LOOKING FOR FAME
Christopher Guest’s Mascots delivers deadpan gems about the anonymous zealots inside the costumes,
The show: Mascots (Netflix) The moment: The specialty channels
The World Mascot Competition is happening in Anaheim, Calif., and Upton French (John Michael Higgins) might air it on his Gluten Free Channel. “It’s owned by Panorama Data Com,” he tells the camera. “I’ve done a bunch of shows for them, starting with the sailing networks, SN1and 2.”
SN1went under after Santa Claus drowned during a live telecast. “But I licked my wounds and kept going,” French says — to the Varicose Vein Channel, then to FRC, “the Fence and Railing Channel. That played well with women.”
“We love the bad guys,” pipes up French’s protege, Jessica Mundt (Maria Blasucci), who worked on the Elevator Channel and the “hit show” Does That Smell Normal?
Writer-director Christopher Guest has rounded up his usual suspects (Parker Posey, Bob Balaban) and some newcomers (Zach Woods, Chris O’Dowd) for another fauxdocumentary on the outer fringes of show biz — this time, the anonymous zealots who toil inside mascot costumes.
Don’t mistake familiar for easy, though. The brilliant cast delivers deadpan gems about our collective need for fame — or at least acknowledgment — which, thanks to social media and the multi-channel uni- verse, has only intensified since 1996’s Waiting for Guffman.
As always, Guest finds poignancy in folks like Phil (Christopher Moynihan), who dons a nonsensical plumber costume to boost a football team.
“For me, it’s the sound of the crowd,” Phil says. “You can’t really hear it inside the head, but you can hear that there is a sound. The sound of that sound — that’s the greatest sound in the world.” Mascots is screening on Netflix. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.