He performs various routines to entertain fans during baseball games at Citizens Bank Park and makes public relation and goodwill appearances for the Phillies.

[4] During the winter after the 1976 season, Dennis Lehman, who along with the Philadelphia Phillies Promotions Director, Frank Sullivan, thought the team needed a mascot similar to the Padres' San Diego Chicken.

Bonnie Erickson had ties with Jim Henson's Muppets as designer of Miss Piggy and Statler and Waldorf.

According to Bill Giles, the Phanatic was created to attract more families to the Phillies' home, Veterans Stadium.

He was formally introduced to the public on the locally produced children's show Captain Noah and His Magical Ark by then-Phillies player Tim McCarver, who was doing promotional work for the team.

In his book Pouring Six Beers at a Time, Giles wrote of the worst decision of his life when it came to the creation of the Phanatic.

Five years later, when Giles and his group of investors bought the team from Ruly Carpenter, the franchise paid $250,000 to Harrison/Erickson for the assignment of the copyright.

On August 2, 2019, the Phillies filed a lawsuit against the Phanatic creators for exercising their rights to renegotiate the 1984 licensing assignment according to copyright law.

[9] In response, in 2020, the Phillies unveiled an updated Phanatic, which included lighter-green fur, arm-scales, star-shaped eyelids, powder-blue feathers, a longer tail, a shorter nose and red shoes.

[10] The Phillies regained the rights to original Phanatic beginning in the 2022 season after a settlement with Harrison/Erickson, the mascot's copyright owners and the creators.

There is a running gag where the Phanatic humorously mocks opposition players and they would steal his ATV keys in retaliation.

In March 2009, the Phanatic appeared on The Simpsons in the episode "Gone Maggie Gone", greeting a party of nuns disembarking from a ship at the future site of Philadelphia.

In an interview with Angelo Cataldi, Tom Burgoyne revealed that Major League Baseball declined to allow the Phanatic to be used in the episode.

Charlie references this at the conclusion of the episode, attempting to file a countersuit against Major League Baseball due to the fact that he has to call the mascot the "Phrenetic" when he knows its name is the "Phanatic".

On January 26, 2012, the Phanatic (credited to Tom Burgoyne) appeared as itself on an episode of the NBC sitcom 30 Rock called "The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell".

In 2010, an assortment of 5 feet (1.5 m) tall, 100 pounds (45 kg) fiberglass statues were painted by artists and placed on display throughout Philadelphia from April through August with all proceeds going to Phillies' Charities.

[39] In 1989, Orlando's NBA expansion team, the Magic, was founded largely through the efforts of former Philadelphia 76ers General Manager Pat Williams.

Williams introduced Stuff, another Bonnie Erickson design, a furry green dragon with similarities to the Phillie Phanatic, as the team's official mascot.

Since then, the two have been featured on tee shirts, including the one Bryce Harper wore when he arrived at Citizens Bank Park.