Sixers

OH NOS! It Would Appear That Sixers Mascot Franklin Is a Sixers-Hating, Philly-Bashing Knicks Fan!

By Kyle Scott

Published: Feb 21st, 2015 · 12:41 PM EST

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Ruh roh.

Last night, after making his game debut for the recently disemboweled Sixers, mascot Franklin – or, more precisely, the guy inside mascot Franklin in a legal way – posted a video (since deleted) on his personal Instagram account which accidentally got tweeted to Franklin’s Twitter account:

Nice.

The link led to the Instagram page of Darnell Enrique, a high-flying entertainer and Franklin’s special friend, who, apparently, had some evening plans on Friday.

But it’s all good. Our dog’s just taking in a little nightlife in this City of Littery Love. Every pup needs some play time. He probably just smelled a few butts, marked his spot in the club. He’s still SUCH A GOOD BOY, right?

Franklin… what did you do?

What’s that boy? You got some sweet kicks?

No? Not that? What is it, Franklin?

Wait……. what?! YOU’RE A FAN OF THE KNICKS?!

FRANKLIN! That’s a bad boy! THAT’S A VERY BAD BOY!

Thanks to sleuthing by (@brianbrown25), who screenshotted some of Darnell’s past Tweets, we now know that the man inside the lovable blue dog who spreads joy and cheer to all the children in Sixers land, fucking hates the Sixers and pretty much everything else that has to do with Philly sports:

Ruff. I’ll shoot myself if the Eagles go to the Super Bowl. I can just see it now: Chip Kelly leads the Birds to their first appearance in the big game in more than a decade, and there’s cuddly blue dog, Franklin, supposedly present for all of Philly’s finest moments(!), putting himself down with Smith & Wesson .45 on national TV.

And that would be just the most recent disappointment.

It turns out that while sitting courtside during the 2001 Finals – photographic evidence of which was uncovered by the Sixers marketing department – Franklin wasn’t cheering on the team, he was trying to bite AI’s ankles!

And that blue paw print on the Declaration of Independence…

… it’s actually one of four on the document, because Franklin wasn’t trying to sign it, he was taking a big ol’ dump on everything we hold near and dear! BAD BOY!

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Poor Franklin. Or Darnell. Whatever. I imagine that, for some children, finding out the Sixers’ mascot totally hates the team and city will… be a bit of a buzzkill. But, while funny, we should probably give the guy a pass here. Just a couple of weeks ago Darnell posted a video of himself practicing his high-flying dunks with the hashtags #SixersLife #ilovemyjob. Those Tweets you see here from Sixer-hating Darnell are from 2-5 years ago. They look bad now, and the vitriol towards the Sixers, Eagles and Philly fans is, well, disappointing. But, it really doesn’t matter if the guy grew up a Knicks fan. Mike Trout, as a member of the Angels organization, openly talked about his excitement the night the Phillies signed Cliff Lee, yet I doubt any of his Angels teammates worry about his allegiances. Comparatively, until Franklin – er, Darnell – doesn’t leave it all on the floor in his current role entertaining Sixers fans, he should get the benefit of the doubt. This is a bad social media blunder, certainly, but let’s just laugh at it and move on. The guy shouldn’t lose his job over it. I don’t think so, anyway.

That said, Darnell might just want to be a little more careful about what he posts on Instagram. You’re always one wrong tap away from a big mistake. Check your logins, kids.