Our Child Safety Mascot Safetypup®
Safetypup® was first introduced to the world on February 12, 1985, at a news conference in Washington, D.C., by award-winning actress Rita Moreno who served as spokeswoman. The conference was carried on CNN News, Good Morning America, and many news stations and newspapers across the United States.
Safetypup® was created & developed, by NCSC's Research & Development Department, to be a special friend to all children. Safetypup® makes learning about safety issues fun, entertaining, and non-threatening. Safetypup® has become familiar to hundreds of thousands of children from all over the country who view Safetypup® as a trusted friend.
Since his introduction, Safetypup® has proven to be a successful learning tool used by law enforcement officers and teachers across the country.
- Safetypup® has appeared on a variety of milk cartons with educational safety tips. Accordingly, his picture has been distributed in the billions to school lunchrooms and homes across the country.
- Safetypup® has joined the ranks of many law enforcement agencies throughout the nation. Law officers have used their puppet versions of Safetypup® for presentations to children in hundreds of schools.
- Safetypup® appears in NCSC safety awareness and prevention education programs and materials for law enforcement officers and teachers. This adds continuity to the programs and identity to the organization.
Safetypup® is a registered trademark of NCSC.
The Safetypup® Mascot Costume was created by the Research and Development Department and patented by National Child Safety Council. The Safetypup® costume includes a cape, pants, shirt, paw spats, paw gloves, and a fan-cooled head and is designed to allow free movement. Children respond to the costume in a positive manner and recognize Safetypup® wherever he goes.
Law Enforcement Departments use the Safetypup® Costume for various public functions including:
- School Assemblies
- Grand Openings
- Promotions
- Festivals & Fairs
- Classroom Discussions
- Parades
- Hospitals
- Other Community Events
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Contact us if your department or school has any photos of Safetypup® in the field that you'd like to share.
The Safetypup® Puppet was created in 1985 in our Research and Development Department. During development, NCSC contacted Jim Henson of Children's Television Workshop (Sesame Street, Muppets, etc.) for help with the designing of the Safetypup® puppet and character. Mr. Henson offered the services of his head designer, Bonnie Erikson, who spent 3 days at NCSC helping us fine tune the puppet.
Safetypup® was introduced on television and in newspapers across the nation. More than 9,000 Safetypup® puppets has been distributed throughout the United States through schools as well as police and sheriff departments since 1985.
News items and stories have reported that preventive tips are very effective, as stories of children eluding would-be abductors have surfaced. Although the actual number of cartons distributed is not known, one of our milk carton manufacturer's, Potlatch, analyzed just two of their accounts and estimated that those two accounts had distributed millions of cartons to the schools they service in just one month.
As an offshoot of the Missing Children Milk Carton Program, Safetypup® was featured on half-pint milk cartons with safety messages to help educate kids and combat child abduction. These half-pint milk cartons were delivered by the millions to school lunchrooms every day. Many teachers and their students made a project of cutting out the specially designed safety tips from the cartons and kept them in a scrapbook as a constant reminder about safety.
