Has the World Gone Mad, Or Just the Brits?

Why do Olympic organizers invariably create the scariest, most confusing, lamest mascots? From the Snowlets (Nagano) to Athena and Phevos (Athens) to the infamous Izzy/Whatizit (Atlanta), Olympic mascots have been a parade of weirdness and over-thought miscues. Continuing in this vein are the newly unveilved London 2012 mascots Wenlock and Mandeville.

The characters, named after two British cities with ties to the modern Olympic and Paralympic games, are the product of 18 months worth of research and 40 focus groups. The pastel cyclopses–mutant offspring of Orwell’s Big Brother and the Teletubbies perhaps–are chock full (or is it choked-full) of symbolism, from friendship Olympic bracelets on the wrist to the likeness of British taxi lights on their foreheads.

Curiously, designers decided against more recognizable British fare like a lion, a bulldog, or an animated Big Ben, in favor of metallic abstractions with a camera for an eye ball. Even though the characters can appear in fluffy form (as above), they are actually supposed to be drops of steel split in the making of the last girder for the Olympic stadium. This endearing back story is the creation of former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo.

If we are to believe the focus groups, kids will really love Wenlock and Mandeville. But what real children like is often different from the conglomeration of focus groups polling. Real children, at least if British tykes are like all the youngsters I know in America, tend to like stuff that, well, looks like stuff. I’ll be surprised if one-eyed cell phone pillows on legs tickle most pre-adolescent fancies.  The most beloved stories of children’s literature are not usually about drops of steel. Kids cartoon favorites are not often foam blobs brushed over with symbolism. The best kids toys usually resemble animals or robots or superheroes and do neater things than “inspire.”

These mascots fail because they try too hard. They are too complex, too full of themselves and too full of things that focus groups like in the abstract but no one relates to in particular. The organizer of the London Games believes the two mascots “will connect young people with sport and tell the story of our proud Olympic and Paralympic history. 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.” With all due respect, this sounds like a man who knows what thinky researchers want kids to be like, but doesn’t understand what kids really like.

I know there are UK readers of this blog. So maybe you’ll correct me and declare your love for Wenlock and Mandeville. But from the comments I see in the London online papers (here and here for example), it doesn’t appear that creatures resembling a “malevolent tooth fairy wearing crotchless pants” (to quote one blog comment) are speaking the love language of most Brits. “I checked the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April 1st, but I’m sorry, I just can’t believe this isn’t one MASSIVE, EXPENSIVE, JOKE!!!” writes one commenter. “Don’t pour all the blame on the ‘designers’ of this unadulterated (s)crap,” says another. “Blame also the idiots who figured a couple of computer-generated nothings are somehow inspiring and forward thinking. Flabbergastingly appalling.” Yet another confused Englishman remarked, “If I were a kid, they’d freak me out. As an adult, I’m mystified as to the creative process that produced these amorphous, weird creatures. What a missed opportunity.” Other have complained that the blue mascot appears to have soiled himself or that the two of them look like eight foot turds or, most plausibly, Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons. I’m thinking they should have gone with a talking teapot.

The point in all this is not to make fun of Olympic designers, let alone the British. Remember, America came up with Izzy (although, Sam the Olympic Eagle in 1984 actually made sense). The point is that when you try to foist an amalgam of people’s likes on the the people themselves, they probably won’t like it. If you remove anything from your own history that could possibly be offensive to anyone, you’ll end up with something that appeals to no one.

The other lesson here is that children like good guys and bad guys, magic wizards, dragons and princesses, talking animals and funny aliens; they almost certainly will not like the Esperanto version of the Power Rangers. They like superheroes, not bland creatures infused with innocuous symbolism that super smart people come up with. They like stories full of wild adventure, not stories about steel girders. They like sports, not the “values of sport.” The make-believe world they find fascinating is often better than the one we tell them they should look up to. From time to time, we’d all be a lot wiser to let the little children lead us.

And focus groups don’t count.