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"Oh yeah. He is from Sesame Street." Great. My daughter, who wasn't four yet, was already associating commercials with the programs she saw them on. McCarthy is one of the biggest building companies in St. Louis, and sponsor Sesame Street here. Their commercial comes on before and after every episode. Every time we approached that same spot, the location of their headquarters, Clara wanted to see "that guy from Sesame Street."Not long after, Megan and I were at a party with a friend who works for McCarthy, and conveyed our daughter's enthusiasm with his mascot. "You mean the dude?" he asked. The dude? "I don't know if everyone calls him that," he said, "but everyone in our office does." It turns out his kids love the dude as well.
The next time we drove past the headquarters, we explained to Clara that the Sesame Street man is actually called "the dude." Her eyes lit up, as if she learned a secret no one else knew. All the next month she asked if she could see "the dude." Then, on one outing, she noticed the dude on the top of a construction crane, then on the side of a construction trailer, then on a truck. "The dude, daddy! The dude!" It was as if the whole city was becoming a giant scavenger hunt, leaving images of the dude all over for her to find. If she sees a crane in the distance, she asks, "is that a dude crane?"
Then, this summer, while driving down I-80 in Sacramento, I pulled up behind a McCarthy truck. I didn't know they were in California, and Clara had yet to notice the truck. I counted down in my head: 5...4...3...2...1. Finally, from the back seat, "THE DUDE!!!!"
I "borrowed" that picture above from McCarthy's web site. The title of the picture file? "dude_home"
In our house at least, "the dude" no longer refers to the guy from The Big Lebowski.
5 comments:
We love to sing the "Who are the people in your neighborhood" song in our car and shout out all the workers by name. Don't know if they still play it on Sesame Street. My kids also think the Village People are from Sesame Street. Long story, but we were at a music store and I was crying it was so funny.
Keep up the great blog posts and stop by my site when you get a chance.
www.thepassivedad.com
That is too funny. LOVE it.
Years ago, I worked for an engineering/architectural/construction management firm. "The Dude", was "the competitor" for a number of local projects we'd try to land. They've had that logo a long time. But its a great one.
In fact, we ended up using the same artist that drew "the dude" for a brochure about a year or two after "the dude" debuted. Because even we, as a competitor, were all saying, "I LOVE THEIR LOGO". And we used a similar arty style on a few ads for trade mags.
Ok. That was a really long, pointless story. Sorry. Just that I like "the dude" too. Always have. Thanks for filling us in on "the secret of THE dude."
As a McCarthy "Dude" I just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed reading this story. We are very proud of "The Dude".
I've got one too. Nathan was watching Saturday morning cartoons a couple weeks ago and started yelling: "It's the potty frog!!" The potty frog? My observant 4-year-old connected some frog cartoon on TV with the Kandoo Wipe Frog and they honestly look the same. Too too funny.
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