The 5 Creepiest Spokesmen Ever: What Were These Companies Thinking?

Noid

In the third place of our list of top 5 creepiest spokesmen ever: what were these companies thinking we have a grotesque, paranoid mascot that surprisingly worked until a crazy yet tragic crime put a stop to it. Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (NYSE:DPZ) developed the Noid, basically a villainous, pot-bellied curmudgeon wearing a skintight rabbit costume, in 1986 as a character that is always on a mission to delay pizza orders. The strange sales pitch, apparently, is that only Domino’s is Noid-proof, assuring 30-minute delivery for the pizza. Stranger still, the public was receptive to the Noid, which subsequently had two video games and a line of merchandise. The 80s, everybody.

But here’s the strangest part of the story: the Noid campaign stopped because of a hostage situation involving a real-life namesake. Three years after the mascot’s launch, Kenneth Lamar Noid, a paranoid schizophrenic who accused Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (NYSE:DPZ) of creating the character to spite him, took two restaurant employees hostage. Noid the character abruptly stopped appearing, while Noid the person committed suicide years later.