Jersey Shore BlueClaws

200

The Jersey Shore BlueClaws play in Lakewood, New Jersey. Lakewood has one of the highest percentages of Jewish residents in the United States, with sixty-odd percent of its residents being Jewish. This being the case, it makes perfect sense that the town named a sports team after shellfish, something kosher rules prohibit eating. Yes, it's true that naming a team after something edible is not necessarily an endorsement of actually eating that something. But it still strikes me as odd. According to the Bible, the reason you're not supposed to eat shellfish is because they are "detestable to you". Doesn't it seem odd to name a sport team after something that is "detestable"?

Okay, yeah, pirates are detestable and there are lots of teams name after pirates. But I'm not sure that proves any— okay, fine, there are also teams named after snakes, which lots of people hate. But aside from— oh, right, spiders. There also a handful of teams named after spiders. And now that I'm thinking about it there are also teams named after...you know what? I retract my point.

You know what else is detestable, by the way? This logo. Seriously, just look at it. It's a blue crab wearing a baseball cap and either shorts or swimming trunks while surfing. There are glasses (they're probably supposed to be sunglasses but the lenses aren't actually shaded) above the brim on the ball cap, and there's a beach ball in the background. Oh, and in case you're wondering how a crab is managing to wear shorts, it has three legs coming out of each pant leg. That, plus the two large legs basically coming out of its body like arms, give it a total of eight legs.

Crabs, for the record, have ten legs.

Anyway, the whole thing would just be an overkill of insipid beach imagery were it not for the fact that in the process of anthropomorphizing the crab, they decided to give it teeth and put said teeth in the middle of what it basically the crab equivalent of a torso, which gives the logo an aspect of grotesque horror that I have to say clashes somewhat with summer fun implied by the beach imagery. The horror element is enhanced somewhat by remembering what I said in the last paragraph about blue crabs having ten legs. Whoever surgically attached teeth to this thing's torso also ripped two of its legs off. This is some bizarre Frankencrab's monster out for a day at the beach.

I didn't realize it at first, but they really leaned into that whole "detestable to you" business, didn't they?

Final Score: 200 points.
Penalties: Region, 8 pts; Software, 27 pts; Compound, 34 pts; Equipment, 13 pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Colorful, 31 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts; Logo, 12 pts.
Bonuses: None.