Jim Victor and Marie Pelton sculpted an 800-pound statue of sports icon Gritty that, we regret to say, you are not allowed to eat. This is despite a tweet from Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman that shows the hashtag-ready Butter Gritty appearing bug-eyed, delectable, and described as consisting not of matted mascot-hair but “pure, delicious PA butter.”
Why would anyone be be so mean as to tempt the world with a creamy Gritty whose tantalizing features are not meant to be spread on toast, added to a sandwich, or eaten in gloopy handfuls by gleeful local children?
An article in The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us that married artists Jim Victor and Marie Pelton made Butter Gritty at the urging of Fetterman for last January’s Pennsylvania Farm Show. Our big buttery boy represented the Philadelphia Flyers, and was joined by other, lesser mascots like the Eagles’ Swoop and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Steely McBeam. Though the couple “spent about 10 days sculpting” Gritty, the shaggy freak was constructed of “waste butter” from plants—“stuff,” according to Pelton, “that’s been extruded or cleaned out, or stuff that’s been damaged, or generally can’t be sold to the public.”
Rather than let us figure out for ourselves what Waste Butter Gritty tastes like, his materials were “donated to farms that have an anaerobic digester, which breaks down organic material and turns it into a fuel.” We suppose we should be happy that Butter Gritty was put to good use, but it’s difficult not to imagine that he, as a noted champion of the people, would have preferred his graven image to be digested inside of many bellies rather than used to power machines.
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