Up close and personal with the Wildwood Seasquatch

WILDWOOD, N.J. — The Wildwood Seasquatch is explaining itself.

“I’m on a much lower plane than these historic mascots,” he says, with unexpected humility, referring to Philly’s legendary hierarchy of undefinable mascots: Gritty, the Phanatic, and maybe even Swoop.

“All the mascots out there are definitely influences,” Seasquatch says.

An odd combination of Gritty, Bigfoot, and if Lucy the Elephant were a guy in a costume running around Margate, the Wildwood Seasquatch is trying to go viral.

At first, the Seasquatch and its DIY handlers played up the mythical Bigfoot vibe, showing up unexpectedly at night on a lonely street, clad only in a Sasquatch costume, posting grainy security footage of sightings on the boardwalk, trying to spread a vague Seasquatch origin story, about a super Shoobie creature who had landed on the island.

But now, the Seasquatch has morphed into something a bit more lovable, from myth to mascot, say: a friendly sort, though occasionally jump-scary: a guy in a hairy Sasquatch costume rebranded for Wildwood with a surfing Seasquatch T-shirt.

(The local businessman behind the Seasquatch doesn’t want to be identified publicly because, he says, he’s not doing it to promote his own business. He says he and a colleague thought of the idea of bringing a series of Bigfoot “could it be real” type sightings to Wildwood to bring attention and fun to the place, and the colleague just went out and bought the costume.)

The creature might jump out at you from behind your seat in the tram car, delighting in the startle and, usually, the laugh. (He says reactions range from “love it to total ambivalence.”)

“Want to take a photo?” he asks.

“Sunshine!” he calls out to a woman on a bike.

The Wildwood Seasquatch joins the ranks of self-styled mascots at the Jersey Shore, like the legendary A.C. Batman, who haunts the seashore casino city to the north, often by bicycle.

The Wildwood Seasquatch tends to travel by car.

Last Tuesday, he was doing his Seasquatching thing near the Wildwoods beach ball sign by the Convention Center. He seemed most comfortable peering out with his crooked smile between the D and the W.

It raises the question: Wasn’t Wildwood already weird enough without a local businessman in a Bigfoot costume showing up all over town?

But Seasquatch is catching on.

Ja’Nyizha Lane, a 7-year-old Lancaster girl, gave the mascot a thumbs up, as did most passersby. A few recognized Seasquatch from its Facebook page.

He is not as tall as you might expect, so the Wildwood Seasquatch prefers to stand on a bench behind his admirers for the photos. (He claims to be 7-foot-4, with the bench.)

“Tag the Wildwood Seasquatch on Facebook,” he unfailingly reminds them.

Last summer’s viral Wildwood mascot, Morey’s Piers’ Sunny the Seagull, seems all but forgotten in the Seasquatch craze. Sunny’s boardwalk presence is now mostly relegated to a bunch of knockoff plush seagull dolls with french fries in their beaks, literally hanging by a thread against the walls of storefront arcades.

Sunny and Seasquatch have met. Sunny is taller.

“He’s quite a hairy man,” noted one passerby, with admiration and perhaps a wee bit of longing in her voice.

Seasquatch offers to pose as if he’s sleeping under the boardwalk, but is gently discouraged by Louis Belasco, executive director of the Greater Wildwoods Tourism Improvement and Development Authority, who’s come along for the photo shoot.

He does a Marilyn Monroe shot on a bench instead. He’s nothing if not game.

He was photographed by multiple media outlets at Donald Trump’s rally on the beach holding a “Seasquatch for President” sign.

“Giving people alternatives,” offers Belasco.

Seasquatch has been leaving clues around the Shore town to find little wooden Seasquatch tokens with various designs, which are redeemable for prizes at local businesses. The clues are posted on Facebook. He’s popping up at local businesses and posting on social media.

That’s the point, says the guy inside the Seasquatch costume. (Any mascot worth his fur will never admit to a human inside.)

(Still, our earnest and enthusiastic Shore superhero couldn’t help but call out to someone he knows passing by, “You know who this is?”)

Logan Dugan, a 17-year-old from Gilbertsville, Pa., on senior week, compared Seasquatch favorably to Gritty.

“I’ve met Gritty,” he said. “They look like cousins, big and hairy.”

Seasquatch makes conversation with Dugan and his friends about the loss of the old Zerns Farmer’s Market in Gilbertsville. Seasquatch is nothing if not garrulous, even through the muffle of the full head mask.

A bit unmoored, he’s not attached to a team, or regulated by a game.

All of it is volunteer.

The Wildwood(s) tourism officials have latched onto his shtick as a way to promote a family friendly image of their beloved collection of beach towns, known, at least lately, for the not-quite-massive Donald Trump beach rally, a declaration of a state of emergency due to civil unrest on the boardwalk over Memorial Day Weekend, and some of the most profane T-shirts sold anywhere in the country, none of which can be quoted here.

The unnamed businessman is happy to give back.

Like the Seasquatch, he started life in Pennsylvania and then made his home in Wildwood, where business, especially the past few years, has been booming. “The Wildwoods owe me nothing,” he says. “I owe them everything.”