Purdue Pete Gets a 2023 Makeover - But Does It Spark Joy?

No, I’ll just stop you there. This isn’t Muppet Pete making an inglorious return. Yet. That we know of. For now. *Gulp* No, it’s none of that. This is a slight design update to the cartoon logo of Purdue Pete used on t-shirts, mugs, and any number of other memorabilia sold at Purdue. Brace yourselves. New Pete incoming.

Honestly, I don’t think it’s as bad as most people seem to be saying on the internet. Stop me if you’ve heard that one, internet people exaggerating their feelings about a subject. Purdue Pete is always evolving from a logo perspective. You can see just a few if his iterations here. There are legal reasons to constantly change up a logo, that way the current one doesn’t fall into the public domain just look at Steamboat Willie soon falling into public domain, but this doesn’t feel like that. This feels like the continued goal of someone at Purdue to make Purdue Pete appear more kid friendly.

I’m sure he is a bit scary for some kids, but overall I think Purdue Pete is a well loved mascot that doesn’t need large scale changes. You can take a look at the apparel linked at the Purdue team store and see if any of it tickles your fancy, but it doesn’t do much for me. It’s a good thing I’ve got roughly 75 Purdue shirts to rotate in and out of my rotation including shirts from as far back as my freshman year of college (2004) that still fit me.

So to sum up, I don’t hate it, but I also don’t love it. I think it’s an okay update that might cause an uproar just like the redo of the Boilermaker Special logo did a few years back but in time people will get over it and it will be fine. What do you think?