The London 2012 Olympic Mascots

The new London Olympic Mascots have been shown and I have a few thoughts on them.
On the right the 2012 London Olympic Mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville.


First this is what you get when you develop something by committee, second I know what they were going for something that wouldn’t offend anyone and in the process they managed to offend everyone apparently. Of course Wenlock and Mandeville aren’t the first mascot(s) that seemed to be designed with the intend of not offending anyone, Izzy or Whatizit (see image below) was the first made for the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. I understand that some don't want to offend people from other nations but that attitude is self-destructive.

Now I do want to give Izzy some defense as I am from Georgia and live here, and from and American Cultural perspective. Now up near Atlanta is a theme park, Six Flags Over Georgia, where as with other Six Flags parks they host characters from the Warner Bros. animation
library, notably the Looney Tunes characters, if one was to compare Izzy with that aspect of Americana he would fit in perfectly and could be argued that Izzy represents part of the Americana of our Country, as everyone knows most of the Looney Tunes characters. After all if
Bugs Bunny can be a Marine in a cartoon why couldn’t a cartoon character be a national mascot in terms of representing Americana even if it was not intended to.

The original story on London's Olympic Mascots.


 Solomon.

P.S. For laughs a columnist in the UK theorized that Wenlock and Mandeville are the product "drunken one-night stand between a Teletubby and a Dalek."