Planters Peanuts Mascot Revealed to be Dehyrdated Wizard, Consumers Appauled.

For decades, we have watched Planters Peanuts parade their dancing, monocled mascot on televisions and billboards across the globe.  Twirling his cane, tipping his hat and gyrating his pelvis in a most unsettling manner.  Well, you better sit down for this one.  Cuz that ain't no peanut.  That's a god damn 5,000-year old wizard.

Your dreams will never be safe again.

We regret being the ones to have to inform you of this troubling news, but that's just we do.  Bringing the straight poop right to your doorstep, dousing it in kerosene, igniting it and vanishing like rat farts in the night.  Word of the scandal broke during a photo shoot with the mascot, or Casi DeFontaine Salazaar, as he shall henceforth be known.  After an intern caught him sacrificing an infant lamb in his dressing room, Casi decided to come clean.  He released this statement to the press:

 "I regret to inform you all that I am not actually, in fact, a peanut.  No, not at all.  I am what most historians and rappers would call, "a wizard".  I know, fucking crazy right?  That's just the god's honest truth.  Oh yeah, I conjure potions, cast spells, the whole shebang.  That doesn't mean I don't believe in what I do.  I think Planters is a damn fine company with a lot of quality products.  But hey, what do I know?  I've only been around since the crucifixion."

According to magicologist and role-playing guru Joe Wimpe, Salazaar is no ordinary Renaissance Fair wizard, but rather an ancient evil force capable of mass devastation.  "Yeah, we're definitely going to want to do something about this.  And soon," said Wimpe while standing in a park speaking to no one in particular.  "Back in the Dark Ages, Casi was sealed inside of that shell to prevent him from achieving his final form...The Gouger.  That's the last thing this country needs.  The barrier between his realm and ours is becoming brittle, cracked and unsalted.  Before you know it, we're going to up to our asses in almonds.  And by "almonds", I mean demonic ticks that will tear at our flesh until we're nothing but screaming, dickless skeletons."

Planters has not responded to skepticism on whether or not Casi will remain as the spokesthing for their nuts.  "I mean, what would you do?" asked a stunned Truf McGuff, CEO.  "You invest all this money into merchandise and advertising, then you find out this already pretty freaky giant peanut is something even freakier.  It's just mind-boggling.  Totally unprecedented, so I mean...fuck."

A team of mercenaries was sent to an island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean to search for a replacement mascot, but have not been heard from since.  An expert in the field of soup and nuts reportedly reported that, "They dead."

There are no clear plans as to just what exactly will happen to Casi, but last we heard the good folks at Planters were becoming increasingly receptive to taking the company in a new direction.  "Nothing this exciting has happened since Jerry Garcia's reanimated corpse started working part-time in our cafeteria," said an employee with glowing eyes and some sort of slime dripping from his mouth.  "What choice do we have besides following our overlord to the bowel's of Hell and sell the pants off of some dang peanuts?"

When we approached the nut-bound necromancer and inquired as to his physical appearance beneath the shell, he only made a faint weeping sound that resembled a small child's laughter.  It chilled us to our very souls.