Osler's Razor

Not long ago, Prof. Serr was telling me about the horrific experience he had in the grocery store with H.E. Buddy. For those of you not from Central Texas, the H.E.B. is our local grocery chain (based in San Antonio), and H.E. Buddy is the store's cartoon mascot... kind of a giant bag of groceries come to life.

Kids hate H.E. Buddy. Little kids are terrified of him, and older ones have a mixture of fear and contempt. His schtick, apparently, is to loom in the aisles, lurching towards toddlers and small children when they happen to be wheeled nearby. He can't talk (he's a bag of groceries, after all), so it's not surprising that with no explanation the kids scream their heads off when approached by an anthromorphic grocery bag which combines the creepiness of a mime with the grace of a drunk.

Of course, there are other examples:

1) BS, the UC-Santa Clara mascot, who is a banana slug.
2) Orchiotomy Man
3) The Stanford Tree.