October 14, 2026
Provided image/Morgan Betz
'Big Phan' focuses on David Raymond, left, and Tom Burgoyne, right, the two performers of the Phillie Phanatic since his 1978 debut.
A kid's first encounter with the Phanatic is a confusing rite of passage for every Phillies fan. What are they supposed to make of this gargantuan green being, who has no analog in nature but plenty of fuzz and a friendly demeanor? Can they trust a (sorta) monster that can't talk, defies authority and carries a weapon (hot dog cannon) around a baseball stadium?
Hoag Kepner watched this internal conflict play out in real time countless times while trailing the Phillies' famous mascot for "Big Phan," a documentary premiering Saturday at the Philadelphia Film Festival. The Flourtown native understood; he remembered being stunned himself when his family began taking him to ballgames.
"There's a period of a little bit of trepidation, which we saw all during filming," he said. "When kids see him for the first time, they're like, 'I love this, but I'm also a little bit leery.' I just remember really wanting to, and you still see this, generation after generation, you still see the kids just want to touch the fur. I remember just desperately wanting to touch the fur."
Kepner attempts to demystify this furry enigma through "Big Phan," a 95-minute love letter to the Phillies' No. 1 booster. Famous fans like Jason and Kylie Kelce, Rob Mac and Lil Dicky untangle the Phanatic's mystique in the film, but it's primarily focused on the two men who've embodied him for the past 48 years: David Raymond and Tom Burgoyne.
Raymond was the first to lace up the Phanatic's giant shoes. The University of Delaware alum (and son of the college's longtime football coach Tubby Raymond) was working in the Phillies' mailroom when the team asked him to help introduce their new mascot. The Phanatic was a bid to draw bigger crowds, reluctantly approved by the late Phillies executive Bill Giles, who believed mascots had no place outside high school or college sports. Miss Piggy creator Bonnie Erickson designed their new hype man with Muppet-esque flair, but when it came time to debut him, no one seemed to know what to do.
Raymond figured it out, borrowing frenetic mannerisms from cartoon characters like Daffy Duck. In 1993, he passed the torch onto Burgoyne, who had dreamed of becoming the Phanatic since his days as the Hawk at St. Joseph's Preparatory School. Burgoyne has performed for the Phillies ever since.
"Dave was pretty intense and fast and explosive and extremely physical," Kepner said. "And I included a lot of that stuff in the first half of the film. Tom is a little more subtle, a little more like a clumsy dog than a rabid dog."
The film explores what made each man so uniquely suited to the role by delving deep into their personal stories and having them relive some of the Phanatic's wildest moments. Raymond recounts the time Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda beat the mascot on the Veterans Stadium field in 1988, apparently snapping after years of taunting. Burgoyne recalls how he inadvertently set off a bomb scare by launching hot dogs — "suspicious packages" — out of the ballpark before batting practice. The bomb squad detonated the franks, just to be safe.
When the camera isn't on Raymond or Burgoyne, it's on a wide-ranging cast of Phillies talent from Bryce Harper to Ryan Howard. "Simpsons" executive producer and Philly native Christine Nangle discusses how the Phanatic's humor inspired her. Gritty, filmed in the shadows in "a witness protection kind of way," demonstrates "the next evolution" of the Phanatic's chaotic legacy, as Kepner puts it.
Erickson is noticeably absent, a choice the director chalks up to her 2019 legal battle with the team over the Phanatic's copyright. ("There wasn't room for another weighty piece that would sort of change the tone," he said.) But Kepner got seemingly everyone else, including Giles before his Sept. 25 death. Altogether, they present a portrait of a beloved Philly prankster and the two men behind every shimmy, skit and surprise beatdown. Because in this city, even the mascots need to know how to fight.
"Big Phan" will play at the Philadelphia Film Society Center on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 12:15 p.m., and at Philadelphia Film Society East on Sunday, Oct. 25 ,at 12:30 p.m.
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