDUMP – Fur-friendly culture, mascot boot camp – (7/25/16)
by Patch O'Furr
Here’s headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Mascot Boot Camp in the Washington Post.
They sent a reporter to 
attend Mascot Boot Camp. It’s run by Dave Raymond. “Dave was the original Phillie Phanatic — the first to inhabit the green costume in 1978. In the mascot community, he is something of a founding father.”
Dave is also founder of The Mascot Hall of Fame. It’s scheduled to open in Indiana in 2017. They said that he has run the Mascot Boot Camp for more than 20 years and it will continue at their new venue. Here’s a video for the 2016 camp.
In 2015 I did a series about crossover of fursuiting and professional sports mascots. Look for update articles next week with a Q&A from Uncle Kage, an MFF organizer, and Cornbread Wolf (who fursuits for fun at sports games.)
Frog and Toad are a proto-furry relationship story.
The New Yorker covers the beloved classic children’s book series by Arnold Lobel. “During his career, he worked on dozens of children’s books, both as a writer and as an illustrator… His specialty was animals and their misadventures.”
According to his daughter:
“Adrianne suspects that there’s another dimension to the series’s sustained popularity. Frog and Toad are ‘of the same sex, and they love each other… It was quite ahead of its time in that respect.’ In 1974, four years after the first book in the series was published, Lobel came out to his family as gay. ‘I think ‘Frog and Toad’ really was the beginning of him coming out'”…
It’s interesting to look at how anthropomophism, character and sexuality came together in simple friendship stories. You don’t need to know about the author for the stories to be just as good, but the writing is very personal. These are mainstream children’s books, but I might dare to say that the hidden meaning gives them more in common with furry fan fic than anyone but us would understand.
“Furlesque” at Cincinnatti Fringe Fest.