I live in Seattle, where we’ve always had our share of quirky local color.
If you’ve ever watched a Seahawks home game on Monday Night Football, you know the fish shooters at Pike Place Market. There once was a mysterious vending machine in the Capitol Hill neighborhood that dispensed drinks randomly, and no one knew who stocked it. Outside of late-night bars and concerts, hot dog stands sell Seattle dogs loaded with grilled onions and cream cheese (don’t knock it until you try it).
So, of course, Jimothy had to come from the Emerald City. Jimothy, the short-spined raccoon that went viral this month, is now a Google animation that the entire internet can enjoy. Starting Wednesday, if you Google “Jimothy,” a cute little animated version of raccoon races comes to your screen. A green paw icon also appears and you can click on it to see Jimothy lunge over and over again.
As of 3 p.m. PT, Jimothy has been summoned more than 1.5 million times to his little Google.
The raccoon hangs out in my neighborhood, the Scandinavian-accented Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. Kiana Hall, a local resident, told the Seattle Times that she thought it was a cat: “I’ve never seen another animal like that.” » She posted his video on Instagram and gave him that name because “he looked like a Jimothy.”
(Note: I cannot independently confirm Jimothy’s sex or gender.)
In addition to Google Animation, the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, which I didn’t know existed, is making a Jimothy figurine. You can pre-order it now for $30, with shipping in December, when Jimothy will almost surely be forgotten in favor of a new viral phenomenon. Do you remember Moo Deng?
The Seattle Mariners were joking about X, pretending that Jimothy was at their batting practice, but then the team got real and put a person in a raccoon costume in their usual salmon run. Jimothy won and the crowd went wild.
That’s not all: on July 26, my neighborhood celebrates little Jimothy with a proclamation in his honor and an art competition.
And Oatmeal cartoonist Matthew Inman, a Seattle-area resident, drew a “police sketch of Jimothy in case the cops need one.” (Why would they? Who would make fun of Jimothy, and for what?)
Jimothy appears to suffer from a rare condition called short spine syndrome, which explains his hunched, cartoon-like appearance. Essentially, it looks like it has no neck. A veterinary professor told the Seattle Times that it seems to work well and is “very lively.”
Another neighbor, Ben Trammell, discovered a video he found of baby Jimothy with what appears to be mom and dad Jimothy, and posted it on Instagram.
“We saw Jimothy…almost daily for months,” Trammell wrote. “He was so small and clumsy, but his mother and siblings were always so patient and caring, keeping him from falling and sometimes just carrying him.”
I know the part of my neighborhood that Jimothy hangs out in, but I refuse to go there and stalk the poor guy. It’s rare that we can focus on one good thing in this messy world, and I’d hate to hear that people are making fun of Jimothy.
Let the country’s new four-legged friend hang out leisurely, searching for Dick’s cheeseburger wrappers in the trash and enjoying Seattle’s perfect summer temperatures.
If I need my Jimothy fix, I can just run his Google animation again. Stay safe, little buddy.
Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, CNET editor-in-chief, journalist and pop culture junkie, is co-author of “Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the ’70s and ’80s,” as well as “The Totally Sweet ’90s.” She has been a journalist since 1989 and works for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and NBC News Digital. She is part of Generation X in terms of date of birth, words and deeds. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she’ll be first in line. See full bio