Howard Kirschner, a former Benny the Bull, dies at 80: ‘He saw life in a unique way’
It’s not often that a funeral service starts with the playing of “Sirius” by the Alan Parsons Project, otherwise known in Chicago as “the Bulls song.”
But the unconventional setting for Howard Kirschner’s service last week at the Chicago Jewish Funerals chapel in Skokie fit perfectly for him. Mr. Kirschner, one of the earliest to portray the legendary Chicago Bulls mascot Benny the Bull, was described by his wife as a “quirky” guy who “marched to his own drummer.”
“He was very funny,” his wife, Paulette Kirschner, told the Sun-Times. “He was very creative. … He had riddles. I mean he’d wake up in the morning and I’d have to answer riddles. He saw life in a unique way.”
Mr. Kirschner died Nov. 27 at age 80.
He and his wife weren’t the biggest Bulls fans — they were Blackhawks season ticket holders, actually — but they would attend basketball games occasionally when invited by friends.
One of those friends was Irwin Mandel, who joined the Bulls organization in 1973 as a business manager. Mr. Kirschner once quipped to Mandel during a game that he’d love to be Benny the Bull someday.
During the 1974 Western Conference Finals in Milwaukee, Benny the Bull, then portrayed by Harvey Johnson, was thrown out of a game for making obscene gestures toward a referee, leading to Johnson’s firing.
“When that happened, [Mandel] called Howard and he said, ‘I remember you once said at a game that you’d like to be Benny. Well, go talk to this person. I can’t do anything else for you, but here’s your opportunity,’” Kirschner recalled.
On a whim, Mr. Kirschner became the fourth person to portray Benny the Bull. He worked part time as the mascot, making $15 per game, between the 1975 and 1984 seasons.
About halfway through his time as Benny the Bull, Mr. Kirschner bought Sam and Hy’s Delicatessen in Skokie, which he owned until the late 1980s. After he sold the deli, Mr. Kirschner started his own food distribution business, serving places like hotels and country clubs up until around 10 years ago.
Mr. Kirschner was no gymnast. He didn’t do backflips, sink backward half-court shots or slam dunk the basketball while soaring through the air off a trampoline. Those quirks, now a regular part of Benny the Bull's routine, didn’t come until years after Mr. Kirschner was the mascot.
He was known as “the nice Benny,” said Kirschner, who now resides in Morton Grove.
“He basically walked the kids around the stadium, fooled around with all the people in the stands.”
Mr. Kirschner also advocated for Super Fan, whose actual name was Jeff Platt. Super Fan didn’t work for the Bulls — though he did get free admission — but he was known for running around Chicago Stadium to “William Tell Overture” to pump up the crowd.
Mr. Kirschner made it possible for Super Fan to change clothes in a locker room rather than a stadium bathroom.
“He was that kind of person,” Kirschner said. “He took care of some people not as an institution charitably, but as a human. He took care of a variety of different people to help them in their life.”
During his tenure, Mr. Kirschner witnessed several basketball Hall of Famers, such as Chet Walker’s final season and some of Artis Gilmore’s prime. His final season as Benny the Bull overlapped with Michael Jordan’s historic rookie year.
”I really just love it,” Mr. Kirschner told the Chicago Tribune in a 1985 interview. “I’m a high-energy person. I can talk to anybody, anywhere. I’m a kibitzer at heart. It`s also an opportunity to go from running an intense, seven-days-a-week business to getting into a situation where I can totally let off steam and ham it up. It's my hobby. Some people build model trains, some play poker. My hobby is trying to get a chuckle out of people.”
Mr. Kirschner was born Aug. 8, 1944, to Joe and Sylvia Kirschner. He grew up in West Rogers Park and attended Mather High School, where he met his future wife, Paulette, in 1962.
They went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the two became “ardent fans” of the Fighting Illini, she said.
They got married in 1967 and later moved to Glenview where they raised their two daughters, Annie and Joey. Around that time that Mr. Kirschner also substitute taught junior high school students for Chicago Public Schools.
“He was so many things — funny, silly, very quirky, creative, smart, definitely OCD, and definitely opinionated. Very opinionated,” his daughter, Annie Smith, said at his funeral.
His other daughter, Joey Waldman, added: “He loved trains, jazz music, Corvettes, having breakfast with his friends, the random animals that appeared at his bedroom window, whipped cream swans, root beer floats, trips to Dairy Queen or Dairy Bar, coffee cake from Schlegl's Bakery, and he loved watching the Illini.”
His passion for the Fighting Illini was on full display at Mr. Kirschner’s funeral, as most of his family and friends donned Fighting Illini T-shirts and hoodies.
In addition to his wife and two daughters, Mr. Kirschner is survived by his sister and brother-in-law, two sons-in-law, and four grandchildren.