10 Food Product Mascots That Give Us Nightmares

10. Little Debbie — You ought to have the face of an angel, Little Debbie; instead your visage is wrinkly and witchy. You are your own grandmother, and you’re wearing her clothes, too: plaid shirt with collar that lies perfectly flat and strange white straw hat trimmed in sky blue.

Is there something weirdly obscene about this packaging, or is it our imagination?

9. Kool-Aid Smiling Pitcher — We liked you better when you were fat, and perspiration glistened on your overweight brow. Now, you’re shaping up and getting skinnier and skinnier, riding a stationary bike wearing knee pads. Are you afraid of falling off? You are a pitcher filled with delicious juice-like drinks, Smiley, not a gym-goer!

8. Green Giant — Wait! Weren’t you the giant that was chasing us and screaming “Fe, fi, fo, fum? I smell the blood of a foodie?” You’re smiling now, but it’s the smile of a sexual predator, and when our backs are turned you’re doubtlessly going to ream us out with a thick can of peas.

7. Hamburger Helper Hand — “Tell it to the hand,” as the expression goes, but this is not even a real hand, it’s a cartoon hand, and the face upon its palm reminds us of the ants running out of the hand with a hole ripped in it in Un Chien Andalou. Please, stop it from talking! And why, oh why, does he have a clown nose? Is that a worm in his mouth?

6. Chef Boyardee — When we were kids, we never knew you were Italian, since all chefs were French back then. You’ve grown old on the can, like one of those paintings on the wall at Hogwarts. Are you going to start talking to us now, too? We fear being smothered in one of your cans of mushy mini-ravioli.

5. Snap, Crackle & Pop — We know why you’re so manically hyper, Crackle, you’re clearly on a crack high, but what about the other two? Have you snapped someone’s neck, Snap, and have you “popped” someone in the argot of organized crime hit men, Pop? Whatever the reason, please stop jumping around in my breakfast food!

4. Lucky Charms Leprechaun — And while we’re on the subject of cereal mascots, the Lucky Charms Leprechaun is one of the creepiest, so creepy that he inspired a series of horror films. Can’t you see the evil lurking behind his pasted-on smile? And isn’t he supposed to kill you if you come near his treasure (i.e., Lucky Charms)? His sphincter-like ears are particularly distressing.

3. Pillsbury Doughboy — One look into your empty blue eyes and we know you’re intent on mayhem, P.D.B., like your cousin, the Michelin Rubber Man. And your gaping toothless mouth reminds us how putty-white and corpse-like you are.

2. Tennessee Pride Mascot — OK, you don’t have a name yet, but you roam the backwoods roads with your sawdusty biscuits hoping to stumble upon some hapless wayfarer. And your stick, swung at someone’s head from behind, is lethal. You are a genetic mutation, as evidenced by only three fingers and one thumb. And who walks around barefoot, unless they have the hooves of Satan? The package demands, “Taste the pride.”

Ready for the scariest food-product mascot of all time?

1. Gorton’s Fisherman — Steel-blue eyes, blue rope around your neck, beard too perfectly trimmed, rubberized coat to keep your clothes dry from blood spatters — we’ve got your number, Gorty! We saw I Know What You Did Last Summer, and have long realized that you’re nothing but a common slasher, and if we reach our arms into the freezer case to try to extract some of your unsustainable sole or cod filets, you’ll whip a grappling hook out of your yellow slicker and cut us to ribbons. Please, let us wake up before that happens!