Remembering an Olympic Trailblazer -- OpEd

(ATR) One aspect of the Atlanta Olympics has been reviled since the closing ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics until today: the mascot. However, Izzy (nee Whatizit) is one of the best mascots in Olympic history.

Looking at the blue blob with lightning bolts for eyebrows, it’s easy to mock Izzy (seriously, what is it?), but he was a turning point for Olympic mascots.

Since Waldi made the Olympic mascot debut at the 1972 Olympics, most mascots have been at best, insipid designs. Don’t believe me? What were Sochi’s mascots? Can you remember what Turin or Beijing’s mascots even looked like?

Few mascots were good. Waldi, Cobi from Barcelona and Nagano’s Snowlets are pretty much the only pre-2000 standouts. Hidy and Howdy from Calgary were downright awful and Sam the Eagle couldn’t have embodied corporate America’s desire for trite inoffensiveness anymore than he did.

But Izzy allowed mascots to break free from a trap. Previous Olympic committees played things safe, hewing to simple designs, with easily-recognizable creatures. Izzy brought mascots into the 20th century as a computer-generated abstract something-or-other. With this new design, organizing committees were now able to go beyond tigers, bears and wolves for their mascot designs.

Now there are wild conceptualizations for mascots: an animal to represent all of Brazil’s mammals or leftover steel from London’s Olympic Stadium to give two examples. Those couldn’t have happened had ACOG played it safe and gone with a Georgia Peach, for example.

If you stop and think about what a mascot is supposed to be, Izzy excelled in that role too. As a symbol of the Games, Izzy is instantly recognizable with Atlanta 1996. Have any other mascots served as such excellent brand ambassadors?

Now, Izzy is not perfect. Being completely candid, the original design and name of Whatizit were stupid. A dull grin and a trail of stars created a figure a bit too abstract. Redesigned into Izzy, he became an anthropomorphic symbol who lent himself to any Olympic sport.

The biggest criticism for Izzy is that he did not fit with any of Atlanta’s other iconography. At all. Designers will tell you that’s a cardinal sin and it is largely unforgivable.

Representing 100 years of the modern Olympics and taking place in the genteel Deep South, ACOG chose a classic, refined design for the rest of their Games. The logo was timeless and built on Olympic tradition. Every aspect of the Atlanta torch was painfully literal in its synthesizing of Southern and Olympic history. But Izzy was out there. Few OCOGs could make such a design work and not one that wanted to memorialize an Olympic milestone.

But all those issues can be forgotten when we think about what mascots can be now and how they are by and large much better than their initial predecessors, and that Izzy served as an evocative ambassador for the Games.

Izzy was able to do what few mascots were able to do before or since: at once be memorable and trailblazing.

Written by Ed Hula III

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