THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 26, 1994 TAG: 9412260053
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 145 lines
For two years, he galumphed with the umpires and zipped his motorized cart around Harbor Park as that blue fur ball, Rip Tide.
R.I.P., Rip.
Last week, John Mallory, the guy behind Rip Tide's goofy antics, hung up his jersey. He will leap into the New Year as a creature he's dreamed of becoming for years: Geddy the Gecko, a.k.a. ``The Jesus Christ Lizard.''
Wait a minute. Quit a steady job as a sports mascot for nomadic work as a seven-foot-long lizard for the Lord?
``It makes no sense financially,'' said Mallory. ``But it makes sense to do what you have to do.''
For months, Mallory figured he could manage a split personality. As the blimp in blue, he'd rally crowds at ball games and sign autographs for the kids. In his cold-blooded incarnation, he'd perform shows combining ecology with evangelism.
But as Geddy the Gecko came to life in the puppet shop, Mallory envisioned a day when he would be faced with a scheduling crisis. He went into a closet in his Virginia Beach home, shut the door and prayed for guidance.
``I had to go in and resign as Rip Tide,'' he said. ``I couldn't take the chance of getting the lizard in a situation where he couldn't go somewhere because I had a baseball game.''
So the 27-year-old made a leap of faith. He resigned on Tuesday, shocking himself and the Tides' owners. ``It was the most draining thing I've done. I was losing a whole personality,'' he said.
To chase his dream, he and his wife, Mary, are tapping savings, and relying on odd jobs and rent from a boarder to make ends meet. They didn't even buy a Christmas tree this year.
But the couple believes that the lizard could lead to the Big Time. After all, the field is wide open. ``There are hardly any Christian mascots,'' Mallory said. ``He's basically going on a great adventure, to talk about the Gospel wherever he goes.''
Mallory and his wife think that Geddy might have global appeal. They've written 13 stories about the gecko's adventures and expect to find an interested publisher. They dare to think about a television show and an international tour.
Look out, Barney.
Mallory already has booked his 40-minute show in February at First Baptist Church of Norfolk, where he's a member. And he's booked for a Christian music festival in Pennsylvania this spring.
Mallory admires the San Diego Chicken and the Philly Phanatic. In particular, he likes the Philly Phanatic's knack for comical improvisation.
But ``Geddy the Gecko'' doesn't draw on much that is out there in the mascot world. This critter leaped from Mallory's imagination.
Mallory has been thinking about it for so long that he can't remember exactly where the idea began. On a trip to Hawaii, he stopped in a gift shop that sold only gecko stuff. Real geckos are considered a blessing in many countries, he said, because they eat all kinds of bugs and their suction-feet allow them to walk upside down.
Then he did some research. In a library book, he found his inspiration: the basilisk lizard, known as ``The Jesus Christ Lizard'' in its native Central America because of its rare ability to run across the water's surface.
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is described as miraculously walking across a lake to a boat, where his disciples sat in wonder. The lizard's water-treading skills arise from its slender, fringed toes, which allow it to skim across the water for 40 feet before it has to start swimming.
Mallory combined traits of the two lizards - and added cartoon features, like a roly-poly tummy - to create ``Geddy the Gecko.''
At the moment, pieces of Geddy are strewn all over Spectrum Puppet Productions Inc. in Virginia Beach. His front leg, with shiny green toes, is on a chair. His feet and tail are near the sewing machine. His head - a growing mass of foam and glue - is under construction.
Slitted glass eyes - ordered from a taxidermist in South Dakota - are getting pushed into place. ``This was a designing feat,'' said Regina Marscheider, the mascot's creator. ``With this particular character, the cause is so wonderful, I want to make sure it is perfect.''
Marscheider and her staff, who created Rip Tide and have won national awards for their puppets, say Geddy is the most difficult costume they've created. That's because Mallory is a fussbudget who frets every detail, Marscheider said, with a doting smile.
The costume is double-stitched and reinforced, to survive wild antics, she said. ``John is a maniac. He does things that no other mascot does.''
As soon as Mallory dons the costume, his moves change. He stops walking and starts a creeping dance, keeping his bulbous feet low to the ground. He rolls his stomach, and playfully bumps it against Marscheider. He swishes his long, speckled tail.
Even without the mask, he is the lizard. ``You're trying to act like the animal and act like a cartoon,'' Mallory said. ``After five minutes, you forget you are yourself.''
Mallory can't remember a time when he didn't love pretending to be someone else. He was a little boy who loved Big Bird on Sesame Street, and often put on his cowboy gear to play pretend.
By the time he was a teenager, it became a point of honor to one-up himself on intricate Halloween costumes. He was a bag of groceries, with cauliflower and broccoli decorating his ears. Then he tried a pile of leaves, covering himself so completely that it was hard to see his eyes.
``I always loved that feeling of people not knowing who's inside,'' he said.
In college, he found a new identity as The Spider, the University of Richmond's mascot. He started every game by creeping around a painted web on the floor of the basketball court, before jumping to his feet in a crazy gyration.
He was cheering on the team during the magical 1987-88 season, when the small school somehow propelled itself into the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. After Richmond beat number-one ranked Indiana, a picture of Mallory as the Spider doing a madcap victory jig made the New York Times. He's got all of the newspaper clippings and his prize-winning ribbons in a scrapbook.
After college, he repeatedly wrote to the Tidewater Tides, trying to interest the owners in making him the mascot. Nothing doing - until the team got a new park, and a new image, two years ago.
Mallory got a hairy blue costume with a baseball for a nose and the job of creating a personality for Rip Tide, in a city that wasn't used to cheering, much less loving, a mascot.
Rip Tide, Mallory said, wasn't a bright character. ``More dumb. Like going up to someone, doing the wrong thing and then having to run away.'' But Mallory made him goofily enthusiastic, ``always in your face, but in a fun way.'' Kids chased him around the stadium.
Mallory, whose license plate reads ``Rip Rip,'' finds it a struggle to give it all up. But he feels driven to devote himself completely to creating a character to spread his faith in Jesus Christ.
His favorite trait of the lizard is its ability to walk on water. He's even toyed with the idea of putting a board over a pool of water to let Geddy the Gecko demonstrate for the kids, though he may have to settle for just explaining it.
Still, for Mallory, it's the secret to his character's appeal, something that synthesizes Mallory's wonder at the natural world and his Christian spirituality.
``The key is, the lizard can only do it if he wants to do it. He has to have the faith that he can do it,'' Mallory said. ``If he didn't have faith, he'd just sit on a stone and do nothing. Since I'm a person, I think about it that way.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photos by Christopher Reddick
The blimp in blue has rallied baseball fans at Harbor Park since it
opened, but his creator is quitting to become a Gospel gecko.
The new character is a synthesis of the gecko lizard, a good luck
symbol, and the basilisk lizard, which scoots across water. It also
combines one man's love of nature and God. The costume head is still
under construction.
by CNB