Sport Sporting festivals

Introducing the Olympic mascots

Written by Chrsitian Newbold

This article first appeared in the Jul/Aug 2012 issue of World Gaming magazine.

Meet Mandeville and Wenlock, the official mascots of the 2012 London Olympics.

Teams have had mascots for almost as long as sports have been popular, with many early teams using real animals like lions and bears to represent them. While this trend was discontinued because fans were getting eaten – and it’s cheaper to feed a guy in a bear suit than to feed an actual bear – the mascot’s popularity at major sporting events continues unabated.

The Olympics are no exception, first introducing a mascot at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France. Since then there have been a slew of strange mascots at high-profile sporting events. Who can forget Naranjito the Spanish orange from the 1982 FIFA World Cup, or Izzy the electric blue computer-generated 1996 Atlanta Olympic mascot?

We have seen a few odd mascots in our time, but have to say that Mandeville and Wenlock take the cake. They look like a combination of a cell phone, a set of hair clippers and something battery powered you might find in an adult shop. Even their names are far from appealing. It’s as if the London Games felt they had to out-weird all the other weird mascots that have come and gone over the last few decades.

Maybe we’re getting too old but we always thought that a mascot had to be cute and cuddly so the kids have something to get excited by and Games officials can charge ridiculous prices for souvenir soft toys.

However, the London Olympics have gone for a more modern approach, creating a series of animated videos children can watch featuring these two characters zipping around like Astro Boy on drugs.

While kids might be entertained if they log onto the London Games website, where they can watch videos and create their own ugly version of these two personality deprived individuals, we just can’t seem to get excited over Mandeville and Wenlock.

GALLERY OF ROGUES: TOP 3 OLYMPIC MASCOTS
Mascot: Misha Mascot: Schuss Mascot: Izzy
Event: 1980 Summer Olympics, Moscow Event: 1968 Winter Olympics, Grenoble Event: 1996 Summer Olympics, Atlanta
Country: Russia Country: France Country: USA
The first sporting mascot to achieve commercial success as a merchandise range, Misha the Russian Bear is the creation of children’s book illustrator Victor Chizhikov. So popular it even boasted its own animated cartoon series, Misha set the standard for all sporting mascots that followed. Available as a pin badge or a small toy, Schuss was the frontrunner where sporting mascots are concerned and was the first-ever Olympic mascot, albeit an unofficial one. Schuss set the bar for all who followed in his footsteps, or ski tracks if you want to be more specific. Izzy, short for Whatizit was the first mascot to depart from the Olympic tradition of representing a nationally significant human figure or animal. Officially the first computer-generated mascot, Izzy also became the first mascot to star in his own video game.