One Sunday afternoon, the blazing sun was scorching the field at Olympic Stadium; the flying saucer where the Montreal Expos played did not yet have a roof in those days. Doubleheaders were therefore common but at least, when the sun was shining like it was on this day, the weather was perfect for baseball.

Advertisement

The Expos players were hitting batting practice when a huge, orange fur ball emerged onto the field wearing sunglasses and a beach towel around its neck. It was carrying a lounge chair that would look perfect next to one of the above-ground pools that were popular at the time.

It was summertime in Montreal and, despite fly balls and line drives raining down on centerfield, the orange furball decided this was where it wanted to lounge that day. So it unfolded the chair and began sunbathing as the puzzled Expos players watched. Right in center field.

This was quintessential Youppi!, who lived to have fun.

Most of the fans had not yet arrived for the game, so it was not as if Youppi! was playing to the crowd. It was that a baseball field was where Youppi! felt at home. Whether it was on its feet or a three-wheeled ATV, the field at Olympic Stadium belonged to Youppi!

This was a new experience for Expos fans, seeing a mascot who fit in so well to its surroundings. Because the mascot that preceded Youppi! hardly ever set foot on the diamond from the very first moment it was presented to the crowd.

Wait, what? The Expos had a mascot before Youppi!?

Oh, yes. Its name was Souki, and the extent of its failure as a mascot should no longer be hidden.

In 1977, “Star Wars” was everywhere. “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” hit theatres the same year and “Battlestar Galactica” was on the verge of wrapping up shooting. It was the year NASA sent two Voyager probes into space, a time where space and disco seemed to be intertwined in popular culture making it an eclectic era.

Expos owner Charles Bronfman decided, in the wake of his team’s arrival at Olympic Stadium, to give that team its first mascot. It was a key part of phase two of Bronfman’s development of his team, which entered Major League Baseball eight years earlier.

Advertisement

But Bronfman decided not to seek out the help of professionals when designing his mascot.

“I decided to design a mascot that was very modern, just like the stadium was in those days,” Bronfman said. “It was so outstanding that it scared the heck out of the kids and was despised by just about everyone.”

Souki was terrifying, wasn’t he? (Courtesy Russ Hansen)

Having a mascot with a baseball as a head was nothing groundbreaking. Mr. Redlegs was introduced in 1953, the same year the Cincinnati Reds – in reaction to McCarthy-era concerns about their team name – temporarily changed their name to the Redlegs.

Mr. Met, with his big eyes and wide smile, followed in 1964. Just looking at Mr. Met, you can almost hear him saying “fuggedaboutit.” Whereas Souki elicited no reaction at all and said nothing about the city or team it was representing. Its pupils were practically hidden at the bottom of its eyes.

And we haven’t even gotten to its outfit. Pointed shoulders to give it a “cosmic” look and a large red collar that completely hid its neck. Black leather gloves, dark rubber boots and shoddy tailoring from head to toe, all dead giveaways of the mascot’s tiny wardrobe budget.

The late Roger D. Landry, who had just been named Expos vice-president of marketing, did not get in the way of his owner’s wishes but never believed Souki would take off because, according to him, it did not reflect the culture of the people of Montreal in any way.

Before the 1978 season, the Expos built two versions of Souki, the second being even more traumatizing than the one that eventually made it to Olympic Stadium that season.

The #Expos first attempt at a mascotte in 1978. What the heck were we thinking hahahaha!#SoukiWiilGetYa

— Expos Fest❤️#EnRoutePour1Million #RoadTo1Million (@ExposFest) October 8, 2017

At that time, the mascot did not have a name, so the Expos held a contest to name it.

Advertisement

“I was on the road — I had to follow the Canadiens in the 1978 playoffs — and a small committee was formed to choose the name of the mascot,” said Gilles Terroux, who was a sports reporter for Le Journal de Montréal. “I got a call on a Sunday, just before a Canadiens game, and was asked to choose between three names. I don’t remember what the other names were, but without having seen the mascot, I voted for Souki. It was short, it was cute.

“But afterward, when I saw the mascot, it was ugly as hell.”

Ugly and clumsy, too. If Souki fell, it took two people to get it back up. Neither clown nor acrobat, Souki spent most of the 1978 season making the rounds in the lower sections of the stadium; it never went to the bleachers. It never used the roof of the dugout as a stage on which to perform, as his successor did so well, and never used the baseball field as its own playground.

“He walked around in the stands and kids would run away,” said Jacques Doucet, longtime radio voice of the Expos. “As soon he got near them, children would be frightened. He had nowhere near the charm of Youppi!”

Paul Shubin, who ran the scoreboard video screen at Olympic Stadium, says he often saw children in tears when Souki arrived.

“I remember very well seeing a little girl in her mother’s arms and when Souki got near her, she started bawling, not just crying,” Shubin said.

The Expos still tried to market their new mascot, with Souki touring schools and local hospitals. On Aug. 10, 1978, Souki even inaugurated a Montreal Symphony Orchestra concert at Maurice Richard Arena by pretending to be its conductor, in the place of famed maestro Charles Dutoit.

A reproduction of Souki has made its way into the world as Expos nostalgia has blossomed. (Archives / MédiaQMI)

But clearly, there was no chemistry between Souki and Expos fans, and some parents eventually began defending their children when it came toward them.

Advertisement

“One fan punched him in the back of the head,” said baseball analyst Rodger Brulotte, who at the time was the Expos’ traveling secretary. “He could have been knocked out. Souki turned toward him and said, ‘As soon as this inning is over, I’ll come back without my costume on and I’m going to give you one right in the mouth.’ The guy (inside Souki) was a street-tough guy. Let’s just say he looked pretty menacing outside the costume.

“After he threatened the fan, we told ourselves we might not have the right guy inside the mascot suit.”

Two people split duties inside that Souki suit in 1978, and both have since passed away. Willie Williamson, the tough guy Brulotte was referring to, was replaced by Eddy Yaworsky, a man from nearby Mascouche, who would later become a coach of former Los Angeles Dodgers closer Éric Gagné as he climbed the baseball ranks in Quebec.

But according to radio host Paul Houde, changing the guy in the suit did not make Souki a friendlier figure to the fans.

“It’s the end of September, it was cold at night, the Expos lost and I think Souki scared a kid,” Houde said in the documentary “Coup Sûr” (or “Base Hit”). “So the guy says, ‘Hey Souki, you’re done tonight!’ and he punches Souki in the face. It was the first time I had ever seen a mascot get punched. The whole ball that made up Souki’s head was caved in. The guy – it probably didn’t hurt him – but he was so used to being a mascot that he grabbed his head and started acting like he was hurt. It was surreal. He got punched right in the face by a drunk fan and kept playing his role of mascot.”

Before the 1978 season even ended, the Expos decided it would be Souki’s last. This is why the Expos had no objection when a fraternity at the Université de Montréal proposed organizing a funeral for the hated mascot as part of their initiation at the start of the school year.

“Roger D. Landry came to see me and said, ‘the Université de Montréal wants to kidnap Souki to bury him,” Brulotte said.

Advertisement

“Perfect, we’ll give them the costume,” Brulotte remembers responding to his boss.

“No,” Landry said.

“What?”

“You’re going to wear it.”

“Roger, are you nuts?”

The ceremony was held on stage in an auditorium. It was the only time in his long career in baseball where Brulotte wore a mascot costume.

“It was appropriate,” he said. “He couldn’t have left us in any better way. He didn’t wind up at the bottom of a closet. They completely buried him, with chants and poems. It was the biggest hit of their initiation that year. And Roger D. was thanking them for putting an end to our nightmare.

“After that, whenever I was about to talk to him about Souki, he would tell me, ‘Rodger, we don’t unbury the dead.’”

At around the same time, the Expos were already working on finding a successor to Souki. They couldn’t fail again.

This time, the Expos hired Harrison/Erickson, a New York mascot design firm. This was the big time; Bonnie Erickson, who once worked with Jim Henson, had created Miss Piggy among others. She then left to form a mascot design company with her husband and, by the time Landry and Brulotte met with them, they had already created the Philly Phanatic.

But the first rendering the Expos received was a purple character with a long nose, like an anteater. It wasn’t at all what they were looking for.

Landry and Brulotte described what they were after. First off, the mascot had to be orange as an homage to the Expos’ first real star, “Le Grand Orange” Rusty Staub.

“The big shoes came from Patof (a clown that was the star of a popular children’s show called Patofville),” Brulotte said. “It was another way to recognize Quebec culture, it wasn’t a random decision. In the eyes of Harrison/Erickson, this did not work with the character they had conceived. But this was the way we wanted to go.”

Youppi! was a much better mascot for the Expos and lives on with the Canadiens. (Focus on Sport / Getty Images)

Landry and Brulotte were also charged with finding a name for the new mascot. They needed a name that worked in both English and French and there was no way they were holding a contest this time.

Advertisement

One morning, as the two men chatted in Landry’s office, he said to Brulotte, “What I want is that when people see it for the first time, they scream youppi! (which translates to yippee or yay in English.)”

“Then you have your name,” Brulotte answered. “Youppi!”

The Expos turned 10 in 1979, and Youppi! was going to help mark the occasion. The Expos entered the major leagues the same year as the San Diego Padres, a team that got a lot of attention because of the San Diego Chicken, an irreverent mascot that had an impact you could compare to what Gritty has done for the Philadelphia Flyers in recent years.

The San Diego Chicken fascinated Denis Desaulniers, an Expos fan who lived right near Olympic Stadium, often buying cheap tickets to see the Expos play.

“Watching baseball, I could always see myself being a good mascot,” Desaulniers said. “When I was younger growing up in Valleyfield, I was always a bit of a clown.

“We didn’t see Souki all that much. He didn’t put on a show of any kind, he just walked around shaking hands with people. I knew they’d come up with a new mascot because the Chicken in San Diego was too good. Everyone talked about him, and that meant people were talking about the Padres.”

In February 1979, the Journal de Montréal had a story stating the Expos marketing campaign for that season would be, “The stadium is where the fun is” and that the campaign would coincide with the arrival of a new mascot.

“I told myself there’s my chance,” Desaulniers said.

After a brief audition period, the 25-year-old Desaulniers got the part as the first person to play Youppi!

“The first time they showed me the maquette, only the nose was different from what we see today,” Desaulniers said. “It was pointy and drooped down. But Rodger (Brulotte) told me they asked for the nose to be changed so it was big and round, a bit more like a typical Québécois nose. It wouldn’t have the same dynamic if it didn’t have a round nose.”

Youppi! made his way south of the border for the 2002 All-Star Game in Milwaukee. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

Desaulniers was the one who came up with one of Youppi!’s signature moves of punching himself in the nose, which was a way for him to straighten the mascot’s head so he could see properly. Inside the costume, Desaulniers wore a motorcycle helmet that was attached to the head by a layer of Styrofoam to protect his own head, and the whole thing was constantly tipping forward.

Advertisement

On April 14, 1979, after Desaulniers had gone to New York to pick up the mascot suit adjusted to his measurements, Youppi! made his debut to the Olympic Stadium fans.

“Since I was the first one, I kind of became Youppi!’s soul, I gave him his style, gave him a way to walk, a way to think and a way to act,” Desaulniers said. “Youppi! is a fun guy, he’s warm, he’ll give you a compliment.

“He’s a teenager that never grew up.”

Youppi! was a character people could identify with, one that could serve as a fun distraction, one that knew at what points in the game it was time for him to intervene.

And one that thankfully put the memory of Souki to rest.

(Top graphic: Wes McCabe / The Athletic)