Mr. Winkle Forever: The Making of the Internet's First Furry Superstar

Documentary photographer Lara Jo Regan reveals how creative marketing turned a rescued pup into "the cutest dog in the universe."

Before Boo, Maru and Lil Bub, before Grumpy, Sockington and Menswear Dog, before social media and incessant memes, before likes, followers, shares and snaps, before the word viral had even entered the vernacular, there was one dog to rule them all: Mr. Winkle, the internet’s first bona fide four-legged phenomenon.

The year was 1996 and award-winning documentary photographer Lara Jo Regan was driving home to Los Angeles late at night after wrapping an assignment for Newsweek in Bakersfield about women on welfare. In need of caffeine and fuel, she turned off the freeway and found herself in an unfamiliar industrial wasteland when her headlights happened upon a strange, small and indeterminate creature teetering in her direction. Regan pulled over and got out of her car. A trembling and tattered tuft of fluff lurched toward her, stared into her eyes and staggered into her arms. Her heart melted on contact and she took him home.

What is Mr. Winkle? A Woodsprite? | Copyright Lara Jo Regan

A veterinarian pronounced the dog “one in a million,” a canine-DNA oddity of enigmatic ancestry in which the most dominant gene was the one for “adorable.” After a few years of rehab to heal several infections and a head fracture, the real Mr. Winkle, as he came to be called, was revealed: a 7-inch, 5-lb. awkward golden fluff ball with enormous, expressive eyes and a perpetually extended pink tongue. Wherever Regan took him, everyone reacted the same: Mr. Winkle was instantly endearing, awww-inspiring, a whimsical wonder dog with five-alarm charm. Resistance was futile. And everyone wanted to know: What is Mr. Winkle?

Regan set out to answer that question doing what she did best. She shot 12 photographs of Mr. Winkle with simple costumes and props, added playful captions that suggested he might be a cat in a dog suit, a hamster with a perm or maybe even an angel and self-published the first “What is Mr. Winkle?” calendar in 2001, selling the calendar on a new Mr. Winkle website she commissioned. She waited patiently. And then impatiently. Nothing happened. And then everything happened.

Mr. Winkle beguiled the world. In short order, website visitors shot up to the millions, the calendar sold out and went into reprints, calendars through 2017 (and counting) followed, Mr. Winkle made the rounds of nearly every TV talk show and graced the covers of numerous magazines, including Time for Kids. Time magazine’s own online supplement On crowned Mr. Winkle “Best Internet Celebrity of 2002,” Regan signed a three-book deal with Random House, frenzied fans mobbed bookstore signings (where Mr. Winkle personally “pawtographed” each purchase) and “Sex and the City” paid tribute in an episode where Mr. Winkle stole the spotlight from Carrie Bradshaw (Sara Jessica Parker) at her own book signing.

What is Mr. Winkle? The Missing Link? | Copyright Lara Jo Regan

To handle the whirlwind of demand, Regan put her documentary work on hold and devoted herself to all things Winkle. For the next decade, she applied her formal credentials to a cascade of Mr. Winkle photographs that straddle the sometimes uneasy line between kitsch and fine art. Inspired by his chimerical quality, she captured "the cutest dog in the universe" in an ever-expanding cast of characters, in a series of “nudes” in natural settings and then in the mundane mise en scène of roadside hotels and motels. Evident in every photograph was an artist’s sensibility, so much so that her work caught the attention of the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art which mounted a major exhibit of 60 Mr. Winkle photographs in 2012 to examine how “ironic juxtaposition can incite dialogue about empathy, projection, human-animal relationships, and the nature of cuteness itself."

It was all an unexpected detour for a photographer whose work appeared in many of the world’s leading publications and who had just won the World Press Photo of the Year Award for a photo from a series on poverty for Life Magazine. But, like Wegman and Man Ray, Stieglitz and O’Keeffe, Mapplethorpe and Smith, Warhol and Sedgwick, Burton and Depp, Regan and Mr. Winkle were an artist and muse for the ages, and that, more than anything, may be the reason for Mr. Winkle’s enduring appeal.

Regan, who has returned to her documentary photography, graciously agreed to speak with Larry Closs, Director of Marketing at Nutmeg, about the Mr. Winkle phenomenon.

Can you go back to that moment in 1996 when Mr. Winkle stumbled into your headlights? What were your first thoughts when you got out of your car that night and laid eyes on him?
My thoughts were pretty fuzzy at the time, but I was feeling overwhelming panic and worry for this poor little creature. It was late at night and he was in such bad shape.

What was the inspiration for his name?
I originally named him Rinky but was not 100 percent satisfied with that. One day a friend and I were taking him for a walk and we launched into funny rhyme riffs on his name to the beat of his adorable prancing gait: Rinky, Dinky Binky, Binkle, Winkle... Mr. Winkle! It was one of those stream-of-consciousness revelations—as the perfect name for our pet often comes to us.

Mr. Winkle with photographer Lara Jo Regan in her Los Angeles studio | Copyright Lara Jo Regan

What made you think Mr. Winkle had star potential?
His nuclear cuteness combined with his chameleonic nature. He had the legs of a doe, the ears of a koala, the face of a baby bear... the fur of a lamb. He was a composite of nearly every cute creature in existence, a living, breathing kitsch object.

You started marketing Mr. Winkle in 2001 with a self-published calendar featuring Mr. Winkle in 12 character photographs and a website to sell the calendar. This was the very beginning of the consumer internet. How did you promote the calendar and the site? How did people discover them?
At the time, I knew nothing about publishing or internet marketing. The calendar and website were done out of pure love, just wanting to share this extraordinary creature with the world. Cynics will doubt my motivation, but documentary photographers have this overwhelming impulse to capture extraordinary moments and things that will not be here forever. I just did the calendar in the hopes of making my money back for the expenditure of website design, printing and production of the images which was pricey with pre-digital cameras.

The first and latest Mr. Winkle calendars

How many copies of the calendar did you print? Did they sell out? Did you have to reprint it?
Idiotically, I printed ten thousand, which drained a big chunk of my life savings. But they sold out within a month of Mr. Winkle going viral, and it even necessitated a second printing for the Christmas season.

You and Mr. Winkle made dozens of TV appearances on news and talk shows. Did one lead to another? Was there a snowball effect?
Yes. The toughest thing by far is getting that first bit of press coverage. How that unfolded for Mr. Winkle is that I had a photojournalist colleague at the LA Times who had met Mr. Winkle and mentioned he would like to photograph him if I was ever doing a public event, just for those fun photos the Times used to publish as eye candy to fill space. So when Mr. Winkle was making his first official public appearance at my local street fair to sell his newly minted calendars, I called the Times and spoke to my friend’s editor who wanted more information. At that point Mr. Winkle’s website had just gone live and he had become a “local urban legend” in my neighborhood which I mentioned to the editor, partly in jest. Much to my surprise, the editor sent a writer to my house the next day because he thought it had potential for a fun human-interest story. Luckily, I had compelling unique artwork to substantiate my passions and pursuits, which is important to serious publications.

The following week, a full feature about Mr. Winkle along with a huge double-page spread image of his “Cat in a Dog Suit” character appeared in the LA Times. A few dribbling orders on my website turned into hundreds. The local news saw the Times story and came to my house to do a segment. Then CNN saw the local news and sent their own reporters. Then Rosie O’Donnell saw CNN and we were invited on her then massively popular show. Hundreds of orders grew to tens of thousands, and it just kept snowballing. At the time I did not think that trying to share my pet with the world through pictures with a companion website and calendar was anything special, when in reality Mr. Winkle became the first internet animal star, the progenitor of all the pet stars we see today. I was lucky that the Times editor recognized that what I was doing was unusual at the time.

Mr. Winkle appeared in an episode of “Sex and the City,” upstaging Carrie Bradshaw (Sara Jessica Parker) at a book signing. How did that come about?
The producer of the show was a fan, as was a comedian friend of mine who knew the producer. I think they were just casually talking at a party about how interesting and amusing the Winkle phenomenon was, especially how so many people lined up around the block at his book signings as if visiting the Christ child himself. And then the producer had the clever and hysterical idea to incorporate it into a plotline, then contacted me through our mutual friend.

Mr. Winkle: The Complete Character Collection

You were an established and award-winning photojournalist before Mr. Winkle entered your life. Did you think twice about devoting so much time and energy to photographing Mr. Winkle and how that might affect your photojournalist credentials?
Oh, yes. That was a huge concern. No one supported what I was doing at first; many colleagues thought I had lost my mind. But at the time I just thought of the Mr. Winkle calendar as a little side project. I honestly never thought it would take off to the point where it would upstage my career as a magazine photographer. Just when Mr. Winkle took off I found out I had won the World Press Photo of the Year, and several European reporters interviewing me about the award had a hard time getting their minds around the fact that I was doing these two entirely things at once.

How many hours of work went into each character photo?
Each character took about a week to produce. A lot of special props, costumes and sets had to be handmade. I was still shooting film and was a long way off from learning sophisticated post-production Photoshop. So all the elements had to come together in real time. Some still find it hard to believe that all Mr. Winkle’s expressions and poses are real in those photos.

Facebook is the only social media platform that Mr. Winkle is on, and you post relatively few photos there. Do you purposefully limit the number of photos you post online?
Yes, I’m now keeping interest in Mr. Winkle to a minimum while deciding what the best move is to extend his brand beyond his physical life in a meaningful way. So you might say Mr. Winkle’s light social media presence represents a holding pattern. When I’m ready, I would perhaps like to introduce Miss Winkle, the female counterpart of Mr. Winkle. My daughter is now 12 and she has taken a great interest in helping, which is further motivation because I think it would be a fun educational experience for her.

Hotel-Motel Nudes: Coffee | Copyright Lara Jo Regan

Do you miss photographing Mr. Winkle?
Every day.

In nearly all of your photos of Mr. Winkle, you’ve explored the question, “What is Mr. Winkle?,” which was inspired by people’s reactions to him. Fans have called Mr. Winkle a robotic squirrel, a demon from another dimension, a cat in a dog suit, a smile, an angel, a bodhisattva. What is Mr. Winkle?
The spirit of love and endless possibility. 

Read the full interview and view more photographs of Mr. Winkle here.

Larry Closs is the Director of Marketing at Nutmeg, a creative marketing agency.