Okay, this wank is small, old, and played out over a period of several years, but it's too beautiful (and cosmic!) not to share. It came to my attention when Josh Fruhlinger of The Comics Curmudgeon fame posted about it on Facebook.

So Woodsy Owl is a cousin of Smokey Bear. Woodsy is a mascot for the US Forest Service whose original slogan was "Give a hoot -- don't pollute!" (It has since been updated to the not quite so owl-relevant or metrically sound "Lend a hand -- care for the land!") The official story seems to be that Woodsy was created in 1970 by a marketing agent named Harold Bell, who developed the mascot with a couple Forest Service employees.

Cue outrage on Woodsy's Wikipedia Talk page from not one, but several people who are convinced that they personally created Woodsy when they were kids, as part of some kind of national contest. Others claim it was a spouse, a friend, or a relative.

( Her mother was a heiress,her father was a billionaire! )

There's also some bonus wank in there about South Park and some kind of government sanctioned Woodsy costume burning. Plus people have started trolling the talk page (I'm assuming they came from Josh's post on Facebook).

ETA OMG you guys, OMG! Someone has been tampering with the Wiki talk page. Giveahootdonpolute's entries have been bahleeted, as have the more recent trolly entries mentioned above. Also, there's more of this madness here, with yet more people claiming that they, or friends/relatives/acquaintances created Woodsy. This just gets weirder and weirder.

ETA 2 This article from the Forest History Society attempts to explain the bizarre "I created Woodsy" phenomenon (see the grey box on the last page).