Philadelphia Flyers Mascot Gritty Puts a Twist on the ‘Bird Box’ Challenge

As if there was any doubt, Netflix‘s wildly popular Bird Box is officially a cultural phenomenon: Gritty has done the Bird Box Challenge, with a twist.

On Monday, the Twitter account for the beloved Philadelphia Flyers mascot shared a short video of Gritty doing what appeared at first to be the Bird Box Challenge — in which a blindfolded individual attempts to complete a mission or task while blindfolded like the characters in the Netflix film. However, that challenge ended up being the “Cody Parky Challenge”, with Gritty attempting to kick a football into the crowd, a not-so-subtle dig at the Chicago Bears football player who notably missed a 43-yeard game-winning field goal attempt on Sunday night in the team’s NFC Wild Card game against the Eagles, resulting in the Bears losing. You can check out this cold, but creative, challenge above.

As you can see in the short video, while Gritty did manage to kick the ball successfully he did have a bit of a tumble walking away while blindfolded. While the mascot is likely unscathed — he’s Gritty, after all — the fall serves as an excellent example of why Netflix had to issue a warning last week asking fans to not hurt themselves doing the Bird Box Challenge.

“Can’t believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE,” the tweet read. “We don’t know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you do not end up in the hospital due to memes.”

If somehow you aren’t familiar, in Bird Box mysterious creatures invade (for lack of a better term) and anyone who sees them sees instead their worst fears come to life and, as a result, end up killing themselves in often horrific ways. One mother (played by Sandra Bullock) ends up trying to get herself and her two children to a supposed safe haven all while blindfolded against these creatures during the harrowing journey through the woods and down the river. The blindfolds make the already dangerous journey that much more so, hence the spawning of the Bird Box Challenge to do things blindfolded.

Of course, even with Netflix’s warning, Gritty isn’t the only one out there giving the challenge a try. WWE Superstars Sheamus and Cesaro also recently jumped on the trendy meme, using it to “raise the bar” of one of their entrances before a big match with The Usos.

Bird Box is now streaming on Netflix.

What do you think of Gritty’s take on the Bird Box Challenge? Let us know in the comments.