Bolt from the blue: the Olympic mascot Wenlock, left, and the Paralympic mascot Mandeville strike an
Usain Bolt pose
Posted on 05/19/2010 9:21:26 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The two metallic characters, named Wenlock and Mandeville, were unveiled on Wednesday night after a rigorous 18-month design process involving 40 focus groups.
Apparently hewn from the “last drops of steel” left over from constructing the final support girder of the Olympic Stadium, the one-eyed creatures are intended to help young people relate to the Games.
Bolt from the blue: the Olympic mascot Wenlock, left, and the Paralympic mascot Mandeville strike an
Usain Bolt pose
But branding experts last night called them “a calamity” and accused Olympic bosses of wasting thousands of pounds on their creation.
Stephen Bayley, the prominent design critic, said: “What is it about these Games which seems to drive the organisers into the embrace of this kind of patronising, cretinous infantilism? Why can’t we have something that makes us sing with pride, instead of these appalling computerised Smurfs for the iPhone generation?
“If the Games are going to be remembered by their art then we can declare them a calamitous failure already.”
Lord Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic games, defended the mascots, saying they would inspire young people to engage with sport.
“We’ve created our mascots for children. By linking young people to the values of sport, Wenlock and Mandeville will help inspire kids to strive to be the best they can be,” he said.
But critics said the design would leave young people baffled. Aaron Shields, a partner at the design agency BrandInstict, said: “I don’t think people are going to relate to these very modern creations. The first rule of mascot creation is to make something familiar and accessible, not something alien. This is just going to be seen as another disappointment coming out of the Olympic games.”
The two characters are
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
It looks broken—perhaps it’s an appropriate logo after all.
A single mentally challenged first grader could have done better.
LOL...they look like tapeworms...
They’re kinda creepy.
A friendly, happy and cheerful creepy, but creepy nevertheless.
Or somebody on LSD with an 8-color Crayon box, not even the deluxe 64, which we all love so much...
I told my friends I thought the mascots were Teletubbies who mutated and escaped from a toxic waste dump after 15 years.
2 phalus shaped mascots, each with 1 eye... with a rainbow background.
Am I the only one out here who thinks it’s wierd?
side note: I’m a little surprised 1 isn’t brown.
Or those flatworms we cut up in high school biology...paramecia?
Teenage Mutant Teletubbies?
They'll probably make kids burst out in tears . . .
If I were a cyclops, I would feel very at home with these mascots...
Actually, they look like the dreams one gets after too much pizza.
Daleks would have been a better choice.
The City of Atlanta is now off the hook for the worst Olympic mascot.
Thanks, cousins!
“But, Dad, they’re not really bad, they’re just...stupid.”
That is an excellent moniker.
Was there no one willing to tell these people to just stop and start over? They must have all been on some bad drugs.
I have one of those in each bathroom.
40 focus groups??
No wonder they came out looking moronic.
Between the freakish (some would say vaguely obscene) logo and this creature, I wonder just how much drugs were involved in their creation? This crap makes the Teletubbies seem rational.
Might as well have made them one-eyed, purpled-helmeted “warriors”.
Start over?
Maybe 80 focus groups next time?
The UK does everything the bureaucratic way
“Toto I don’t think we’re on Sesame Street any more... run!”
The London Olympic Committee could earn some extra pounds by releasing the rejected pseudo mascots.
yitbos
The comments after the article are hilarious. The best one.....”One eyed Willies!”.
ROTFL!!! I think the “sport” Lord Coe had in mind was gay sex.
It's racist and must go.
It's racist and must go.
I'm looking at them and thinking it's obvious the Brits tried to create "mascots" that were raceless and sexless to go along with the nationless olympic logo, so as to avoid offending anyone, anywhere across the planet.
Of course after studying their creation I think they could have just as well gotten by with a couple of amoeba holding a stick.
If these are actually the UK’s best ideas for Olympic mascots, I must admit that the mindless and insulting icons presented by the Vancouver Olympic commitee were sheer GENIUS!!
I thought the mindless and inane, indescribable “icons” of the Vancouver games were difficult to defend, and I truly am grateful to the London games committee.
No longer must I labour under the thought that *MY* countrymen are the stupidest humans alive...
They look like one-eyed monsters. Heck, they ARE one-eyed monsters.
They will scare small children.
Brobee - kind of cute. Muno - well, I wonder where they got the idea for this one.
Are the two creatures married? If so, are they the 1st openly gay olympic mascots? The rainbow made me wonder.
I've had bowel movements that would have more eye appeal.
Call them: "Mo" and "Hammad," and, as you can clearly tell, they're looking for a few virgins!
And the worst is that this happens over and over. In Atlanta, it was Izzy, which was a "Who Knows What", and Izzy was short for "What is he?" Buddy of mine said, "They should have called him 'Fukzat?'"
So kids can relate to dancing tampons?
Americans recognize those goofy looking creatures right away. They're called Obama supporters!
Well. Your art has finally arrived at the level of your cooking!
I swear, I was laughing so hard and loud I was afraid I was going to wake my husband. I just couldn’t do it quietly!
yitbos
Looks like an explosion. Probably designed by a muslim.
So, is that an upside down heart to draw attention to the crotch? Is it a urine stain? Or are those just ass chaps on backwards?
yitbos
With an eye the size of their head, there can’t be much room left for a brain.
The blue one has lobster claws. Anyone got butter??
” involving 40 focus groups”.
This is the kind of rubbish, “focus” groups present.
No one takes responsibility and they come up with crap.
Then again, the logo does suggest that Britons recognize how fractured their nation is, now that Islam is tearing it apart. Subconscious effects. Freudianism, anyone?
That is crap.
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