back to article 2012 Olympic mascots cop a shoeing

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) had better run for cover and batten down the hatches - if intial reaction to its official 2012 mascots is anything to go by. The 2012 Olympics logo Following the Lisa Simpson blowjob logo debacle, and subsequent epilepsy-inducing animated footage scandal, Locog was …

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  1. Andrew Penfold
    Coat

    think of the children...

    Not only are they one-eyed snakes, but they're wearing "shag-bands" too, what a bad influence!

  2. Nick Ryan Silver badge
    FAIL

    What?

    I'm still amazed (shouldn't be really), just how much pointless cash they've already spunked up against the wall for these olympics. All in the name of the greased-palms and committees of course.

    The millions wasted on the logo when they could have just used this one instead: http://blog.case.edu/james.chang/2007/06/07/favorite_2012_logo.jpg is just staggering (IMHO it's definitely the best alternative produced)

    And now some naff rendered characters that appear to have no charm or personality at all? I hope they transfer better when animated because at the moment all I see is 1980s quality raytraced images... all they need is a black and white checked tile floor and the look will be complete.

    1. Mart 2
      Thumb Up

      brilliant

      That logo is much better, it's simple yet also clever

  3. Brutus
    Linux

    Not that bad

    Could have been much worse. And can we please stop channeling the daily mail frothers, too.

    By far the more interesting thing to note is that the london2012.com website store accepts Visa ONLY ! (And cheques, whatever they are)

    1. Mark Aggleton
      Thumb Down

      Cheques

      are what I pay the window cleaner with.

  4. signpost

    They're sinking !

    Is it just me, or do they look like they're sinking ?

    Surely there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

  5. Tom Cook
    Thumb Down

    Kang & Kodos?

    Is that you? NLRA on high alert...

  6. nichomach
    Grenade

    FFS

    Criticising these for "infantilism" when their stated aim was:

    ""We've created our mascots for children. They will connect young people with sport, and tell the story of our proud Olympic and Paralympic history.""

    Is a bit fucking rich (but, well, the Telegraph ARE aren't they?).

    Here, have a pineapple, you miserable git.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bill Drummond argued

    That art ceases to become art the minute it is commissioned by councils/government, because it has to be modified to fit in with whatever agenda it is supposed to be supporting.

    I'm starting to see where he's coming from.

    Burning a million quid would probably be cheaper too.

  8. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Wanky and Manky

    "They're for kids; you just don't get it", will, I'm sure, be the standard retort to the detractors, however proof of the pudding will be in whether they make millions of quid in sales and licensing revenue.

    They're not getting any of my money.

    As to the, "British obsession with deriding itself ad infinitum" ... If only that were an Olympic sport we'd be guaranteed a gold, silver and bronze straight flush. We're well practised in it, and have good reason to be.

  9. Lateral

    I have improved them

    I see the new mascots are not popular with everyone. I therefore humbly proffer this new 2012 Olympic mascot making use of the collective wisdom of the outraged critics http://cart.ooni.st/img/2012-mascot.jpg. I'm sure you'll agree it's much better.

    L.

    1. James Thomas
      Thumb Up

      True

      That is awesome! I'd much prefer to have that than the characterless 3D blobs they've chosen.

    2. Adam Salisbury
      Thumb Up

      Awesum

      Yep, much much better!

    3. J 3
      Joke

      Well...

      At least your version makes one immediately think "UK", while the pasteurized, sterile official versions... Make you think weird teletubies, which, come to think of it, are also something UK related, no? Anyway, I digress.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Is it just me...

    ...or does 'Mandeville' look like it's pissed itself after receiving too much morphine (the M on it's forehead)?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    erm is it just me

    but does anyone else think they look like two giant phallus'.......

    In honour of our own hugely popular national sport I suggest Locog use this one..

    http://www.quizlaw.com/blog/images/stabby-mcknife.jpg

  12. Sean Timarco Baggaley
    FAIL

    Fail-Replacement Bus Service

    Meh. Design by committee usually results in camels. These things are always mediocre at best and the new characters are no exception. "Mandeville" is also far too close to "Mandelson" for it not go get picked-up by comedians.

    I don't personally understand why *any* money is being spent on watching a bunch of lunatics keeping fit. Nobody pays to watch _me_ work out at my local gym. Being able to sprint 400 metres really quickly may have been useful back when we were still fighting wars with flint axes, but it's of debatable value today.

    It would be far better if we had an Olympics event better suited to the modern world.

    Yes, the British would win gold, silver and bronze if there were a 400m. Whinge event. But the Americans, who would romp home with all three medals at both the Ridiculous Spontaneous Applause and the Patronising Marathon.

    The Italians will, naturally, beat the crap out of every other country in the €50K Political Bribe, and also do very well at the Bullshit Regional Dish. (The British win—naturally—with yer actual cheddar on toast, with a dash of mustard; Italy, silver., with their "Quattro Formaggio pizza". The Welsh take the bronze with their Welsh Rarebit. The Welsh would be penalised for not using the word "cheese" in their dish's name.)

    Other events could include: 3km. Striker's March (Fav: FR); Downhill Fiscal Policy (Fav: every country in the developed world); Synchronised Fibbing (Favs: most of GB's political class; Italy's Silvio Berlusconi) and Darwinian Skydiving, where participants are awarded for diving style and splatter.

    Now *that* would be worth paying for.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Headmaster

      Sir

      "British win—naturally—with yer actual cheddar on toast, <snip>. The Welsh take the bronze with their Welsh Rarebit"

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_rarebit

      FYI :)

  13. Phil 54
    Alien

    Aliens?

    They look like Kang and Kodos from The Simpsons

  14. shay mclachlan
    Thumb Down

    saturday night fever?

    So what's with the 70's retro dance move poses?

  15. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Crap is crap at any age.

    The only people who like these claim kids like them. Well I have just surveyed my three children (8, 6 and 3) and they thought these were terrible (3 yr old found them a bit scary).

    I carried out the survey at the school the elder two go to and more than three quarters of the kids asked laughed and said they thought this was rubbish.

    Ok - unscientific survey completed, I am happy that my understanding of childrens tastes is not totally b0rked.

    These are terrible. It is shocking that LOCOG have spent money on this. The whole olympics issue is a cash draining farce for a bit of pointless national pride. If there was any God, then Lord Coe would be in prison on fraud charges. I actually think most children could have done a better job of organising the games than he did, let alone drawing the mascot.

    It is ironic that we as a nation appear to be sending out the signal that its OK for childrens toys to look like a cross between a giant dildo and a CCTV camera.......

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yeah

      "If there was any God, then Lord Coe would be in prison on fraud charges"

      One of our most committed guys who's mission in life was to run and run and just keep on running and never stop until the rest of us put him on a pedestal and cheered him as our hero for doing it better than everybody else in the world! After or failing which he'd stand as a Tory MP having had the opportunity to figure the world out in his own head while the rest of the world passed him by on it's different trajectory. The twat.

  16. ilovemymonkey
    WTF?

    ffs...

    Bayley fulminates: "Why do we have to endure this sort of cretinous infantilism, and this awful lowbrow pandering to primitive ideas of fun?"

    Get over yourself, I don't see how trying something a little different is such a bad thing...ok, you don't like it...at least they had the balls to do something a little differently rather than stay stuck in the old "British" ways. Personally, I don't love them and I don't hate them, but I would applaud the designers for designing something that causes a little controversy...

    as for this quote "If London 2012 is going to be remembered for its art, then we can declare it a calamitous failure already."...How many artists are there that appeal to every single person? This guy doesn't like it and has therefore declared it a failure...I'll say it again, Get over yourself!

    1. Arclight

      This with knobs on

      I can't see why people seem to work themselves up into such a rage of something so pointless. Does anyone actually remember any of the mascots from previous Olympics or World cups? So what the hell does it matter?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Most people

        wouldn't pick their nose on prime time tv though. At least fulminating probably blocks the memory of that one!

      2. Amonynous
        Thumb Up

        Spot on...

        "I can't see why people seem to work themselves up into such a rage of something so pointless. Does anyone actually remember any of the mascots from previous Olympics or World cups? So what the hell does it matter?"

        No of course not, they have all been instantly forgettable due to being:

        - Ephemeral marketing/merchandising fluff

        - Born out of inscrutable cultural idiom

        - Crap

        These latest examples meet all three criteria and are thus: HUGE SUCCESS

  17. Thomas 4
    Flame

    Fuck me

    Someone *actually* sat down and thought that these would be a good idea?

    This *has* to be some sort of secret strategy for winning the Olympics. We screen these things at the end of the track, along with our proud blowjob logo and the other competitors will be too busy pissing themselves laughing to run.

    The London Olympic Commitee - A bunch of mindless jerks who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

  18. Techno
    WTF?

    Well I like em!

    They are for kids after all.

    Assuming they'll be made in the UK (yeah right!) we could do with the dosh...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Mandeville....

    I read it initially as Mandelson ...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well I suppose someone will...

      ...Stoke Mandelson.

  20. mdban

    So with these two

    obvious phallic symbols,and the lovely cartoon blowjob logo, Leona Lewis wasn't joking about that whole lotta love, was she ?

  21. moonface
    Coat

    Which one, will be the most popular?

    Mandeville appears to have snapped the most shag bands.

    The dirty one eyed monster!

  22. The elephant in the room

    Somebody should have called Ardman

    Here are some helpful tips for designing an Olympic mascot from scratch:

    It should look athletic, so that it may be plausibly animated participating in various sporting activities. Just because CGI makes it possible to animate a ton of bricks or a gelatinous blob doing a high jump does not make it appropriate to do so.

    It should relate to the host country, eg through history, folklore, national dress, physical characteristics

    It should relate to the rest of the art & design that is being done for the Olympics, such as the logo, architecture etc

    Alternatively, rather than starting from scratch, you might ask what A-list animated characters may be signed up for the Olympics who are distinctive to the host country, adaptable to the task, and recognised the world over? Few host countries are even able to answer that, but Britain certainly can; with Wallace & Gromit probably being the most promising contenders.

    Surely they'd be better than a couple of contrived unnatural blobs that have clearly been designed deliberately to be raceless & genderless, and accidentally to not look cabable of any athletic endevour or have any coherence at all with the logo.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      One more thing

      If you are planning on making big bucks selling them, shouldn't you design a mascot that can actually be made out of plush? These look like they could only be fashioned out of mylar; I'm not sure many people will want an Olympic Mascot balloon -- they're a little hard to pack.

      Also, wouldn't they make more money if they had more mascots, like the winter games: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/06/pedolympics.jpg ? Now those I would actually buy for my kids!

    2. Rattus Rattus
      Thumb Up

      Excellent ideas,

      but I'd like to propose Danger Mouse and Penfold instead of Wallace and Gromit.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    missed opportunity

    Should have been a pitbull with a dismembered leg in its jaws (complete with running shoe on the foot) - like to see someone in that outfit that jumping up and down next to the 100m start.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      surely

      you mean a disembodied leg

  24. Jeremy Chappell
    FAIL

    Teeth

    Does anyone else think they look a bit like extracted teeth? They are seriously strange.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Horns

      General anaesthetic nor required

      My thoughts exactly.

      I wonder who had them forcibly extracted before agreeing to this?

  25. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Dissapointed

    I assumed it would be a Bobby truncheoning Mohamed.

  26. Tim Jenkins

    Perfect

    Unnecessary

    Expensive

    Forgettable

    Therefore ideal to symbolise the whole ridiculous Olympic circus...

  27. Chris Evans

    Brilliant Mascots!

    The article only quotes one journalist as not likeing them. A few more quotes including from children is needed before the article can be considered finished.

    1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Brilliant Mascots!

      It doesn't need anything else. Title refers to a specific shoeing. Shoeing is expanded upon. Article ends. Next.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Pint

        Re: Brilliant Mascots!

        Commenter thinks article is a Wikipedia page. Hilarious! Either that or he thinks he's The Register's new editor-in-chief.

      2. Sir Runcible Spoon
        Joke

        Sir

        Can we have an article on 'A day in the life of Sarah Bee - Moderatrix extraordinaire' ?

        I get the impression it could be summed up in one sentence, two if you include coffee breaks :)

  28. Stewart Haywood
    Joke

    One Eyed Penis

    Each one looks like a one eyed penis. They must have been modelled on a certain ex prime minister.

  29. Skymonrie
    Linux

    Imaginitive?

    I'm not gonna bash the mascots even though they remind me of melted down toy cars but...

    What's inspiring about these? They just remind me of the giant grey shopping complex recently put up in my town, a blight to a town of countryside and tradition.

    I'll go for Tux. To represent how spaced out British people must be to find blobs inspiring with the eyes, skin head and big mouth

  30. gfs
    Unhappy

    Teeth

    They look like big scary pulled teeth

  31. Rogerborg

    Heavy on the "Para"?

    Inbred waddle-tards, rejoice! You are finally flying the flag for Blighty.

    Look, any question about what to put on logos, mascots, Euro banknotes, whatever, there's only ever one correct answer: SPITFIRE.

  32. Simon R. Bone
    FAIL

    Roar!!!!

    Isn't the symbol of Britain supposed to be a Lion? So why not a that?!!? It lends itself well to merchandising etc. Or is the real problem that you can't trademark a lion...

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