Brian Damage
07-29-2011, 11:08 PM
When two or three people tell you the same thing, it tends to get your attention. When two or three dozen people tell you the same thing, well, that's a story worth investigating.
So with the NFL back in business this week, let's consider a story that lots of New England Patriots fans have told Uni Watch over the years. It usually goes something like this: "Hey, I vaguely remember this time when the Pats held a halftime vote to see if they'd replace Pat Patriot with a new logo. They held up signs of the new logo and Pat, and fans voted by booing or applauding. Pat totally won, and the new design was never seen again. Do you remember that? Do you know anything more about it? Do you have a photo of that other logo?"
Uni Watch
No, no, and no. Uni Watch has always meant to get to the bottom of this one, but it's one of those things that always ended up on the back burner. Fortunately, reader Trevor Williams was curious enough about it to do some research on his own. He recently turned up two old Boston Globe articles confirming that the halftime logo vote took place in 1979. One of them, published shortly before the vote took place, showed the new logo; the other one reported the results of the voting.
But wait -- go back and look at that first article, which shows the proposed new design at the top of the page. Here's how that logo was supposed to look in color. Hmmm, Look familiar?
That's right. Fourteen years before Flying Elvis made his debut in 1993, the Patriots were already considering a very similar logo character. Let's call him Proto-Elvis.
Is the similarity between the two designs just a coincidence, or is there more to it than that? Before we try to connect those dots, we have to look at Proto-Elvis' backstory. And to do that, we need to check in with a guy named Micéal Chamberlain, who was the Patriots' marketing director back in 1979. He also happened to be team owner Billy Sullivan's son-in-law. Although Chamberlain is no longer involved with the team (he now runs a real estate company that he founded in 1989)
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2011/0728/pg2_patriots_uniwatch_576.jpg
http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/6810815/uni-watch-traces-lineage-patriots-flying-elvis-logo
So with the NFL back in business this week, let's consider a story that lots of New England Patriots fans have told Uni Watch over the years. It usually goes something like this: "Hey, I vaguely remember this time when the Pats held a halftime vote to see if they'd replace Pat Patriot with a new logo. They held up signs of the new logo and Pat, and fans voted by booing or applauding. Pat totally won, and the new design was never seen again. Do you remember that? Do you know anything more about it? Do you have a photo of that other logo?"
Uni Watch
No, no, and no. Uni Watch has always meant to get to the bottom of this one, but it's one of those things that always ended up on the back burner. Fortunately, reader Trevor Williams was curious enough about it to do some research on his own. He recently turned up two old Boston Globe articles confirming that the halftime logo vote took place in 1979. One of them, published shortly before the vote took place, showed the new logo; the other one reported the results of the voting.
But wait -- go back and look at that first article, which shows the proposed new design at the top of the page. Here's how that logo was supposed to look in color. Hmmm, Look familiar?
That's right. Fourteen years before Flying Elvis made his debut in 1993, the Patriots were already considering a very similar logo character. Let's call him Proto-Elvis.
Is the similarity between the two designs just a coincidence, or is there more to it than that? Before we try to connect those dots, we have to look at Proto-Elvis' backstory. And to do that, we need to check in with a guy named Micéal Chamberlain, who was the Patriots' marketing director back in 1979. He also happened to be team owner Billy Sullivan's son-in-law. Although Chamberlain is no longer involved with the team (he now runs a real estate company that he founded in 1989)
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2011/0728/pg2_patriots_uniwatch_576.jpg
http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/6810815/uni-watch-traces-lineage-patriots-flying-elvis-logo