By now, you’ve surely heard of the raccoon that fell through the roof of a Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control store in Ashland, smashed up 14 bottles of liquor and then passed out drunk in the restroom.
The little beastie has since sobered up and been released back in the wild, but his story has gone worldwide and has inspired at least three marketing campaigns: The Hanover County Animal Protection & Shelter is now selling “Trashed Panda” T-shirts as a fundraiser. The Virginia ABC has launched a promotional campaign using a raccoon to tout some of its wares. Those ads, by the way, carry the slogan “sip responsibly,” something the Ashland procyonid certainly didn’t. And the Nelson County-based Virginia Distillery, upon hearing that the critter sampled one its products, put out a statement declaring that the racoon “went straight for our award wiing American Single Malt. While we’re proud of our whiskey, we did not expect it to be quite so appealing to local wildlife. We’d also like to apologize to the raccoon’s family. As a family-owned company, we know what it’s like when a realitive gets a little . . . overly confident in the whisky aisle . . . If we’re guilty of anything, it’s this: our whisky is too damn good — that’s on us.” Oh, the distillery is also selling its own T-shirts that show an upright raccoon holding one of its bottles: “Raccoon Approved.”
While most people across Virginia were chortling about this, I was using my extensive network of connections across the state to secure an interview with the critter at the center of all this attention. He was initially reluctant to talk, but when I showed him Cardinal’s extensive coverage of other animals — bears, giraffes and vultures — he consented.
Here’s a transcript:
So, what can you tell us about your famous night out?
Man, I don’t want to talk about that. It’s embarrassing. One bad night and look what happens! They put your face all over the world.
Well, technically, it was your backside in the picture, but I get your point.
Even worse! I need a good lawyer. Think maybe I can get Bill Stanley to represent me?*
[Stanley, a Republican state senator from Franklin County, is well-known for introducing animal bills in the General Assembly. I asked him about the raccoon and he sent this honest, for-real statement: “So my experience as a lawyer, I have had many clients who have broken bottles, gotten drunk, passed out in restrooms and woken up in jail. This raccoon is no different.” Sounds as if he has a new client.]
Why do you need lawyer? You weren’t charged with anything. If they’d found a person in the store like that, they’d have hauled him off to jail. They just let you back out in the woods.
They’re exploiting me! They’re using my face and my story, and I’m not getting anything out of it. As of Thursday evening, Hanover County had already sold more than 7,400 shirts. That’s $78,000 worth of merch. Don’t you think I should be getting a cut out of this? If I were a college football player, I could be cashing in on a name, image and likeness deal.
If you were a college football player found passed out in a liquor store, you’d probably be off the team.
I’ve got good hands. They’d keep me around. But you’re missing my point, man. This is just the latest in a long list of ways people have been taking advantage of us raccoons. I’m not going to take it anymore. Not unless there’s some good liquor involved, at least. That peanut butter whiskey was pretty good.
So, how have people been taking advantage of raccoons?
And you claim to be a historian! The indigenous people of North America loved us! Some thought we were gods! Of course, others thought we were dinner. Sometimes it’s a fine line, man, a fine line.
Do I dare ask?
Chicken. Everything tastes like chicken.
Sorry. Just had to ask. It’s my job to ask difficult questions.
Question’s not hard. The answer’s harder. More like tough. Sinewy. Or so I’m told.
Right, so, back to how raccoons have been exploited —
We’re historic, man. We just don’t get our due. “Trash pandas,” they call us! That’s an insult. It’s not even true. Well, not the panda part, anyway. I do enjoy a good trash bin, though.
But we’re always getting elbowed out of the history books by more famous species. When the French showed up in North America and started trading with the native tribes for furs, what kind of furs do you think they were buying?
Umm, beaver pelts?
Well, yeah, sure, but we raccoons were a close second. Don’t believe me? Check out The Smithsonian magazine. It says so. The Huron tribe called fur traders “people of the long-tailed ones.” They weren’t talking about beavers, buddy. Somehow, the name Lake Erie comes from what we were called, but I don’t see it, personally. All I know is they wanted us so they could chop off our tails. You ever had your tail chopped off? Probably not, right?
That whole French and Indian War thing? What was that all about? The French wanted that whole area around the Great Lakes for fur-trading — and tail-chopping. May as well call it the Beaver Pelt and Raccoon Tail War, as far as I’m concerned.
I see, well, that was a long time ago …
Look, fellow, if somebody had hunted your ancestors and chopped off their tails, you’d still be talking about that at family get-togethers. Not that you Americans were any better. Did you know that Benjamin Franklin put one of my ancestors on his head instead of a wig during a trip to France in 1776? Of course, he wasn’t quite alive at that time — my ancestor, not Franklin. One New Jersey regiment had so many soldiers wearing coonskin caps that they were called the Raccoons. Put that in your Cardinal 250 series! “The role of raccoons in the revolution.” There’s your headline.
I’ll keep that in mind. So, any other examples of what you’d consider raccoon exploitation?
We thought the industrial age would be better — not so many people looking to hunt us and skin us. Man, we were wrong. The Roaring Twenties were the worst! You know what became a fad?
Flappers? Jazz? Bathtub gin? Oh, sorry to bring up gin —
Raccoon coats! It took 30 of us just so some frat boy could be the Big Man on Campus! We were kind of famous, though. We made the cover of the Saturday Night Post. There was a hit song about us — “Doin’ the Raccoon.” Might have been fun if we weren’t so dead.
At least we don’t do that anymore. Fur isn’t as fashionable as it used to be.
You know who I really hate?
W.C. Fields? He wore a raccoon coat.
Fess Parker!
The “Davy Crockett” actor?
Three episodes of that show were all it took for coonskin caps to take off again. At one time, they were selling 5,000 caps a day! That’s a lot of tail-less raccoons. You know who else I hate?
The Beatles? For “Rocky Raccoon”?
Nah. That Rocky wasn’t really a raccoon, anyway. He was a gunslinger in the Dakotas. But Estes Kefauver! He was almost as bad as Fess Parker.
The Tennessee senator in the ’40s and ’50s?
He wore a coonskin cap! Used it to make some kind of political statement. Ran for vice president in 1956, but I didn’t vote for him. Of course, my life span in the wild isn’t that long anyway. Just a couple of years at best. No wonder I was driven to drink. It’s all so depressing.
Have raccoons ever had any good experiences with people?
Well, let’s see, there were the Whigs. You know how Democrats have the donkey and Republicans have the elephant? The Whig Party used raccoons. Symbol of the frontier and all that. I miss the Whig Party. Better a Whig than a wig, I say.
And then there was Calvin Coolidge. Someone sent him a raccoon for Thanksgiving dinner, but he turned her into a pet instead. Rebecca. If raccoons had the right to vote today, we’d all vote for Coolidge. Not that it would do him much good now, I suppose.
Nowadays, we don’t even get a good cliche. “Drunk as a skunk.” Give me a break. A skunk would have stunk up that joint. I just passed out.
I see where Virginia ABC has put out three cocktail recipes it says are “Straight From the Raccoon Recipe Vault.”
Recipes? What a rip-off. I just drank it straight from the bottle. Fourteen bottles, in fact. Or so I’m told. My memory is a little hazy. At least I slept it off. I’m lucky, I guess. Alcohol kills a lot of animals, so don’t try knocking back some shots with your dog or cat.
You know, Virginia’s about to legalize retail sales of cannabis. A year from now, you might be able to ransack a weed store.
Edibles, man, edibles.
You think I’m joking but in 2018, an Indianapolis woman called police to say her pet raccoon had gotten into “too much weed.” The creature was described as “very lethargic.”
I know the feeling, man, I know the feeling.
So do you have any plans now that you’re famous?
Well, I can’t talk about the Hollywood deal.
What Hollywood deal?
I told you I can’t talk about that.
You’re the one who brought it up.
OK, fine, so you know “Casablanca,” right? The scene where the Humphrey Bogart character sees Ingrid Bergman’s character walk in and he says: “Of all the gin joints in the world . . . she walks into mine.”
Yeah? Oh, wait, you’re not —
“Ashland.” I can picture it now. “Of all the liquor stores in the world, he fell through the ceiling of mine.”
I think you’ve had a little too much.
Yeah, but it was good stuff, man. Good stuff. Especially that peanut butter whiskey.
Normally, I interview politicians, some of whom would love to get the kind of publicity this raccoon is getting. Well, maybe not exactly the same kind of publicity, but at least the same level of attention. If you want more political news, sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter. Sadly, no raccoon news this week.