Mascots

I love me some Mockumentaries. I do, I really do. Yeah, sure, most of the ones I have seen in my life were made by Christopher Guest. This Is Spinal Tap! (Technically Rob Reiner, whatever) and A Mighty Wind are my jams. But thankfully we did get Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping this year to continue the trend a bit further.

So I was excited about Mascots. And no, I didn’t know it was another film directed by Christopher Guest until about twenty minutes in, when the same cast of characters in a lot of his films appeared. It had the same style, same type of humor.

Let’s be clear, this is his first Mockumentary in a decade! Big news, because someone has to make them, damn it.

And why not explore Mascots hoping they did not break their funny bone.

Mascots are a big deal. They get the party started, they get people excited about sports and performances, and they can have zany costumes.

And in this documentary, it is showcasing several totally real mascots as they prepare for the World Mascot Association to try and win the Golden Fluffy award for the best mascot. Now a lot of random mascots enter and send in tapes to be chosen to compete, but only the best and maybe the vaguest can really win.

Of course we have a very eccentric and weird cast. There is Zook (Chris O’Dowd), who plays The Fist, a hockey mascot in Canada, known for getting into fights, and yes, he is a giant fist. Owen Golly Jr. (Tom Bennett) comes from a long line of mascots, playing a squirrel I believe. His dad (Jim Paddock) is still coaching him and his wife (Kerry Godliman) just hopes he doesn’t die.

Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey) is this absurd horse girl thing. Phil Mayhew
(Christopher Moynihan) is a Plumber mascot, and has a big routine with a toilet and a turd. Mike (Zach Woods) and Mindy Murray (Sarah Baker) are a couple act, but also going through a divorce thanks to infidelity, but still hoping to work together for the competition.

And we got more people for a variety of reasons, Jane Lynch, Ed Begley Jr., Susan Yeagley, John Michael Higgins, and Michael Hitchcock.

And I didn’t even get into the Amish and the Worm pair.

Mascots ends up being very similar to Christopher Guest’s other mockumentaries. The people are weird, but realistic, and the humor comes from relatively normal interactions. And surprisingly outside of a few moments, I found myself rather bored.

I haven’t seen a lot his previous work. I never fully watched Best In Show, but I want to. I didn’t even know he had about two others. So why would I absolutely love A Mighty Wind and not this one?

Well, shit. It might actually be the music factor. I love quirky people and musicals, so it is a perfect storm for me. This one has quirky people without all of the payoff I was hoping for. Some people seemed to exist just for one joke or one long set up and until it happened, I was just waiting.

The mascot performances were all pretty good I guess, but not enough to warrant rewatching in the future. People are weird, situations are zany, but it is all too few and far in between for me.