Gunnersaurus v Chirpy the Cockerel: A gigantic green lizard takes on a great big chicken for the right to start up front

3AddedMinutes

3 Added Minutes' Fantasy Five-A-Side takes an unusual turns as Jason and Matthew debate which Premier League mascots would be best at football. Would Fred the Red get the better of Moonchester? And would Gunnersaurus be any good up front?

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00:00 [WHISTLE BLOWS]

00:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 Right, finally leading the line.

00:11 I said before that Fred the Red might be the most iconic

00:14 Emily Nussbaum.

00:15 I think I might have misspoke, to be honest with you, Matt,

00:17 because I forgot about Gunnarsaurus Rex.

00:20 I mean, he's the man, isn't he?

00:22 There's nothing that this boy can't do.

00:24 Standing, as far as I'm aware, about 17 foot tall

00:28 with that long neck, I think he'd be just the perfect,

00:31 perfect target man for this side.

00:32 He's-- you know, he's just--

00:37 he's got it.

00:38 I don't know what it is, but Gunnarsaurus has it.

00:40 He's so intrinsic to the identity

00:44 of Arsenal in the 21st century.

00:45 He's so iconic.

00:47 He's so iconic that during COVID,

00:49 when they tried to get rid of him,

00:51 Mesut Ortal offered to pay his wages just to keep him around.

00:55 How many other mascots can say that?

00:57 Do you think that anybody's caring if Bertie B goes missing?

01:01 Do you know what I mean?

01:02 I don't foresee anybody in that Burnley side

01:04 putting their hand in the back pocket

01:06 just to keep him around Turf Mill.

01:08 Like, Gunnarsaurus is--

01:11 he's a legend.

01:11 I'm going to say he's a legend.

01:12 You know, he's maybe not in the best shape.

01:14 He's got a bit of a potbelly going on.

01:16 Don't think it matters.

01:16 I think you just whack him up top, play the ball up to him,

01:19 play off him, let him bring it down.

01:23 Yeah, it's got to be Gunnarsaurus,

01:24 because could you imagine Neyman,

01:26 a fiver-side team of Premier League mascots,

01:28 and he wasn't in there?

01:29 It would be an absolute, absolute travesty.

01:34 Well, I can imagine it,

01:35 because I'm going to try and make it happen.

01:37 I'm going to point out one major disadvantage

01:39 of Gunnarsaurus Rex is that,

01:40 assuming he is meant to be a T-Rex,

01:42 or at least a distant dinosaur cousin of the T-Rex,

01:45 they famously have really tiny little arms.

01:48 And, you know, you need to be able to hold opposing defenders off,

01:51 especially in fiver-side, where everyone's super physical.

01:53 You need to be able to walk people off.

01:55 You need your arms for balance.

01:56 I'm not sure Gunnarsaurus Rex

01:57 has many of the physical attributes required.

01:59 I think the Rex is euphemistic,

02:01 because if you look at everything about him,

02:04 he's more, he's surely closer to something like a doberdorfus.

02:07 Like the neck,

02:08 the fact that he hasn't eaten any of the kids

02:10 who were mascots on a weekly basis,

02:13 he doesn't seem to have any carnivorous tendencies.

02:15 Presumably he's well-fed before they bring the mascots out.

02:18 They just make sure he isn't hungry.

02:19 Feed him a couple of gardens and he gets sick.

02:20 I don't think that.

02:21 I've seen Jurassic Park.

02:22 They're insatiable.

02:23 You can't just give them a couple of goats

02:25 and then assume they're not going to eat a seven-year-old.

02:29 I think the Rex is purely there just to signify

02:32 that he's absolutely, he's a dinosaur.

02:35 And I think it's just shorthand for that.

02:38 - Well, in the absence of an advanced paleontologist

02:42 on the panel here,

02:43 I'm going to put up against Gunnarsaurus Rex.

02:46 I'm going to put Chirpy the Cock

02:47 from Tottenham Hotspur's mascot up for consideration.

02:50 Again, mostly just so he can completely,

02:51 pointlessly turn this into a Derby thing

02:53 and set fans against each other while they watch this.

02:56 But there's two primary reasons

02:57 I think Chirpy the Cocker will be pretty handy.

02:59 The first of all is he is a bird.

03:03 Now that might not sound like a big thing in itself,

03:06 but as we do know from evolutionary science,

03:08 dinosaurs evolved into birds.

03:10 He is an advanced form of Gunnarsaurus Rex.

03:13 You start with a Gunnarsaurus Rex

03:15 over millions of years of evolution.

03:17 As we come to perfect the form, we arrive at a bird.

03:20 In this case, Chirpy the Cockerel.

03:22 And the second thing I'm going to sort of flag up,

03:25 I've got to be honest,

03:27 I'm actually struggling to come up with good reasons

03:28 because when you look at the costume,

03:30 it is not very well built for football.

03:32 He does have a tail, good for balance and all that,

03:34 but it's this giant bushy thing

03:35 which sprays out in all sorts of different directions.

03:37 He doesn't have hands.

03:38 He has actual wings, unlike Mighty Red.

03:40 They haven't really considered

03:41 how good he'd be at football in these situations.

03:43 Can fly, presumably.

03:44 Again, speed, pretty important up top.

03:47 You need someone to go through the lines.

03:48 There we go.

03:49 That's my second argument.

03:50 I've come up with one while I'm talking.

03:51 He's going to be a lot quicker than Gunnarsaurus,

03:53 who, let's face it, he's pretty bulky.

03:54 He's not getting anywhere.

03:56 But yeah, we've got 65 million years of evolution

03:59 on my side here,

04:00 so I'm not really seeing any argument for Gunnarsaurus.

04:02 - Put it this way, Matt, right?

04:04 You put any dinosaur in a wrestling ring with a sparrow

04:09 and tell me that that evolution has made them more effective

04:14 in any sort of physical contest.

04:18 - I reckon the sparrow would just fly around

04:20 the T-Rex's head and not be able to get to-

04:22 - It's Gunnarsaurus.

04:23 It's got to be Gunnarsaurus.

04:24 It's always been Gunnarsaurus and always will be.

04:26 - Okay, do you know what?

04:31 Just for the sake of harmony on this panel,

04:33 because we do have more episodes of this program

04:35 to report before we fall out forever,

04:37 I'm going to let you have this one,

04:38 but this is the last time.

04:40 (whistle blows)

04:41 (upbeat music)

04:43 (upbeat music)

04:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]

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