Confessions of a Mall Moose . . .

During this time of year I always like to reflect back upon my many holiday jobs. You always get to see the best and the worst of people during the holidays. Some past holiday jobs include a cashier at a clothing store, a waitress in a restaurant, a manager in a bookstore, a receptionist for a tour bus company, and perhaps the oddest position of all: Chris Moose, Resident Animated Ungulate at a suburban Pennsylvania mall. Knowing that most malls do not employ ungulates, Christmas season or not, I am sure you are filled with questions. Let me give you the highlights . . .

What is Chris Moose?
Aside from a poor pun on the word, Christmas, Chris Moose first and foremost, is not a reindeer, particularly he is not Rudolph. His nose does not light up. He is not in with the big guy in red. Santa and Chris were not close at all in fact. But I digress, Chris Moose, basically was a large animated Moose who talked to little kids while their parents perused their beef stick and smoked Gouda options at the nearby Hickory Farms stand at my local mall.

Chris could not walk. Chris was only a Moose head and two big arms sticking out of a giant Christmas bag (from the bag base to the tip of the golden antlers was an impressive 12 feet that demanded all little kiddies tilt their heads and look up at the Moose).

Chris could blink his eyes, turn his head, and through the miracles of modern technology, whenever Chris spoke into the mike, his mouth opened in unison. Mostly. When I would sing it got a little off somehow.

Wait a minute, were you sitting in the Moose?
Oddly no. The Moose Bag held a bunch of wires. My studio was right next door in a second wrapped package that held a generator, a chair, a lamp, headphones, a mic and my control panel.

How could you see the kids?
Through a tiny little hole in my package. And if I did not see them, often times the kids would get my attention by screaming Hey Rudolph! Hey, Rudolph! This in spite of the large sign in my snow pen that said CHRIS MOOSE. Really, when you can hear kids, you do not always need to see them.

Before you hinted at some friction between you and Santa, what gives?
Well, see Santa liked to ignore the Moose, like you could ignore the Moose. And whenever he walked by (seemingly about every 30 minutes. Our Santa had a great union rep) all the little kids would leave Chris Moose and run to Santa. So I would try and chat with Santa to show that we were all on the same team. But Santa would snub the Moose and walk on by; ruining any street cred I earned promising all the little 3-footers I would tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. Why, Santa, Why? I mean did Jerry Lewis interrupt Dean Martin and then ignore him? No, there was some play there. That is what made that relationship solid gold.


How long were typical shifts in the Chris Moose studio?
Well, having the Mon. to Fri. slot, I was live 11 am to 8 pm. The coveted weekend slot went to Butch I was a high school mascot Smith. Incidentally, I was not chosen as our high school mascot when I tried out, but that is a whole other blog (Damn you, Butch!). Yes I have changed his last name, not to protect him, but because I do not remember it. A trivial thing really. Why get bogged down in minutiae?

Wow. Nine hour shifts seem long. Did you have a hard time being on for such long stretches?
A huge fan of method acting, I did a lot of research. A huge fan of artificial stimulation, I drank a lot of caffeine. Truly, I never left character.

What was your motivation?
There was a real gritty honesty about my Moose. Now Iam not saying that my character is the ideal Moose. But he is real. Butch was not real. Think Papa Smurf meets Barney. For me, think Bill Murray meets Jean-Paul Sartre. You never know what you are going to get, and while it might be a little manic, it will be REAL. Besides why dumb it down for the kids?

How much does a Mall Moose get paid?
Really I should not brag.

Oh, Come on, how much?
Actually I can not brag, because it was not much and if you would think that seeing the smiling faces of hundreds upon hundreds of little kids would be payment enough, you would be really, really wrong. Instead, I did it to work on my Craft. Well, and to buy meaningless tchotchke, also known as Christmas gifts.

When did you know the roller coaster was going to end?
Well, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I really hit my stride during the third season. I had the adoration of my fans: countless males and females walked by begging for my digits. Some would wait to see me emerge from my studio at the end of the day. I have a policy against autographs: I will not cheapen what I do, so really they were a little crestfallen, but the professional needs her space. Also, I had received some critical acclaim in the local newspaper. Next to my hours, the advertisement listed me as Entertaining. Hey, you can not buy that kind of advertising. Well you can, and the mall did, but it was well-founded.

Then, in my fourth season, I faced the challenge of a career change. I found out the Moose got traded to another network, er, mall. Turns out our mall thought the Moose was a little stale and wanted to replace Chris Moose with Jingle Bear. Naturally they wanted the best to take on the persona of Ursula major, so after some tough negotiations I was in. It was a tough season, make it or break it, I mean think, replacing The Simpsons with Futurama. You still have the creator of the same art, but really it is never the same again, and always feels a little tainted . . .

Is that when you gave it all up?
I could see the writing on the wall. And who likes to be the last one to leave the party?

Have you thought of a reunion tour with the other moose?
Just because Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles got back together does not mean it is right for me. I have some other projects in the work right now, so short term I say no. But under the right circumstances and top billing of course . . .