I discovered him hiding in a locked storage room at The Columbian. He regarded unhappy and drained, nevertheless it didn’t take lengthy for him to comprehend that I needed to assist him —and listen to from him.
I’m speaking about Columbo, our newspaper’s mascot. Our large, inflatable, brown-felt canine was born in 1990. He perked proper up.
I sat down with him for an unique interview, though I needed to interpret his solutions from his paw gestures and head nods. I figured yes-and-no questions would work finest, though as journalists, we’re taught it’s higher to ask open-ended questions.
“Who created you?” I requested Columbo. He shrugged and checked out me with bulging eyes.
“Is it true you were one of the first inflatable mascots in the country?” A smaller shrug, and he regarded confused.
“I know you were popular in the ’90s, but when did you last appear in public? Was it in the past five years?” He shook his head as if to answer, “No.”
“When were you last in public?” Another shrug from Columbo. That query was a stretch.
Columbo wouldn’t give me a lot. I needed to speak to Columbo as a result of it was a big day right here at The Columbian: potluck day. Everyone brings in a dish and staff drift by way of our departments to refill on an eclectic meal of roughly 100 totally different dishes with no theme.
I instructed Columbo to go get pleasure from. He hummed with delight, waddled out the door, head bobbling facet to facet, to greet Columbian staff for the primary time in years.
Tracing Columbo’s previous
I nonetheless had unanswered questions, however fortunately, one in every of Columbo’s old caretakers, Tony Myers, came around us on potluck day. Myers was delighted to see Columbo strutting round The Columbian once more, posing for footage with staff and silently interacting with them. Myers spent loads of his time within the Nineties with Columbo because the canine waved to children at River Runs, enormous annual family-friendly operating occasions alongside the Columbia River. The runs lasted from 1978 to 1996.
“Kids would come up and hug, sometimes too tight,” Myers stated. They discovered in the event that they squeezed him sufficient, it will deflate. Kinda collapse.”
But Myers didn’t know the way Columbo was created. I needed to dig deeper.
I accessed The Columbian’s on-line archives and tried to search out traces of Columbo in our print editions. The outcomes had been principally articles in regards to the Seventies detective TV present “Columbo.” I lastly caught his scent on a web page from 1980.
Famous Columbian cartoonist Jim Shinn drew the primary climate canine round that point, and the cartoon appeared in print to present readers the day’s climate. There wasn’t any announcement in regards to the canine. It simply appeared. But it didn’t have a reputation.
The canine remained anonymous for 10 years till March 1990, when The Columbian held a contest that requested readers to vote on a reputation for our climate canine.
Readers regularly noticed Columbo forecast the day: “Hot dog! High could hit 100, Columbo says,” or “Expect some morning drizzle, Columbo says.” The Columbian’s climate columnist, Patrick Timm, started writing his column that yr from the curiosity sparked by Columbo.
I saved looking our archives for extra clues, and I discovered that Columbo advanced in 1990.
Columbo steps out
In the April 15, 1990, version, the primary image seems of the enormous inflatable Columbo. The canine is holding a boy’s hand as they cross a road surrounded by a crowd of children. This is the Columbo that hundreds knew from appearances at River Runs, the Clark County Fair and parades.
In 1994, reader Gloria Louise Nelson detailed her expertise at one in every of these River Runs: “My happy button hilariously got stuck on automatic. … I even did a little jog with Columbo.”
Yet I couldn’t discover something in The Columbian’s pages about how Columbo got here to be. I requested a few of our longest-tenured staff at The Columbian how our large Columbo was created. No one remembered. A number of folks steered that one man, lengthy gone from The Columbian, may know. He was the Columbian’s promotion supervisor within the ’90s: Gary Dixon.
I discovered somebody on Facebook named Gary Dixon in Vancouver, and I messaged him. Days handed with out a reply. I requested coworkers if that they had his contact data. Nobody did. Finally, I walked to our human sources division and requested if we had any old information. We discovered an index card with Gary Dixon’s telephone quantity from many years in the past.
I referred to as the quantity on the cardboard, uncertain if this quantity from the ’90s would nonetheless work.
A voice replied: “Hello?”
It was Gary Dixon. He instructed me it was his thought to fee Columbo. In 1990, he gave Jim Shinn’s Columbo cartoon to a mascot-creation firm. The firm got here up with a dressing up to appear like the cartoon.
“I thought it would be a great public relations idea,” Dixon stated. “He was the personification of The Columbian in the community interacting with people.”
A rep offered him on the concept of creating an inflatable costume, a sort that was simply beginning to come onto the market on the time. According to The University of Nebraska, the varsity’s “Lil’ Red” mascot from 1993 — three years after Columbo — was the “first inflatable mascot to be used in either college or professional sports.” I couldn’t any extra data on the historical past of inflatable costumes.
As Dixon recalled Columbo’s creation, I observed he was speaking in regards to the mascot as if he was lengthy gone.
“You know, Columbo made an appearance here last week,” I stated.
“He did?!” Dixon stated, shocked.
Long stay Columbo
People are nonetheless questioning: Who was within the Columbo costume?
All mascots, together with Columbo, comply with these guidelines: Don’t communicate. Don’t make noises. Stay in character and don’t change in public.
It’s all meant to uphold the magic of the phantasm. If you break a rule, the mascot dies. And Columbo isn’t going to die.
