Two months ago, after a delightful segment on the zany (and sometimes struggling) mascots of minor league baseball, John Oliver and his roster of Last Week Tonight writers made the pitch that they would give one lucky team a free rebrand. There was just one catch: the team had to surrender all creative control and promise they would use the material Oliver & Co. gave them. The idea was a homerun, as it let LWT do their signature bonkers stuntwork, all while pulling a team out of the dugout and revitalizing the merch game that minor league sports is so dependent on. A few weeks ago Oliver named the team that had been selected — the Erie SeaWolves of Erie, Pennsylvania — but said the rebranding ideas were still being thoroughly researched and workshopped. But now the wait is over: meet the Moon Mammoths! The big reveal came at the end of Sunday’s show, along with some background on how they ended up reaching back 12,000 years for the new mascot:
In the summer of 1991, a scuba diver named George Moon was combing the depths of Lake Pleasant in Erie County, Pa. When he broke the surface, he was carrying with him an almost three-foot long bone. Moon had no idea then that what he’d stumbled across was the shoulder blade of a creature that had walked the land in Erie something like 12 millennia ago. He also had no idea that this prehistoric discovery would one day somehow become a part of baseball history.
It turned out what Moon had found was just a small part of a very large mammoth, and on further dives that Moon and others made into that part of Lake Pleasant, about 80 percent of the massive mammal’s remains were found, including both its tusks. It became known locally in Erie as the Moon Mammoth and now, more than three decades later, thanks to “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver and his team of writers, this story is getting dug up again as a brand new alternate identity for the Erie SeaWolves, Double-A affiliate of the Tigers.
Make no bones about it, while the tale of the Moon Mammoth is a folkloric one in Erie, it isn’t exactly common knowledge. … Both SeaWolves team president Greg Coleman and assistant GM Greg Gania, who have been Erie residents for going on 20 years, had never heard the story until the show brought it to them.
…But now the ever-important mascot job will be passed on to the SeaWolves staff. After getting a few final touchups, [Fuzz E. Mammoth]’s getup will make its way about 450 miles northwest from the “Last Week Tonight” studio to Erie — which Gania described as “the chimney of Pennsylvania” — for the team’s debut game as the Moon Mammoths on July 19. Oliver is expected to be in attendance, and George Moon, who still calls Erie home, has been invited as a special guest.
Fuzz might take some getting used to for diehard Erie fans who are so accustomed to the more slender SeaWolf. But Coleman is confident they’ll come to embrace this 12,000-year-old creature, who rose from the depths of a local lake to resurface a story that is ingrained in Erie’s history, and prehistory.
“We’re one of the smallest markets in all of baseball … so we have to fight for everything we do,” said Gania, who also does play-by-play broadcasts for the SeaWolves and for the big league club. “It’s our job to help put Erie on the map, and this shines such a big light on a small community.”
I love this selection! Quirky? Check. Historical to Erie? Check. Obscure and nerdy? Check plus. They’ve covered all the bases!! Oliver outlined in the episode how his crew fell down the mammoth hole, all from an old local news segment. Apparently, bones that have been around for 12 millenia are fragile, so it was a big deal that the Moon Mammoth remains were brought out on Fossil Day in 2012 for one-day-only public viewing. As for why the mascot — officially christened Fuzz E. Mammoth — wears an astronaut helmut and boots, Oliver confessed that they veered away from history a touch and just riffed on the coincidence that the bones were discovered by a man named Moon. (Who, by the way, I sure do hope shows up to the first game on July 19!) As for Mr. Fuzz E. Mammoth’s design, perfection. MLB News described him as “Snuffleupagus if he were purple with white tusks, could stand on his own two feet and had gotten a serious sudden injection of energy.” In the exquisitely theatrical unveiling video — set to a particularly haunting rendition of children singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” — Fuzz E. strikes a balance between goofy and demonic in a way so few can. OK Mammoths, play ball!
PS — What was with the dig about seawolves being “more slender,” hmm?!
PPS — I need to know everything behind the statement that Erie is “the chimney of Pennsylvania.”
Photos via Instagram
Utterly delightful! And Erie is a great town, with a fabulous food co-op I always hit when on a road trip.
Pennsylvania has sort of a panhandle on the northwest corner. It’s little, looks like a chimney, and reaches toward Lake Erie. That’s where Erie, PA is.
that is a great mascot my baseball ⚾️ obsessed two year old grandchild would love it.
I absolutely love this!!
Awesome, and Bob Costas narrating.
John Oliver, besides being a very quirky comedy treasure, is also a cutting edge commentator on all sorts of obscure, and not so obscure, injustices that are ongoing in this nation. Last Week Tonight exposes all sorts of ways in which the oligarchy are exploiting the masses for their own benefit! Not only that, but he does it in a delightful way…if that is possible!
Moon Mammoth is such a sweet way to revive the history of Erie, and their baseball team at the same time! Well done Sir, and your team. Go Moon Mammoths!
One wonder how the newest NHL franchise feels about this, since they are the Utah Mammoths.
They probably feel a little like the Colorado Mammoth (lacrosse) did when Utah picked the name.
I just love this. It’s funny that I started out loving Jon Stewart, but now I cannot deal with him and instead I love some of the people who emerged from The Daily Show with hot careers of their own. Colbert is a gem too.
For the record, I know Stewart has done a lot of good work advocating for 9/11 survivors. But I did not need to see him back on the show during the 2024 election.