Through the Eye Hole: A Special Golden Nuggets Presentation [Part 1]
Happy Birthday Oski!
Nearly two decades ago, Andy Samberg and Bill Hader approached Lorne Michaels on the set of Saturday Night Live with a bold vision for a new cat focused space western movie, fittingly dubbed “Laser Cats”. The basic premise of the series is that Andy and Bill painstakingly pour hours of writing, editing, and research into creating original content featuring the line “In the future, there was a nuclear war. And because of all the radiation, cats developed the ability to shoot lasers out of their mouths.”
Sometimes this exact scene plays out in the Write For California Discord (subscribe for access!) between RexVolcano, Dalmcm, and myself with Rob playing the part of Lorne Michaels.
Anyways, here’s
By Ben , RexVolcano, and Dalmcm
In the long dull months of the offseason, with little content to meme or jokes to make, Rex, Dallas and I grew listless. Bored. Fall Camp was weeks away. No one funny was talking college football. Everything was “here is how we have to position ourselves to get an invite to the BIG10 or the SEC in 2030 and if you follow my 18-step plan we’ll get there.” Just an absolute, utter content drought.
So what’s a poster supposed to do? I guess kind of sort invent a pseudo-real-joking branch of research/cult religious group lovingly referred to as Oskientology, as we seek to find Oski content across Al Gore’s beautiful internet.
We were growing tired of the standard black and white Oski varietals (because at this point, we’ve all seen and memed Bat Oski, Easter Rabbit Oski, Motorcycle Oski, etc.) We knew, deep in our Oski-centered hearts, there had to be more out there, waiting to be discovered.
Initial searches of “Ancient Oskis” or “Cursed Oskis” (common ways people refer to our good friend on search engines, thanks SEO!) revealed black and white versions of our beloved ursine friend, mostly posted accompanying Berkeley News articles to commemorate Oski’s Birtrhday on September 27, or the CalBearsHistory account on Twitter (great follow, by the way!)
But deep in our Oski sized hearts (don’t worry, not a medical condition), we knew there was more. There had to be more. How, was there only like 10 photos of this ursine demi-god that purportedly is approaching 84 years old?
Gold. Sweet, sweet Ursine Gold.
Through countless Google Searches, we stumble on a freely available fully digital copy of the Blue and Gold Yearbook, the annual yearbook at UC Berkeley chronicling the universities since 1874. The year, 1952. Just 11 years after Oski first walks the hallowed campus and grounds at California Memorial Stadium.
Not knowing what we’d found, we carelessly scrolled, stopping first at this dedication to none other than the eternal Sophomore himself, Oski.
It seems only fitting then, to release our first in a multi-part series, “Through the Eyehole” exploring the history of Oski across the UC Berkeley Campus and beyond. Join us as we search through yearbooks, Daily Cal Archives, local newspaper archives and more as week to find and meme with the greatest mascot to ever grace this planet, state, and university with his presence.
Happy Birthday Oski.
We hope you enjoyed our special presentation. Please stay tuned for “Through the Eyehole” Part 2, coming to you whenever we get around to doing it.
Oski appears to have a cigarette in a couple of these pictures, but they're grainy enough that I'm not sure.
As depicted in one of your pictures above, Oski used to climb up the goal post to stand on it before football games. Until one year (in the '60s?) when Oski fell off and broke his leg. Since the person inside the Oski suit is supposed to be anonymous, there was a student wearing a cast to class the following week who had to make up a story about how he broke his leg. And the tradition of standing on the goal post was discontinued.