Close to Home by John McPherson for November 07, 2020

Bleeb has his helmet. Put him in coach he’s ready to play.

I never understood why people yell that. What ABOUT the defense? What’s wrong with it? Is it a call to change strategy? To what team are they referring to? Why doesn’t anyone ever yell “Offense! Offense!!”

What’s really creepy is suddenly seeing a real person walking among the cutouts.

This cartoon made me think of that Twilight Zone episode called “The After Hours” where the mannequins take turns living among the “outsiders.”

The best was the South Korean team last spring that used surplus fully clothed sex dolls with mask placed in the seats. It was also the funniest because some people (mostly women) got very indignant and upset and got them removed. Out of sight out of mind apparently.

They must have known that men just need to look at a doll, forget about the game and go into a crazed frenzy. Then they later remember to force themselves to think about baseball or sport of choice to prolong the moment and reputation.

[BTW, it was a football team and they were fined the equivalent of $81,300.]

Being booed by cardboard must be the pits.

I think these crowd noises are dumb. You have someone who is operating the sound system who is obviously for home team. It’s like the canned laughter on these tv shows. Everything gets laughed to.

Interview the person who regulates the crowd noise through the stadium speakers. Talk about temporary workers.

I thought the Broncos putting figures of the entire town of South Park in the seats was really cool. Makes me chortle…

So dystopian. It seems a little to “Hunger Games” to me.

Not accustomed to being surrounded by dummies? :-o

When a good breeze comes up and a head or two roll out of the stands it’s really freaky.

Mannequins are creepy, especially when they look like John McPherson’s characters.

Just shows you how STUPID people are. It’s a game.

And they have a pitching machine in the stands loaded with eggs and tomatoes

I’m the opposite. The cardboard cutouts don’t bother me at all but I hate the hell out of fake crowd noise! It’s always out of tune to what happened on the field. Shut it off and let us hear the field calls of the players. Will never get a chance like this again, when the crowds come back we’ll never hear the players calls, so let us hear them now!

I want a personal life filled with mannequins. They’re probably easier to deal with than my family.

Wʜᴀᴛ Rᴇᴀʟʟʏ Hᴀᴘᴘᴇɴᴇᴅ…

“I here ya dude, playin’ football with mannequins in the stands is really weirdin’ me out, too! But dude, if there’s no people here, what’s that weird smell?”

“I think it’s that weird little yellow alien bug looking thing over there under the… oop, never mind… Jerome just stepped on it!

“Whoa, dude! That just made it worse! Umm, was that thing wearin’ a helmet?”

“Naa, it’s just your imagination… So, is it creepy that I think one of those girl mannequins is cute!? … I’m just sayin’!”

When they made the animated movie Early Man, they got a bunch of football fans in the Cardiff statdium to record the crowd noises. Maybe they can adapt those.

This is hearsay, but I heard that one baseball team allowed people to pay to have their face on the cardboard cutouts. I am sure there are plenty of people egotistical enough to do that.

South Korean soccer league got in to trouble recently when they started filling stadiums with sex dolls

Do the fans for Arsenal, United, etc., yell “Defence, Defence”?

It’s Football Bleeb!

Better mannequins than zombies!

It’s not creepy….unless the mannequin moves