Fourth base or football? The story behind the viral naughty bears outside a Southwest Philly strip club.

“Am I being pranked?”

That’s what Gloucester County resident Gabby Weiland recalled thinking after she made a wrong turn while Doordashing in Southwest Philly earlier this month. Instead of finding a customer waiting on the curb for her lunch, Weiland found herself outside of Sin City Cabaret Nightclub at 6130 Passyunk Avenue. One 8-foot tall topiary Care Bear bending over another greeted her.

“Got lost in Philly and pulled over to see where I was … looked up and —," Weiland captioned a TikTok that pans from the fourth-base bears back to her face, which appears equal parts mortified and confused. The 12-second clip has racked up more than 1.4 million views — and its fair share of jokes.

“What in the bear necessities?” commented one TikTok user. “They...they’re...playing leapfrog...RIGHT???” wrote another. Others assured Weiland not to worry because the bears are clearly in a committed situationship.

Many, however, knew where the bears were. “Oh, you found Sin City,” read a comment that’s been liked more than 8,600 times. According to the strip club’s owner Gus Drakopoulos, that means the topiaries are working.

“If someone does a double take and posts a video or selfie, then the art did it’s job,” said Drakopoulos, 49, who had the topiaries installed in 2021. “I want images of those bears to be synonymous with the brand Sin City.”

Drakopoulos opened the original Sin City in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx in 2002 at the age of 25 after a securities fraud conviction sidelined his career as a stockbroker. Almost immediately, the club earned a star-studded reputation: Rapper Cardi B was discovered while performing there, and celebs ranging from Mike Tyson to Philly’s own Meek Mill were regulars.

Drakopoulos was forced to close the OG Sin City for good in 2018 after the club lost its liquor license. He relocated it to Philly in 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic. The bears came a year later in Nov. 2021, Drakopoulos said, as a way to signal to patrons that Sin City is a more artful, avant-garde gentleman’s club experience.

“The bears are playful, and open for interpretation,” he said. “You can say they’re playing football. Go Birds.”

Sin City’s bear bushes are, surprisingly, not the only ones in existence. They’re inspired by a series of topiaries that line the Moxy Hotel’s rooftop bar in New York City, where patrons can ogle bears in a variety of X-rated positions, very few of which could be confused for football.

“I fell in love with the idea,” Drakopoulos said. “The bears look so innocent and at the same time, depending on the eye of the beholder, so not.”

Both sets of bears are designed by celebrity topiary artist Joe Kyte, whose 2-acre topiary garden in Tellico Plains, Tenn. has churned out larger-than-life dragons, Formula 1 cars, and semi-realistic bottles of booze for clients ranging from Legoland and Ferrari to Absolut Vodka since 1992.

Kyte got his start working as a subcontractor for Disney parks in the 1980s, he previously told The Wall Street Journal, fashioning hippos and various versions of Mickey Mouse out of materials ranging from ivy to moss. He told The Inquirer that his clients have only gotten raunchier. In 2020, Kyte was commissioned by a Dutch adult magazine to create a photo-realistic vagina out of hydrangeas, rosemary, and mullein leaf for a launch party in Holland.

Drakopoulos, Kyte said, was the first strip club owner to ever contact him. It was an immediate yes, he said.

“This is the first time a strip club has paid me. Normally it’s the other way around,” Kyte, 67, joked over the phone.

Drakopoulos paid $18,000 for two bears, which Kyte took two weeks to construct by arranging weather-resistant artificial boxwood atop custom-made metal frames. To finish the job, Kyte and an employee had to drive to 687 miles to Philly to install the bears, at one point getting stuck in standstill traffic on I-81 in Virginia for hours. Bored drivers, Kyte recalled, couldn’t stop taking photos.

“It’s wonderful that the bears are standing the test of time … Wouldn’t you be proud of them?” said Kyte, who is planning another trip to Philly to do maintenance on the Sin City bears later this winter. The sun’s UV rays have bleached parts of the deep green topiaries.

It’s unclear if the bears have lead to more business for the club, Drakopoulos said, which has a roster of roughly 500 dancers. In 2022, rapper and Super Bowl LIX halftime performer Bad Bunny dropped $50K at Sin City hours before his Made in America performance. It’s not uncommon for some of the Eagles roster to come through, Drakopoulos said, though he declined to name specific players out of respect for their privacy.

Weiland, whose video went viral, was unaware the bears belonged to a strip club initially. She’s never been to one, though Sin City may wind up being her first.

“Apparently they have good food,” Weiland said. “And it looked like a very well taken care of place.”