He’s about 6 feet tall with unblinking blue eyes, orange eyebrows, thick-rimmed glasses and neon-green hair that covers his body, from his fleshy elf ears to his oversized feet.
Meet Frankie Focus, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s new mascot promoting New York’s new school smartphone ban. He’s part Phillie Phanatic and part “Where the Wild Things Are.” And he looks like the type of creature young students may have feared was under their bed as they grew up, long before they had cellphones of their own.
Hochul unveiled the toothy titan as she welcomed students to the first day of school at M.S. 582 in East Williamsburg on Thursday.
“ He doesn't say a lot. He's kind of quiet,” Hochul told middle schoolers. “But he is very focused on learning in school, focused on the teachers, focused on making friends.”
Hochul, a Democrat, has spent months touting the state’s new smartphone policy, which requires public schools to have a plan in place to keep students from having access to their internet-enabled mobile devices from opening bell to closing bell.
“We are no longer distracted,” Hochul said as Frankie and his oversized eyes peered on from a few feet away.
Frankie Focus will be making stops across the state in the coming days to promote the new rules, according to the governor’s office. Frankie accompanied Hochul through the Brooklyn school as she handed out locking Yondr pouches to students to store their phones.
Hochul’s office didn’t respond to questions about how much the state spent on the mascot costume, or which government employee was stuffed inside it.
But a spokesperson did provide a document summarizing the Frankie Focus initiative, noting that he’s part of a public-service campaign from the state Office of Mental Health called “Team Phone Free” — where a cartoon version of Frankie is depicted alongside three other monster-like characters.
“[Frankie] loves to get in the action and celebrate life IRL (outside the cell phone),” the document reads. “Sure, he may cause a bit of a ruckus at times, but his heart is in the right place!”
It’s not the first time New York state or city have experimented with mascots.
In 2010, the city parks department debuted Pearl the Squirrel, an oversized gray squirrel mascot with a bushy tail and cartoonish eyelashes. Last year, the state Board of Elections introduced Ballot the Beaver as its official mascot, though it appears to only exist in cartoon form — not in a fuzzy costume.
