Another Reason To Hate the Olympics
Well, actually, two reasons: Phevos and Athena, the twin mascots of the soon-to-commence Summer Games in Greece.
Named for deities, P&A are already in the pantheon of reviled Olympic mascots (a hall that surely contains every single Olympic mascot since "Schuss" debuted at the Grenoble Winter Games in 1968).
From an AP account of how P&A have been received:
The pair were derided in various news articles, described as animated condoms and mutants from a nuclear meltdown. Their names were co-opted by anti-Olympic activists, who promptly firebombed two government vehicles in February.
Whole story here.
It seems likely that this pair will go down in history as even worse than the intergalactically detested from the 1996 Atlanta Games' Whatizit, memorably described by Bob Costas as ?a genetic experiment gone horribly, ghastly wrong."
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Is there any reason why a mascot for the Olympics is even necessary? Can't they just do without it and stop wasting their time and money on the matter?
They look like characters from one of those poorly-animated 70s films teaching children about tolerance or puberty or something. (As deftly parodied on "Beavis & Butthead," once.)
What about Springy, the Springfield Olympic mascot?
996 springs to flush down! 996 springs!
Flush 'em down! It swirls around! 995 springs to flush down!
"Anti-Olympics activists"?
WTFudge?
The Olympic Mascot always seems like a bald-faced marketing tie-in grab for cash. And why do they have to have two of them? A boy AND a girl? Although in this case they are both wearing dresses and the only way you can tell it's a girl are drawn-on circles.
Most people are behind the Olympics anyway (except for all the grumps on internet sites 😉 ), so why do they need mascots? Personally, I love watching Olympic events, and despite the economic and logistical mayhem the games wreak, I'd love to have them in the Washington-Baltimore area where I live. I just like watching the different sporting events (hopefully NBC and affiliates will show lots of different events this year) and seeing all these athletes give it the 'old Olympic try'. So I'm not going to hate the Olympics, but I will deride their mascots (again).
I actually kinda liked Sam the Eagle.
Of course I was 6 during the 84 Olympics, so that may explain it a little.
I liked the Badger guy from Lake Placid.
I really like the ticked-off-looking wolf from Sarajevo.
My guess is that the "anti-Olympics activists" are locals whose lives are being seriously disrupted by all the hoo-haa around the Games, or who resent seeing their taxes go to support it.
"Izzy", from the Atlanta Games, was a perfect mascot. That abomination was the quintessential example of the results of design by committee. Being unable to come to concensus on anything real and beautiful, they threw their hands up and stopped on unidentifiable and ugly. They even highlighted their aesthetic confusion in the name of the creature.
Beijing is accepting entries for the 2008 mascot.
http://en.beijing-2008.org/19/31/article211623119.shtml
I don't do graphic art, but maybe someone can sketch out "Lao-Guy, the happy labor camp inmate" for a joint entry.
Kevin
Fox has pictures of the two ugly mascots. Go, Fox!
http://msn.foxsports.com/story/2650718