Goodbye, Mr. Smiley

The smiling sun on our state's license plates was just a bit too cheerful for most drivers: they're getting rid of Mr. Smiley.

Until the past few months, I had no idea that Kentuckians hated our smiling sunshine license plates so much.  Recently, I've seen  frowning sunshine decal covering up Mr. Smiley, and have even seen a fake bullet hole decal hiding him.  I didn't think he was all that obnoxious; I thought it was cute.  So did alot of other people - the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association voted it the best state license plate in 2003, beating out Maine's lobster plate by one vote. 

Kentucky DMV records showed a surge in sales of specialy plates and personalized plates over the past two year.  To me, some of the specialty plates are way more obnoxious than Mr. Smiley and his motto "Kentucky: It's That Friendly." The university plates are the worst.  Not because of the design, but in my case, because I have two friends who have U of L plates on their SUV's, and yet they've never attended a single class at U of L.  What's worse - seeing Mr. Smiley on a car, or seeing a university plate on the car of a wannabe?

At a press conference today, Gov. Fletcher unveiled the new design for our plates.  The plates have a plain white background, with a small hard-to-see outline of the state in the middle of the plate, and the state's new "Unbridled Spirit" logo in the upper right corner.  Not very flashy at all.  In fact, after seeing the new plate on the news tonight, I decided I'll be getting a personalized plate for the BMW.  I checked at the Kentucky Department of Transportation site and unfortunately, "Puddin" is already taken.  I'll come up with something clever to take the place of Mr. Smiley.