Admiral Ackbar Ole Miss commerical from yesterday

I'd take back...some...of the things I've said about Mississippi if they'd actually gone through with this.

I highly doubt Lucas would let them.

If I recall correctly, the commercial jokingly mentions Lucas sending a cease and desist letter.

Lucas wouldn't have let them.

Unless they could have thrown enough money at him. Then they could have done whatever the hell they wanted to.

Ackbar should really be a Detroit Red Wings mascot, anyway.

Don't play Jacksonville State, it's a trap!

ETA: I'd like to take credit for being the 1 millionth person to make this joke since the commercial aired yesterday.

That is completely awesome.

Admiral Ackbar is neither "squid-like" nor a "catfish". He's clearly crustacean.

If those rednecks can't even figure that out, they don't deserve him.

A Mon Calamari is definitely squid-like.

I'm honestly kind of glad they didn't go with this. I've got Ole Miss happily tucked into my "Future Racist Local Politician Spawning Ground" closet, and I don't like rummaging around in there. Squid or no.

To the polite woman saying Ackbar wouldn't do Oxford justice: I've been to your city. There are people still fighting to use the plantation owner mascot they got rid of in 2003. There's an 'unofficial' version that roams around the tailgating parties during home games, and I've seen him do a jig to cries of, "The South will rise again.'

If you're not going to adopt an anthropomorphic noose thrown over a tree branch as your icon, nothing is going to do your city justice.

Also the MS coast has dibs on all Mon Calamari, seeing as it not only features water, but John C. Stennis center. It's a coconut away from a resort targeting space-faring marine life.

I would love to have one of those T-shirts.

Hey, it's also been home to some of America's greatest writers (also John Grishmam), so give it some credit.

Quarrens are squid-like. Mon Calamari are like fish with crab exoskeletons.

Faulkner gets some love (though I respect him more than enjoy him), but in a state plagued some of the most embarrassing testaments to just how small and cruel humans can be, the image of an old white governor capering about to physically and personally prevent desegregation while he's cheered on by adoring crowds is still a shame of note.

But to keep this marginally on topic, put Ackbar in a cowboy hat and have him sing Dixie Land to the Star Wars theme music.

Sure, but its not just Faulkner. You got Barry Hannah, Richard Ford, Harry Crews and Larry Brown. Plus their annual book fair is supposed to be sweet, and they apparently have one of the coolest bookstores in the country.

I'd like to visit, is all I'm saying.

If only Lucas weren't such a dick about the whole copyright thing he's have said they could use Ackbar.

It's not really fair to judge Ole Miss based off of the actions that occured almost 50 years ago; the south may still have its issues, but there has been a wee bit of personnel turnover since then.

Bullshit. I went to Mississippi State. My wife is from Starkville. My brother-in-law lives in Batesville which is just down the road from Oxford. Mississippi is still filled with racist assholes. I have had friends stopped at fucking Klan checks and had to lie about being Catholic.

And Ole Miss' undergrad are some of the most racist, conservative, rich white southern kids. I had a professor there tell me how nice and liberal Oxford and Ole Miss is. When I asked if he taught any undergrads, he said no. Oxford has a beautiful square and a great bookstore and a brilliant literary tradition, but the undergrads (and a lot of the fucking alumni) are still racist assholes.

And Starkville, MS isn't much better and I love my school and that town.

Whoa... WHAT?! Please elaborate.

Friends were driving around, and got lost. Came on a group of guys in trucks, with bright lights, with guns. They thought at first they were deputies on a manhunt. When they asked what was going on a guy said it was a Klan check and went through everything they were looking for which included Catholics. Friends lied and said they were Southern Baptist. So they got passed on through.

Welcome to Mississippi. Racist assholes are still out there.

That makes sense, it seemed earlier like you were just maligning the place based on a brief reaction to it. But yeah, that sounds pretty shitty.

I live in Mississippi for 9 years between school and work and like I said my wife is from there and her immediate family is still there.

Funny thing, the St Francis of Assisi statue at Ole Miss is actually based on the priest who used to be at Mississippi State. If you look at the face, it is clearly him. The sculptor did the statues in the church in Starkville after it had burned down and used Fr. Mike as his model when he got the Ole Miss commission (funniest thing is he is Southern Baptist and not Catholic at all). So Fr. Mike always jokes that there is always a Bulldog on Ole Miss' campus.

I would love to see the few geeks at Ole Miss to get the 85% Greek undergrad class to vote for Ackbar. Talk about the geeks winning.

Edited to add: Ole Miss is playing Tulane tonight here in NOLA and it is all my Mississippi State self can do not to run over the drunken, rich, pretentious idiots.

I'd never heard of any such thing as "Klan checks" or "Klan roadblocks, so I googled it. The only thing I can find are Klan road checks where they ask for donations and hand out literature. They're not visibly armed and don't harrass people.

Not that I'm defending the goddamn fucking KKK, just saying that your story has a hint of urban myth about it. Not trying to start an argument or anything.

Yeah, if I was coming across in a similar fashion I apologize. I spent the the first couple decades of my life in the state, and Oxford is Mecca for the most backwards, entitled, relatively rich, and inevitably future elected officials of Mississippi. It's undergrad class has got all the issues of a place like Harvard as far as pedigree (of a sort) and social in-breeding, but coupled with a history of some of the nastiest racism the country has seen.

You've got me on Ford. I'd forgotten about him. There are some wonderful things that have come out of Mississippi. Some great writers, awesome music, and even some pretty fantastic artists. I love those things, and I wish that's what represented my home state, but if there's a pus-filled wound of backward thoughts and hates that's waiting to burst and pour out of this region, it's there. They have no interest in letting the worst parts of their past die.

Not to turn this into a KKK of Mississippi thread, but there was and probably still is an actual Klan shopette between my home in Laurel and the coastal cities. It was mostly just a redneck memorabilia/gas stop, but in the event that the store was filled exclusively with white people then you were invited to see 'the real good stuff.' Which consisted of your basic small, waveable Klan flags, white hoods, klan pens, pencils, and business cards, t-shirts and hoodies, etc. Really disgusting.

On a lighter note, a friend of mine took one of the cards to prove he wasn't making it up when he would talk about it. It stayed in his wallet until a few years later when he got in a tussle with some drunks in Florida. The police handcuffed and searched everybody, until they found this card, at which point they decided he was probably the instigator and let everybody else off with a warning. He spent a rough and awkward day and night in jail.

If Ole Miss actually got Admiral Ackbar as a mascot, would they switch from trying to emulate Harvard and Yale and maybe go for a more MIT and Cal Tech vibe (and I have heard some fun stories out of Cal Tech from a friend's brother who went there)?