Beloved emblem embodies the uniqueness of UC Irvine
It would hardly seem fitting to launch a magazine named The Anteater without giving a nod to the mascot that has stood by UC Irvine for six decades, through thick and thin, win or lose. It’s a time to look back and ponder – as perhaps new students do every year – where Peter the Anteater came from.
The history of UC Irvine’s mascot began on the other side of the United States in rural New York, where cartoonist Johnny Hart originated the caveman-centric “B.C.” comic strip in 1957. It became one of the most popular newspaper strips of its time and is thought to have inspired the wildly successful “Flintstones” TV series.
“B.C.” attracted a college-age audience with its flippant, absurdist sense of humor, kinetic drawing style – which influenced the work of California surfing magazine cartoonists – and use of ridiculous sound-
effect words.
One of the most popular characters in the strip was Peter the Anteater, based on a giant anteater, who had a signature sound effect – ZOT! – whenever his tongue snared an ant.
In the summer of 1965, while waiting for UC Irvine’s first classes to begin that fall, Newport Beach lifeguard and soon-to-be water polo team member Pat Glasgow decided that Peter the Anteater was his idea of an inspiring mascot.
Interviewed in 2016 for UCI News, Glasgow recalled: “I was at the beach thinking about how we were going to be UCI’s charter students and how we needed a mascot. I was part of the ’60s generation that questioned everything, so I wasn’t thinking about a traditional mascot, like Tommy Trojan or a bear. Don’t ask me how or why, but ‘anteater’ just came to me.”
Once the school year started, he convinced his teammates, including Bob Ernst, and other buddies to subscribe to the idea. Word spread, and – Zot! – when a vote was held that November, Peter the Anteater emerged triumphant, beating out an eagle, a unicorn and other suggestions.
Even the campus’s founding chancellor, Daniel G. Aldrich Jr., who initially opposed the idea of an anteater mascot, came around, Glasgow said: “After the election, Dr. Dan came to one of our water polo games, and he was shouting ‘Zot!’ the loudest.”
Before long, “Zot! Zot! Zot!” became the athletics chant. And as the years passed, “Zot!” became ubiquitous. The campus convenience store was named “Zot-n-Go” (a play on the Stop-n-Go markets of the time). When email came along, campus messages were called ZotMail.
“Everyone loves seeing the anteaters,” says Ethan Fisher ’05, director of the Santa Ana Zoo, which is home to the real-life Peter the Anteater. “Most of our guests have never seen one before and don’t know how big and exotic they look.”
Cartoonist Hart, who never attended college, was evidently pleased to have made his mark on higher learning. He sent the campus drawings of his anteater in UCI attire and, according to his daughter Patti Pomeroy, was thrilled that the university had asked to adopt his cartoon creation as its mascot. Hart himself never had occasion to visit UC Irvine before he died in 2007, but his grandson Mason Mastroianni, who continues to draw the “B.C.” strip, stopped by in 2011. He participated in several events, including a session in Aldrich Park teaching children how to draw his grandfather’s famous anteater.
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