6 Philly-area foods that would make great Bowl game mascots — maybe even better than the Pop-Tarts Bowl mascot?

The first edible mascot in sports history cemented its place in meme history last weekend.

The Pop-Tarts Bowl game, featuring a matchup between the Kansas State Wildcats and the North Carolina State Wolfpack, captivated audiences across the internet when it debuted Strawberry, a mascot version of the tasty snack.

The crude-looking Pop-Tart with big beady eyes and a fixed grin became a meme for merely existing. But then things got even sillier. The human version of Strawberry was lowered into a giant toaster on the football field and came out as an edible version of the snack, still smiling and now winking. He was devoured by the winning team.

By New Year’s Day, a Cheez-It Bowl and respective chaotic mascot threatened to usurp Strawberry’s popularity. But alas, Ched-Z — the flaming mohawk and sunglasses-wielding mascot version of the cheesy snack — while popular, just couldn’t keep up with the Pop-Tart. In fact, he wasn’t even edible (at one point, Ched-Z held a sign that said “Non-Edible Mascot.”

This got us thinking: What Philly-area snacks are worthy of the mascot treatment and their own bowl game? And, perhaps more importantly, which ones could beat Strawberry in popularity? Here are some drafts.

The almost 110-year-old snack company originally based out of Philadelphia is known for its plastic-wrapped Kandy Kakes, cupcakes, and more. And they even already have a mascot. One of Tastykake’s signature snacks, Krimpets, features a proprietary finger-shaped fluffy sponge cake topped with icing. Kirbee, the company’s existing mascot, appropriately resembles a yellowcake Krimpet — we like to think he’s the tasty butterscotch flavor.

Come on, a soup BOWL? Too easy. This century-old soup company is headquartered in Camden and for years, its most popular flavor has remained the iconic chicken noodle soup. The Campbell’s Soup Bowl would probably feature a hot tub where the winning team can stew and soak after cooking their competition. Stock would essentially be one of the classic red and white cans, but with eyes, arms, and legs. Maybe there’s even an opportunity to dump a giant can over the coach’s head à la Gatorade? We’ll workshop this.

Headquartered in Bethlehem, Goldenberg’s has been cranking out these sweet, chocolaty bars for more than 100 years. It’s only right they get a bowl game. The mascot would be a nod to the delicious Peanut Chews snacks, and would resemble the opened chocolate bar. Goldenberg’s is a part of the Just Born manufacturing company, which owns some additional popular snack companies, which leads us to …

Peeps is also part of the Just Born manufacturing company portfolio, which I guess makes these two mascots cousins? The existing Peeps Chick mascot doesn’t appear to have a name. We’ll call them Yellow for consistency. It is, as expected, a human-sized foam version of the classic Easter snack. The controversial (but no more controversial than cooking a human Pop-Tart alive) play here would be to toast Yellow the marshmallow so they’re just melty enough to eat smeared across a graham cracker. The safe option would be to chuck these fluorescent-hued treats into the crowd.

The existing Philly Pretzel Factory mascot, Phil-E, is a dark green muppet-like character decked out in branded gear. For reasons unknown, he’s not the company’s signature paperclip-esque-shaped pretzel with eyes. In our amped-up version, Phil-E would be pretzel-shaped for starters. He’s also a yoga-practicing, acrobatic daredevil who does Evil Knievel-style stunts on his motorcycle. Maybe he gets lowered into a massive vat of mustard? Or maybe members of the winning team each pair up and split a pretzel in Lady and the Tramp fashion. We still have some kinks to workshop.

Headquartered just outside of Philly, Rita’s Italian Ice is a staple in the city so devoted to water ice it has its own pronunciation for it. The existing mascot, Ice Guy, seems slightly menacing — his eyes appear to be red in some photos. In our minds, Ice Guy would hurl slushie water onto the field to sabotage the teams as part of a set of self-imposed obstacles (bowl game coordinators did NOT clear this). They’re a little bit sweet, a little bit tart, and icy in the heart if you do them dirty. The team that wins gets an ice plunge, obviously.