Cleatus The Fox Sports Robot
"Cleatus the Robot" is the official mascot of Fox NFL Sunday, named by a viewer during a contest in the winter of 2007 in which fans were able to submit entries as to what they thought the robot's name should be. Cleatus made his first appearance during the 2005-2006 NFL season, but was not used regularly until the following season.
Cleatus mainly appears during the intro sequence of the show as well as brief commercials for movies and TV shows. In these commercials he commonly gets attacked by a CGI character from whatever the advertisement is about. He has thus far been attacked by Iron Man, a dragon from the movie Eragon, and a T-1000 robot from the TV show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and taunted with thrown objects by The Burger King. Cleatus is also known to hop on two feet, play the electric guitar, shake out his limbs, and dance using such moves as the swim and the electric slide; he Tebowed during the December 11, 2011 Fox broadcast of a Denver Broncos game. Games on the weekend following New Year's Day show Cleatus sitting on a bench holding an ice pack to his head, nursing a hangover. When the MLB postseason begins on Fox in October, he will also take baseballs from a basket and hit them with a bat towards the background of the screen. After the World Series is over, he will not do this again until the next year's postseason begins.
If a Thanksgiving NFL game is on Fox, he is usually replaced with a robot turkey.
The character has an action figure on sale from Fox's website. He is available as he appears normally and even in special uniforms customized for all 32 NFL franchises.
In response to Cleatus, NASCAR on Fox created Digger, an animated gopher mascot who was originally only used in the broadcast involving the "Digger Cam" but his role has since expanded. Unlike Cleatus, however, Digger had an animated short series aired during the 2009 NASCAR season; the series was not brought back for 2010, and Digger now has a role similar to that of Cleatus.
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