Ehr, Don’t The New Olympic Mascots Look Like…

Ehr, Don’t The New Olympic Mascots Look Like…

Ok, somebody had to say it and I guess I’m going to be the guy. Everyone’s asking about the Jar Jar Blinks level creative disaster that the Olympic mascots have turned out to be:

Olympic mascots

Remember back a few months when the British press branded our Olympics the Worst Games Ever, before the first weekend had even passed?

Well, in what could only be a bid to wrestle that title away from us — in case our record-setting 14 gold medals and vibrant downtown core didn’t already make their words seem ridiculous — organizers of the 2012 Games in London on Wednesday introduced their Olympic mascots to the world.

Meet Wenlock and Mandeville, one-eyed creatures immediately dubbed “patronizing rubbish” by design experts in Britain.

Moulded from steel left over from the last girder on the Olympic stadium, London’s 2012 mascots are neither cuddly nor cute but organizers say the gleaming one-eyed metallic forms will strike a chord with children.

“What is it about these Games which seems to drive the organizers into the embrace of this kind of patronizing, cretinous infantilism?” asked British design critic Stephen Bayley.

“Why can’t we have something that makes us sing with pride, instead of these appalling computerized 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.”

Wenlock and Mandeville were introduced after 18 months of planning to come up with a merchandising gimmick that will keep the cash tills ringing; Games organizers are aiming for $23.8 million in revenue from Olympics memorabilia.

Gee, what could these things be? They’re phallic shaped. They both have one eye each. Right on the head. I believe the phrase is “One eyed wonder weasel”. Granted, the “two balls” are left off of the end, but still. How in the world they spent 18 months planning and came up with two penis shaped mascots they intend to promote non-stop to children is another question entirely. Perhaps it’s best left unasked.

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