The Philadelphia Phillies filed a federal lawsuit Friday saying that the New York designer who four decades ago helped create the costume for the team’s beloved mascot, the Phanatic, is trying to kidnap him for the equivalent of copyright ransom.

The team’s lawyers are asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to declare that the Phanatic belongs to the Phillies forever, and no one can take the mascot away.

The team is suing Wayde Harrison and Bonnie Erickson of Harrison/Erickson Inc. They’re a husband-wife design team. Erickson once worked with Muppet creator Jim Henson on Sesame Street. She was known as the creator of Miss Piggy before she went on to mascots and other creatures.

They could not be reached immediately for comment. Their attorneys have not yet been entered into the record.

David Wolfsohn of Duane Morris in New York is leading the Phillies legal team. “Everything you need to know is in the complaint,” Wolfson said Friday shortly after filing it.

All the information, along with a lot of pictures of the fuzzy figure at the center of the dispute. The complaint tells the Phanatic’s life story.

“In the late 1970s, then-Phillies Executive Vice President Bill Giles developed a vision for a new Phillies mascot: He would be green, fat, furry, big-nosed, and instantly accessible to children,” the complaint began.

Gates even came up with the name—“the Phillie Phanatic,” the complaint said. He would be a soft, furry embodiment of “the quintessential fanatical Phillies fan.” His mission would be to “engage in audacious slapstick routines, playfully teasing anyone within range of the field or the stands—players, umpires, sportscasters, managers, and fans.”

In March 1978, Giles and other Phillies personnel worked with Harrison/Erickson to develop a costume for the Phanatic, according to specified criteria. The complaint said the defendants worked on the costume for about two weeks, paying various “costumers” $4 an hour to build it, for a total cost of about $2,000.

A Phillies marketing department intern named Dave Raymond was the first to wear the costume and “bring it to life,” the complaint said. Raymond debuted the Phanatic at the April 25, 1978, home game. “Raymond and the Phanatic were an instant hit,” the complaint said. By that summer, Bonnie Erickson herself declared the Phanatic had become “wildly popular,” it said.

“H/E was paid well for their 2 weeks of work and $2,000 or so of expense,” the complaint said. “Under 1978 and 1979 license agreements with The Phillies, they earned over $200,000 by the end of January 1980.”

Then, in 1984, “H/E terminated the 1979 license agreement and used its strong bargaining position to negotiate an assignment (‘the 1984 Assignment’) of all of H/E’s rights for $215,000—about $533,000 in today’s dollars,” the complaint said. “The 1984 Assignment expressly states that the transfer of these rights is ‘forever.’”

Now, the Phanatic is 41.

“Over the last 41 years, the Club has devoted millions of dollars to developing and promoting the Phanatic,” the complaint said. “Dave Raymond appeared as the Phanatic thousands of times until his retirement in 1994. Since then, Tom Burgoyne and others have donned Phanatic costumes thousands of times as well. Raymond, Burgoyne, and other Phillies employees have developed hundreds of slapstick routines at the ballpark, and made thousands of appearances, many at charity events.”

Add to that dozens of new costumes, scores of giveaways and merchandise items and millions spent on advertising.

“All of this was suddenly threatened when The Phillies received a letter from H/E’s attorneys in June 2018 purporting to give notice of termination of the 1984 Assignment, notwithstanding H/E’s agreement that it would be ‘forever,’” the complaint said. “The letter falsely claimed that H/E had ‘created the copyrighted character’ of the Phanatic, and ignored The Phillies’ role in designing the Phanatic’s costume.”

The complaint said the letter falsely claimed the New York couple had the right to terminate the 1984 Assignment and that, “if The Phillies did not negotiate a fifth agreement with H/E, the Club would not be able to ‘continue to use the Phillie Phanatic’ after June 15, 2020.”

Since that letter, the complaint said Harrison and Erickson have “threatened to obtain an injunction against the Phillies’ use of the Phanatic” and to “make the Phanatic a free agent” if the Club does not renegotiate the 1984 assignment and agree to pay “millions of dollars.”

The complaint said that threat is legally baseless.

“The Club therefore requests that this Court put an immediate end to H/E’s effort to hold up The Phillies with its threats of legal action and to make the Phanatic a free agent,” the complaint said. “By issuing a declaratory judgment in The Phillies’ favor and an injunction against H/E’s threatened actions, the Court will ensure that Phillies fans will not be deprived of their beloved mascot of 41 years and that The Phillies’ investment of creativity, time, effort, and money in the Phanatic will not be liquidated by H/E.”

The case is Phillies v. Harrison/Erickson Inc., No. 19-7239.