The Play In California: The Cal, Stanford Pre Big Game Special: Evolution of the Mascots

The Pac-10 ends its season this weekend with rivals week. USC vs. UCLA, Cal vs. Stanford, Arizona vs. Arizona St, you get the picture. Personally, I find rivals week as the pinnacle of awesomeness. The multitude of greatness is achieved not because the games are exciting (it’s not like Cal vs. Stanford is a Michigan vs. Ohio St kind of deal) but rather because you can pretty much get away with anything during rivals week. Feel like painting a beloved rivals school statue with one of your colors? Go ahead. Sure it’s only vandalism, defacing public property, against the law, but it’s all in the fun of the game, right? You’ll probably only get a slap on the hand for it. Steal the other team’s bulldog while you’re at it! Animal cruelty is just a small price to pay in order to uphold the traditions of the school. Why don’t you just go all Clockwork Orange with your rival school’s professors?! Great idea huh? You’ll probably go to hell for it, but God will understand since he’s probably a Washington State fan. You’ll get a free pass to heaven. Way to go, God!

Okay, so maybe some of these examples are rather extreme, but I can recall a true story from my freshmen year that made me think, wow, rivals week is great, but what the fans are doing is a really bad judgment call. So basically, I was in the Cal student section watching the game, when all of a sudden I heard some chanting. “Take off that red shirt” the crowd cried as they were pointing at one Stanford fan silly enough to think he could wear a Stanford sweater in a Cal student section. The chanting went on, and eventually the guy took off his sweater. No biggie. But then something crazy happened. The guy proceeded to throw the sweater behind him, only to have it caught by the student section. Once the Cal fans were in possession of the sweater, they continued their rowdy ways by tearing it to bits. Also, no biggie. Then someone had the great idea of lighting the remains on fire. That’s when my jaw dropped.

Let me spell this out to all of you. They were lighting something on fire, in a sea of people, with no real exit strategy if something did go wrong. Not was that dangerous enough, but they were lighting something on fire while standing on wooden bleachers. I’m pretty sure had one of those pieces dropped on the ground and lit the seats ablaze, it would have been the Great Chicago Fire times one hundred. Basically, all of us in the student section would have been trampled on or toast to a crisp. Fuck.

Stanford versus Cal is also known as “The Bowl of the Brains.” The irony.

Now, as any other great institution, Cal and Stanford both have timely age old mascots that have endured several bazillion years. These mascots are ancient, I’m not joking. Also, both of the mascots look rather ridiculous, in my opinion. Oski (the Cal Bear) looks like an old geezer at the retirement home. I’m not saying that to be mean, he just does. His attire is kind of out dated, and he looks like he’s ready to give you ribbon candy and send you off with a nickel so that you can buy milk from the local milkman. Yeesh.

The Stanford Tree on the other hand, well, it just looks retarded. It’s a fuckin’ tree for crying out loud. I’m surprised there aren’t any tree squatters flocking around it. Enough said.

However, forgetting the amounts of lameness that both these mascots possess, The Play in CA is proud to present to you a photo history analyzing the evolution of these mascots.

Oski the Bear

Over the years, Oski hasn't really seen much transformation. He's pretty much looked the same. However, I was able to find some pictures of various versions of Oski:

This is one of the oldest versions of Oski, and I can see why they made the change. He doesn't really look like a bear, more like a chipmunk with down syndrome. He also rates high on the creepy scale. Reminds me of one of Eric Cartman's Christmas Critters or the puppet from Saw. He'll literally kill the other team.

Here is the Oski Cal fans know and love. Pretty lame.

Here is the same version of Oski, except he looks even more ridiculous. Making him ride a segway does not make him cooler. It's quite the opposite. He pretty much looks like a douchy, Silicon Valley executive who was a former engineer. Makes since though, because about 80 percent of the graduating EECS majors (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) at Cal become someone similar to this.

This isn't Oski, but this is a fuckin' bear mascot. This is how Oski should be, buff to the max and ready to kick ass. Look, he even reads Oxygen Magazine, so you know he's sensitive for all you ladies.

Stanford Tree
The Stanford Tree hasn't really changed over the years. It's not really easy to make a tree look different. However I did find some variations on google images. The funny thing is that all the trees look like they are on different drugs. You have one that's on...