Mr. Bingle Helps Save Christmas in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — The cold world of commerce had done in Mr. Bingle.

The beloved holiday mascot -- a portly papier-mache snowman with holly leaves for wings and an ice cream cone hat -- had long graced the entrance to the New Orleans department store.

But times changed, and Mr. Bingle was deemed irrelevant, banished to the dark corner of a warehouse. Then, lifted by a spirit of togetherness and a rediscovered love of their city, residents banded together to return him to a place of grandeur and distinction.

That was fiction -- the plot of a 2004 book, "Saving Mr. Bingle," written by Texas author and New Orleans native Sean P. Doles. Now, just as things couldn't get much weirder here in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the story more or less has come true.

Today, Mr. Bingle is the centerpiece of New Orleans' holiday light festival. His triumphant return, to many in this depleted city, has helped save Christmas.

Each year for the holidays, starting in 1948, a two-story Mr. Bingle was placed over the entrance to the Maison Blanche department store on Canal Street, a bustling thoroughfare that forms the western boundary of the French Quarter.

Animated Mr. Bingle danced amid elaborate window displays. Inside, performers dressed as Mr. Bingle entranced children. There were Mr. Bingle puppet shows and, for a time, short Mr. Bingle television episodes that aired before the evening news.

The Mr. Bingle jingle -- in which "Bingle" rhymes with "Kris Kringle" -- was as ubiquitous in New Orleans during the holiday season as the song "Carnival Time" is during Mardi Gras. Some even claimed the figure had restorative powers; Edwin H. "Oscar" Isentrout, the puppeteer who performed the voice of Mr. Bingle, said a boy living at a home for disabled children had unclenched his fist for the first time after touching Mr. Bingle's pillowy hand.

"He was never really just a commercial character," said Rob DeViney, chief operating officer of City Park, New Orleans' version of Central Park and the host of the lights festival, Celebration in the Oaks. "He became such an icon in New Orleans that people here felt like he was \o7theirs\f7, like they owned him."

Eventually, though, department stores fell out of favor. Maison Blanche closed in 1998, and the landmark building became a Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

Dillard's Inc., the department store chain, bought New Orleans' Maison Blanche stores, trademarked Mr. Bingle and tried gamely to carry on the tradition.