It didn’t take long on May 19 for someone in cyberspace (do they still call it that?) to compare the phallic, one-eyed London 2012 mascots Wenlock and Mandeville to penises (can we say that on radio?).
What would you rather have? A union jack-draped bulldog named Winston with bad human teeth, wearing a bowler hat and monocle while hoisting a mug of room-temperature beer with his paw?
The mascots will be $30 million souvenir sales drivers for the next Summer Olympics and Paralympics, which already have a cubist logo that someone likened to Lisa Simpson getting ahead, if you know what I mean.
Can’t wait to see what kind of torch they’ll come up with in the new, Cool Britannia. Certainly it can’t top Vancouver’s joint-shaped torch.
The design of the Olympics, as we learned in Vancouver, is something that can never please all the people, all the time.
The least-controversial and perhaps most-popular element VANOC delivered was the look of the Games itself. Directed by the late Leo Obstbaum, the multi-layered, wavy green and blue, mountains and sea textured collage is almost all gone. You can still see some of it on the northeast side of the Pacific Coliseum.
Of course, VANOC had a rocky start in 2005 with its Ilanaaq the Inukshuk logo inspired by the English Bay inukshuk left over from Expo 86. Original artist Alvin Kanak never got recognition. Many people pointed out that there is no Inuit tribe in British Columbia, so why use a symbol of the north? The answer was easy. The federal government wanted to tell the world Canada was flexing its muscles in the Arctic. Don't trespass on our frozen tundra, eh!
The man becomes mountain-themed Paralympic logo was perhaps more suitable, but it was for the lower-profile Paralympics.
Mascots Miga, Quatchi and Sumi were one-part First Nations mythology and one-part cute Japanimation. Orange-toqued sidekick Muk Muk -- based on a real Vancouver Island marmot -- was never given the life-sized treatment.
Cuddly miniature versions are available at bulk liquidation sales for a fraction of the price paid by tourists at Games-time. (Hey, I thought sales records were set?)
So, welcome to the world, Wenlock and Mandeville. Because you’re British, someone probably told you already to keep a stiff upper lip. I’ll just tell you this from personal experience: A reader called me a dick once and I laughed at him.
While you’re ridiculed at home, you’ll be replicated by the millions in Chinese toy factories for the next two years. Just hope your bosses at London 2012 do what Vancouver 2010 executives failed to do: show and tell people where those factories are and how the workers are treated.
Make transparency a legacy of London 2012.
Vancouver 2010 didn’t have the heart and mind to be so bold.
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