Oh, that doesn’t even scratch the surface! Fofão (you pronounce it like foh-fah-oom) is… a cultural icon. You probably won’t find a single Brazilian person who doesn’t know who he is, though he hasn’t been on television for decades, and this is because his whole existence is cursed. Cursed, cursed, cursed. I’ll explain:
Back in the early 80s, there was an educational children’s show called A Turma do Balão Mágico (lit. The Magic Balloon Gang. So eighties.) that was pretty much a Sesame Street knockoff and starred children interacting with puppets and people in costumes and learning wholesome lessons and singing songs. Fofão was one of the nonhuman characters, and he looked like the unholy offspring of Chucky from Child’s Play and a Troll Doll after getting stung by bees:
As you can see, the costume was pretty much just some kind of disturbing prosthetics stuck to some guys face and a wig. Those are real human eyes. Did I mention Fofão means “very fluffy”? I reckon it’s because of the jowls.
Anyway, Fofão became the most popular character of the show for some reason, getting himself a spin-off where he was the protagonist and… merchandise, one of these being those cursed dolls. It was then that a urban legend about it began to surface, and it said (get this) that whoever created Fofão had made a pact with the devil to achieve success and that the devil had instructed him to put a black dagger inside each doll that made whoever touched it become a murderer, or at least so went the version I know of. As it turns out, the dolls did have a weird structure to keep the head upright that was kind of shaped like a knife? You can imagine how prevalent this legend was. I was born a whole decade after Fofão’s show used to air and I was still scared I’d come across one of these dolls as a child.
After that, Fofão faded into obscurity, just to be brought back in the year of our lord 2015 after the existence of some… peculiar children’s birthday party entertainers came to light and rose to meme levels. They’re called Carreta Furacão (Hurricane Truck) and they’re basically people dressed up as mascots who take the birthday kids for a ride around town on a modified truck while they dance and do parkour, except they’re unusually prone to accidents, and for some reason they almost all happen with one of the dancers… who dresses up as Fofão, AKA the guy on OP’s picture. There are hundreds of videos dedicated to the Carreta Furacão Curse. Here’s one of them:
So… you draw your own conclusions. I, myself, am of the opinion that Fofão isn’t so much of a guy in a costume as he is a real life goblin that emerges from the darkness every 30-odd years to feed on the fear of children.
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