9/28/2004: 2006 olympic mascots
 

http://cellar.org/2004/2006mascots1.jpg

Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2006 Turin winter olympic mascots.

But wait, they have a costume version.

http://cellar.org/2004/2006mascots2.jpg

Soon to be frightening children everywhere!

What the hell are those supposed to be? And why does the blue one have a block head?

Oh ye gods...I don't know if those are better or worse than Greece's 2004 mascots.

According to the official website, Neve's a snowball and Gliz is an ice cube (as if these objects had some natural tendency of sex orientations).

Gliz sort of reminds me more of Marshie, the fluffy puff marshmallow from the online cartoon Homestar Runner.

Obviously celebrating the ancient Italian anthropomorphic marshmallow cult.

Why didn't they dress mascots up like the Shroud? Now *that* would have high public recognition!

Just guessing, but their names..."Snow" and "Ice"? That *would* explain the square (ice cube) head on the one on the right, and in blue. Anyone? Bueller?

The only mascot they need
 

There's only one. A giant green stuffed dollar bill. Or whatever currency they use in Turin. No wait, it's mostly American TV that makes the money. Might as well be a dollar bill.

I wonder who comes up with these things. They don't appear to be very "atheletic" to me. Tell me......... do they only have one tooth, or did they outgrow their dentures? I've heard your vision is very limited when wearing one of these huge costumes. Disaster: One of these guys backing into a swimming pool.............. :eek:

Place your bets for when they will be competing here. :)

The last decent mascots were for Salt Lake City. With this new ice cube thing, I suppose I no longer feel too ashamed at Atlanta's. No, wait, I still weep over that blue... thing. Ugh.

I think they're kind of cute. terrifyingly cute, but cute nonetheless. I like them better than the blobs Athens came up with, and they certainly couldn't get any worse than Izzy, the demonspawn mascot of Atlanta's games.

Mildly interesting article found while googling for pics of mascots from Olympiads past. I was looking for a reasonably complete webpage with decent sized pics of each mascot.

This was the best I found, though it's a bit out of date.

I think the Athens mascots were better than these. Those actually had historical backround. Yes, those things had a meaning. --

"Phevos and Athena, the brother and sister mascots of the 2004 Olympics, might be considered a step above the usual stuffed toy Olympic merchandisers come up with every two years, if only because this particular mascot has hundreds of years of history behind it. The male and female dolls, whose gender is only distinguished by either blue or orange dress, are based on a bell-shaped doll from the seventh century BC. And, they are named for two Olympian Gods: Phevos, god of light and music and Athena, godess of wisdom and patron of Athens."
you can find that here-
http://openhere.com/current/496787895.stm


What does an ice cube and a snowflake have to do with culture??

Old and ugly is still ugly.

After looking at this timeline it appears that the whole Olympic mascot thing started going to hell in the early '90s. All the ones before that were cute animals that people liked--even I had a Misha bear, even though the Olympics were held by the dirty Communists in the Soviet Union that year. For some reason they decided to get "creative" with these ugly ass things that defy description. Every kid at the Olympics would want a cute Teddy bear or bunny, I'll betcha they didn't sell very many stuffed Izzys.

What does culture have to do with the Olympic games?
Neither the modern games, a media circus and the ancient games, a real circus. Entertainment, not culture. :)

They look absolutely stupid, at least Australia came up with some great mascots. Although I can't remember their names right now, I think they were our kookaburra, kangaroo, echidna, and platypus. But don't quote me on that, just going by memory. Oops and I think our koala was in there also. One was names Syd. :cool:

Sydney

Yeah, they are kind of cute. I confess I didn't like them much at first, but they are among the cream of the crop, looking back at other "recent" Olympic mascots. And I know I'm in the minority saying this, but I'll say it again. I think Neve and Gliz are cute, even if there's no discernable reason *why* they were chosen as mascots.

I like Neve and Gliz too, but that's probably only because the bar has been lowered so much in recent years.

Apparently they won in a contest of over 200 other entrants! :confused:

http://fox.org/~vince/out/saltlake.gif

Austrailia's are good, but Salt Lake's Powder, Copper, and Coal are still my favorites. A nice play off the mining industry. When I picked up a Copper keychain during the games, it came with an explanatory tag. On the tag was the mascot logo -- a box divided into four segments each a different color: red, blue, yellow, white. Weeks later I happened to turn the logo on its corner and realized it was a reactivity/hazmat chart! I have to applaud the person who thought that up.

They narrowly beat out Feci and Urina...

We need some graham crackers and chocolate bars - these mascots would make perfect s'mores!

That blue one looks like Gumby's retarded nephew.

For the most part they are cuddly toy animals but some border on the absurd! Get a oad of the first one from Grenoble in 1968 know as "Schuss". Can't imagine any kid cuddling up to that one!

I don't care what any of you say, I think Neve is sexy as hell. I wouldn't kick um, her, out of bed for eating s'mores.

uhh, did I just type that and hit "Post Quick Reply"?

What's the old adage- "cold hands, warm heart"? Getting "her" undressed could be a problem. Tell me- in the heat of passion would she melt in your arms? heehee.....

:D :D :D :thumbsup: