The Olympic mascot is becoming more and more strange and strange.

Choosing an animal as the official representative image of each Olympic Games - the first time in history was done 44 years ago (and of course, other sports events with a longer mascot history).

People rarely describe "mascots" this way, because most of the time they are not animals, nor belong to any kind of existing creatures, they come from the world of human delusion.

List of previous Olympic mascots (unofficial in 1968)

The image of the Olympic mascot ran wildly on the road of alienation. On the one hand, it was related to the maturity of CGI technology (Computer Generated Imagery). Since the 1990s, this computer imaging technology has replaced the old-fashioned mechanical technology such as electronic animation. People can turn fantasy into a picture of ambiguity as they please.

Another more important reason is that people expect to give the mascot a much more complex content than in the past. Taking the Summer Olympics as an example, from 1972 to 2016, the participating countries and regions expanded from at least 80 to 206.

“You need a symbol that can be used in North and South Korea and Albania, from Cuba to China. This can of course not be represented by a text symbol, because language will inevitably lead to ambiguity.” From Phillips Nizer, New York The intellectual property lawyer Alan Bellow said that the Olympic mascot should not only reflect the Olympic spirit such as fair competition, but also highlight the cultural attributes of the host country and the host city. In addition, we must pay attention not to offend any ethnic group. "The mascot is in the The lowest common denominator in many needs."

It is conceivable that there is no such living body in nature. For example, the blue creature with the leaves of the Brazilian flag on the top of the head, and the yellow creatures that combine the "spirituality of cats, the agility of monkeys, and the elegance of birds", represent the plants and animals of Brazil.

Rio Olympic mascot Vinicius and Paralympic mascot Tom

Although most of the audience only care about this mascot, "Meng Meng", "I don't want to look good" (although many times this is not enough), but any host will not miss the opportunity to create cultural symbols. . There is no doubt that the trend of mascot virtualization will continue.

In the history of the Olympic Games (including the Youth Olympic Games, which was founded in 2007), we have selected several Olympic propaganda ambassadors worthy of mention. They all have a place in the history of human Olympics, or It is a superb design in the design, opened a new chapter; or it is really amazing, it is really unforgettable.

Schuss – Grenoble in 1968

Strictly speaking, the first official mascot in the history of the Olympics appeared at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The cartoon image called Schuss is not officially authorized by the Grenoble Winter Olympics in France. It looks like a collection of skiers and crickets. It is the earliest prototype of the modern Olympic mascot.

Waldi – Munich, 1972

The first official mascot in the history of the Olympic Games, the darling of Bavaria, Germany, the German dachshund Valdi, is known for its tenacity, resilience and flexibility.

Valdi was born on December 15, 1969. The Munich Olympic Organizing Committee sent crayons, plasticine and parchment to each participant at a Christmas party. The first mascot was created on the nib. .

You can notice that its head and tail are light blue, the color of the striped color matches the color of the Olympic rings.

At the time of the 1972 Olympic Games, the marathon route was designed into the shape of the mascot Valdi. The players followed the dog's head all the way to the west and then ran counterclockwise along the neck.

Cobi – Barcelona, ​​1992

Cobi is the first time the Olympics has used abstract cartoons, and the name is easy to read in any language. According to the official introduction of the Olympic Organizing Committee, it is anthropomorphic Pyrenean dog with rich "Cubism". It looks like a smile from one direction, and looks like it is sniffing something from the nose. It looks like a goat and a dog.

At first, the image of the puppy designed by the local Spanish cartoonist Zavier Marisk was not universally accepted, but with the end of the Olympics, Cobi slowly became popular, and Spanish TV even made a series for it.

Cobi was once the biggest sales mascot in Olympic history and is considered one of the most successful mascots.

Izzy – Atlanta 1996

As if inspired by Barcelona's Cobi in 1992, the Olympic mascot began to go further and further in the endless brain.

Izzy, the mascot of the Atlanta Olympics, was the first mascot made with a computer. As you can see, it is neither an animal nor a human image. It is a creature that has been fancied.

Izzy's original name is not called Izzy, because it looks so strange, no one can see what it is, so his final name is "Whatizit" (What's it?), is it quite interesting? of?

After consulting 3,300 children from 7 countries in 16 countries, the last one was selected among the five names Kirby, Starz, Zack, Gleamer and Izzy.

After the end of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, it received several image changes, adding muscle to the original slender legs and growing nose on the face. Although Izzy's big mouth was squandered by the Washington Post as "the road to hell", it still became one of the most representative Olympic mascots with the origin of information technology products.

Fuwa – Beijing 2008

lucky doll! Yes, when we look back at the history of human Olympics, the 2008 Beijing Olympics must be a year that cannot be ignored, as is the history of mascots.

The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee has the largest number of mascot groups in history, but all Chinese audiences are very familiar with “Babe”, “Jingjing”, “Huaihuan”, “Welcome” and “Nini”, including Its connection with the ocean, forests, fire, the earth and the sky, the relationship between Chinese traditional culture and rare animals, their special sports specialties and the connection with the Olympic rings.

(Look, even if the time has passed for so many years, it’s completely breathless when you say it all in one breath)

On the reading comprehension of “granting connotation”, the Chinese may be the best (and not one). The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad selected the final representative plan from more than 3,000 submitted works. Even the details of the head of Jingjing are derived from the lotus petals on the Song Dynasty. It can be said that it is painstaking. On the official introduction page of the International Olympic Committee, the introduction of the Beijing Olympics mascot is also the longest and most detailed.

Even from the point of mascot, it reveals the level of attention that the Olympic Games has been raised by the host country, and the eagerness to express and spread it to the world (a mascot is not enough to promote China). Wei!)

NBC, NBC, named Fova as the fourth best mascot in history, TOP5, "it doesn't look more friendly and harmless." But there are also media evaluations of Fuwa (especially the adult version) that are creepy. Fuwa's rich connotation is summed up in one sentence as "Feng Shui and Olympic Elements". In the same year, the ravages of natural disasters were also ridiculed as "good-luck dolls".

Wenlock – London 2012

I don’t understand very well. The London Olympics mascot Wenlock and the Paralympic mascot Mandeville took a year and a half to complete. These two mascots are “created specifically for children, aiming at children and sports. "Linked together," Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Olympics Organizing Committee, said that Wenlock and Mandeville will help children grow up healthily.

These two friends will only scare the child to cry.

This incomprehensible aesthetic looks like a “genetic monster” that runs out of the genetics lab – and it does. The London Olympic Organizing Committee has given it too much historical connotation and elements. For example, their big eyes are actually a camera (representing the camera lens used to capture the world), and the yellow light on the head represents London's iconic yellow taxi. And their "real body" is the "steel" that represents the glory history of the empire.

The children's writer Michael Morpgo wrote a short story for their origins: the workers at the factory made steel for the Olympic venues. At the moment when the molten steel came out, two small beaches of steel fell on the ground, and a retired worker cooled the two. The steel block smashed home and was carved into two elves with one big eye. The London Olympics mascot was born.

According to London-based Iris and costing, which is responsible for mascot design, the design cost of Wenlock and Mandeville is only a few thousand pounds. The Olympic Organizing Committee began selling more than 30 mascot toys related to the 2nd anniversary of the London Olympics countdown. It is estimated that the sales of related products will reach 15 million pounds.

Perhaps only the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games mascot "砳砳" can fight with one... Maybe many viewers still don't know, the real body of Yan is Nanjing's "rain flower stone." Of course, we generally prefer to call it the "flower name." How do you read "砳砳"?

The history of the Youth Olympic Games is not long, and “l” (lèlè) is one of the best.