Why Olympic Mascots Are Always So Awful

(May 20) -- Back in 2007, the body responsible for planning London's 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics discovered there were two slight problems concerning the Olympic logo they had unveiled. One was that a televised sequence involving the logo was triggering epileptic seizures and had to be forthwith pulled from the air. The other was that, on the whole, the logo is an incoherent wreck resembling a cross between a discarded Keith Haring work and a heap of ruined Tetris blocks. And it cost 400,000 pounds to make. You would think after that, the rest of the games' marketing campaigns would be comparatively painless.

Oh, were it only so. On Wednesday, the London 2012 mascots were unveiled. They are called Wenlock and Mandeville. They are, as is the case with all Olympic mascots, aimed at children. They underwent some 18 months of design and 40 focus groups, at a cost of another 400,000 pounds. They each have one eye, are made of steel and have taxi lights on their heads.

And they are being called "patronizing rubbish" by the local design community. Stephen Bayley, a well-regarded English design critic, fumed, "What is it about these Games which seems to drive the organisers into the embrace of this kind of patronising, cretinous infantilism?"

London 2012 has created an animated genesis story to explain what these things are and, presumably, why. While the video does not cause seizures, which can be seen as an improvement, it remains nonetheless confusing, or at the very least implausible.

The story involves a steel worker named George who helps make the last beam for the Olympic stadium. A few drops of molten steel fall from the beam to the steelworks' floor. He dumps some water on them and then tosses them in his satchel on the way out. He heads home and, late at night, stricken by inspiration or madness, goes into his shop and forms the steel lumps into Wenlock and Mandeville.

He then gives them to his grandchildren, who become tremendously excited, instead of behaving like real children and looking askance, shrugging and then perhaps recommending to Grandma a good asylum for Grandpa, who appears to be coming apart rather quickly in his retirement.

Bizarre as they are, Wenlock and Mandeville do conform to the two unofficial rules for bad Olympic mascot-making. The first was partly addressed above: The mascots must be geared toward kids, to help foster a spirit of sportsmanship or some other such nonsense that children don't care about. Two, as many people as possible must have a hand in their design. The latter can often negate the former, because children tend to go for things that make sense or appear to be something. A one-eyed steel creature named after a hospital does not fulfill that criteria, unless it's meant to be some kind of medical instrument, which -- who knows? -- it may well be.

The looking-glass moment for Olympic mascots came in Atlanta in 1996. Prior to those games, countries usually used a native animal as a mascot. Calgary had a pair of hospitable polar bears in 1988, Los Angeles had a friendly eagle in 1984, the Soviets had a bear cub in 1980, Munich had a colorful dachshund in 1972. Albertville's 1992 mascot, Magique, a star-shaped snow imp, portended badly for the future, but was forgiven, as Albertville is in France, and in France the only thing more native than contempt is whimsy. But then Atlanta unveiled the computer-generated Izzy, short for "What is he" -- a fair question to ask about this blue thing with a bunch of stuff sewn onto it -- effectively ruining mascots forever.

In Izzy's wake, countries have put more and more effort into their mascots, which they hope to merchandise and sell in great numbers to offset the cost of the Olympics, which almost always lose their hosts a tremendous amount of money. This has yielded very mixed results. Vancouver 2010's multiple mascots -- a Sasquatch, a mythical whale-bear and a marmot sidekick -- managed to be charming despite being rendered in a hip (read: salable) and decidedly non-Canadian anime style.

On the other hand, Athens 2004's Athena and Phevos -- two children putatively resembling ancient Greek dolls -- were roundly derided on the grounds that they looked like male sex organs or, in this writer's estimation, victims of a terrible fire.

There are clear lessons to take away from the last few decades, and Olympic planning committees should note them. The formula is simple: Stick to animals, keep them cute and energetic, and if it takes you more than five seconds to explain what they are, head right back to the drawing board.

And for God's sake, unless by some miracle Detroit snares an Olympics, avoid using auto parts.